In life, generally, there is an implicit expectation that we each “pull our own weight”, or “handle our share of the load” – basically, to do our part in our family life, our community, and even our world to create, maintain, and nurture the world we want to live in, and that we want to provide for our loved ones and descendants. That seems almost effortless compared to the more practical, less metaphorical, pulling of my own literal weight around each and every day.

I weigh more than I’d like, more than I find beautiful based on my own aesthetic, and more than is ideally healthy for me, personally, based on my own experience of movement, fitness, and comfort each day. This morning I am sipping my coffee and rather rudely chastising myself for finding losing a few pounds (and keeping it off) more difficult than building world peace, or overcoming poverty, privation, and disease. Ludicrous. So… while we all work on those other much larger issues, I’ll also work on making my issues with my weight much smaller – and thereby making myself somewhat smaller, and probably quite a bit healthier, and even reducing the burden on global resources in some minuscule way simply by consuming less, and more wisely. Some of my chronic health concerns would be eased, possibly resolved, if I lost the excess weight I’m dragging around, too… which sounds like a great way to reduce my health care expenses, as a further “value add” to getting fit.

So. Another journey begins again. This is a hard one for me, for a number of reasons that are intertwined with the chaos and damage. It’s time to set down more of the baggage, shed unnecessary pounds, and walk on. I even know I can do this – because I’ve done it before; I haven’t always been overweight. This morning, I practice bringing more mindfulness to my yoga, and to my physical therapy routine. It’ll be an every day commitment to be successful, and I expect to begin again any number of times… there are verbs involved, and I know my results vary. I’m very human. Still, it’s a worthy endeavor, so I begin again. Again. I fall back on practical basics that I know work: gamification (SuperBetter is a great tool!), accountability (talking about it reduces ‘get away with something’ opportunities), and mindfulness – both with regard to consumption and with regard to tracking data. “What gets measured gets managed” still works for me. And… there are still verbs involved.

…In the three plus years I’ve been writing this blog, I could easily have reached my fitness goals several times (and got really close once). I’m frustrated by that, sure, but I understand that incremental change over time does really work – it’s those pesky verbs! The verbs are not avoidable, and must actually be lived, done, performed, acted upon, otherwise they remain only words in sentences, becoming, perhaps, thoughts and never becoming achievements. It happens. I know – I happened it. 🙂 (Or, rather, I didn’t.) It’s time to begin again – it’s nearly always quite an ideal time to begin again. It’s not necessary to save it for a Monday, or first thing in the morning, or perhaps on the first of the month, or for a New Year’s resolution, and in fact I’ve often been surprised to find that handling something that way (by selecting some opportune seeming beginning point in the future) resulted in failure more often than success. Failures are okay – steps on a journey – but they can be quite a buzz kill, and that’s more to deal with.

Each time for the first time, each moment the only moment. ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

It’s funny something so practical as losing some weight can be such a challenge… I think we probably all understand that doing so requires fewer calories, more carefully chosen to meet nutritional needs, consumed in the context of the most active lifestyle we can comfortably maintain for our overall fitness. So many verbs…but hey, no fancy diet is actually required, and it doesn’t cost anything more to eat far less, generally. Choices. Verbs. Incremental changes over time. It’s tempting to see this journey as being “about” the destination (losing the weight), but this too is more about the journey itself, is it not? 😉

Practical thoughts on a Thursday morning, likely the result of practical thinking generally as I begin to shift gears from living largely at leisure, painting and writing, toward something more commonplace, with a commute, regular hours, an income, expectations… and yet another beginning. It’s enough to be who I am, in this moment. It’s enough to be here, now, content and relaxed, and still aware that there is more to do on the journey of being the woman I most want to be. I’m okay with that; it’s about the journey, after all. 🙂 Today is a good day to begin again.