Friday 25 November 2011

What Does It Take?

What it takes to live a healthy lifestyle:

1. Making the right food choices and sometimes saying "no" to something you want.

2. Giving up an hour or so of your day to commit to exercise.


What it takes to continue living an unhealthy lifestyle:

1. Living with health related illesses (if not now, then later), such as diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, asthma and more.

2. Feeling fatigued and having no energy most of the time.

3. Living with physical pain and breathlessness. Being overweight can cause conditions such as plantar fasciitis (chronically inflamed heels), lack of being able to breathe properly when doing simple things like climbing the stairs in your home, sleep apnea (stopping breathing for moments at a time during your sleep which can be potentially very dangerous), and worse.

4. Living with being teased about your weight, your looks or your lack of physical fitness.

5. Low self-esteem. Being overweight can often correspond with a low self-esteem.

6. Living with not being able to fit into your favorite style of clothes or not being able to shop in the regular-sized clothing stores.

7. Having embarrassing moments such as having to ask for seat belt extenders when on a plane or not fitting onto a roller coaster ride or being uncomfortable sitting in a chair that has arms because the arms squeeze into you.

8. Feeling self-conscious when eating in public. Although it is doubtful anyone is sitting in judgment, it is not always the way things play out in our minds.

The list could be longer, but I will stop here. I know which of the lists I prefer. Do you?

Tuesday 8 November 2011

Number One Tip For Making Your Dreams Come True

Persistence


I once was very overweight. The medical term was "morbidly obese." The term "morbidly" implied that I was putting my life at risk by being as overweight as I was at the time. I had health problems and lived with pain every single day.

I dreamed that I would someday be slim and healthy again. But dreaming about it wasn't enough. Dreaming about it kept my dream off in the distance somewhere as something that would happen someday.

Now my weight puts me in a healthy BMI. I don't have any pain other than the occasional temporary muscle aches from a new form of exercise. And I am wearing clothes that my teenagers fit into. I have been described as "tiny" and "diddy." I have energy and I have my health back. I lost over half my body weight.

So how did I do it? What is the number one tip I can give you for making your dream, whatever that dream might be, come true?

I was persistent. Persistence is the one thing you need to achieve any goal you have set for yourself. How did I do it? I didn't give up. I kept at it. I didn't let anything stand in my way. I made my goal a priority in my life and I worked hard at it.

Some days it was easier than others. On other days, it was a struggle and a battle the entire day. But I never gave up. I was focused and persistent and I never lost sight of what I wanted and of what I needed to do to get it.

Now I am on a different journey. I have a new goal. I want my children's stories and my novels to be published. For my novels, that means I have to finish them, edit them, and edit them some more. That's why I am participating in National Novel Writing Month again this year. I'm writing 50,000 words or more in 30 days.

And that's why I might not post as often during the month of November. I won't be gone though, and I will try and still update from time to time, or I will share interesting news I find on Skinny Dreaming's Facebook page.

I am giving this goal the same persistence that I gave to losing weight and getting healthy. It's only day 8 of the challenge and I have already written 28,546 words. (This novel might be a bit longer than a mere 50,000 words by the time it is finished.)

If you have a goal, a dream you want to achieve, stop dreaming about it and start reaching for it!