Tuesday, March 6, 2012

What's Your Treat?

Do you remember when you were a kid, and your Mom couldn't get you stop moving? She had to tell you to stop moving, so she could a)take a bath b)get you to eat, or c) sleep? 

And staying outside until dark, determined to get another fifteen minutes more of play, namely, moving around? 

When did that all change? When did moving around become a chore, something we have to fit into our schedule? 


This post in one of several I like to call "deep things about losing weight." I share this stuff from my own musings along the journey to better health, and hope it helps someone else out! 

I was talking with someone I know a few days ago and I told her that I want to learn to "treat myself" with exercise rather than food.
You see, I used to love movement and feel bad if I had not exercised for the day. Exercise, movement was the treat, the good part of my day. Did you ever feel that way? 

Somewhere along the way, with the busyness of work, career, heartbreak and family, I lost that feeling. Exercise just seemed like one more thing I had to add on to my day, another obligation. And food, too much food, especially, was my treat for many years. Hello! Can anyone relate to me? 

That feeling that overeating, or eating large amounts of junk, is my "treat" has lessened considerably. I see excess food as more of a burden now. It's not that my eating is always perfect but when I do mess up, I know it will cost me in a feeling of being uncomfortable, a feeling of shame, and lack of control. 


I know that it may cost me a higher number on the scale and make it less easy for me to move. I also feel bloated and a general feeling

of "yuck" when I overeat. 
My thinking has changed too in that I know, now, what it feels like to eat normally day after day. I know how it feels to start to lose weight and get lighter. And I love this feeling. I crave it. I know what it feels to be in control of my eating. I have processed this feeling deep within myself. 



Eating right and healthily is not just something I have "put on" because someone told me to, but rather it's becoming part of who I am. I am changing from the inside in.


And this is one of the reasons that I believe so strongly that I can do this. Because I am processing it, not just forcing myself to do it. I feel at peace with it. 


Treat: An object or item that is out of the ordinary and gives great pleasure. 

-- Dictionary  


What about you? Can you relate to any of this? What is your treat? How do you think we can make exercise our treat? Please share. We would love to hear your stories! 

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