Ever since I quit the gym, I haven’t weighed myself since the Biggest Loser challenge that ended last spring. Although weight isn’t everything, it’s at least an indicator. I’m now back at my original weight minus 5, as opposed to 10+ after Biggest Loser.

 What Does Weighing More Tell Me?

Almost nothing. After all, it’s one data point in almost a year’s worth. What I do feel is healthier. Healthier in the sense that I have more energy and feel less hungry. At the same time, I’m reminded that I’ve lost muscle mass. 100 pushups a day can only go so far. I used to do maybe at least 40 in BodyCombat at the gym and there were 50+ burpees to boot with HIIT — along with other exercises all in an hour. I also miss BodyPump, so hopefully I’ll find a place as a substitute to strengthen my current training for the Boston Marathon.

Maybe I’m starting to feel what runners feel.

My focus has been on running these past several weeks. I’ve been using the same muscles, and I’ve probably plateaued a bit. Guess it’s time to fit in some cross-training— to be continued!

It doesn’t happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time.
— Margery Williams

Lately I’ve been feeling blah. Life is meh. Translation: I’m settling for mediocre.

How many of us are guilty of setting life to autopilot? 

Recognize Your Current State

I know I’m of defaulting to running on autopilot. So when I came across a book by Chris Barez-Brown called Wake Up! A Handbook to LIving in the Here and Now, I grabbed it. This might also help explain why I enjoy listening to Evanescence’s Wake Me Up Inside.

Be Proactive

If I hadn’t come across the book at the library, I wouldn’t be here writing now. While that was reactive on my part, at least I recognized that my subconscious was in control and decided to do something about it. When you’re on autopilot, you just go with the flow. You’ll do whatever takes the least amount of effort thinking-wise, and doing nothing sounds wonderful — NOT. Or if you do decide to do nothing, at least be intentional about it like for avoiding burnout, etc.

Take a Deep Breath

When we’re stressed or alarmed, we start taking shallow breaths. That is, we’re breathing with one-third of our lungs, and that’s not optimal. Instead, we should look to do what babies do, breathe so that our bellies rise and fall. It’ll leave us having more engery and feeling less stressed.

Why is this important? Well, change is difficult. While facing a difficult task whose parameters have yet to be defined, we need to step back and relax in order to think clearly about how we’re going to tackle it.

I’ll write more about what I’ve leraned in subsequent posts — how about Bookish Wednesdays?

Our purpose is hidden in our joy, our inspiration, our excitement. As we act on what shows up in our life our purpose shows up.
— James King

Imagine a world where there are no buts. No excuses. For some people, this isn’t a vision — rather, it’s a way of life.

Can I adopt that as my motto?  Surely I can. Or I should say, I will.

This line of thought is inspired by Ragnar’s hosted No Buts Night Run. It wasn’t hard to complete, plus I’m running more to train for the marathon. What’s lovely is that by completing my pledge REI will donate $1 to the American Hiking Society. Hurrah!

Where else do we make excuses in our lives, whether consciously or unconsciously?

Normal is not something to aspire to, it is something to get away from.
—Jodie Foster

I’ve been absent for the past weeks because I fell off the habit wagon. The organizing, the running, the learning — all of that was off and on these past few weeks, and I didn’t know what to make of it.

And I froze—

When Lacking Direction, Begin With One Small Step

I’m not perfect. Nobody is either. What matters is that we rebound, that we hold onto our reason to persist.

What I’ve learned is that lacking direction because of a minor slip up and lacking direction because there are so many options to choose from are one in the same. Either way, I’m lacking direction. So with this blog post, this one small step, I’m heading somewhere — slowly but surely.

Perfect happiness is the absence of striving for happiness.
— Chuang-Tse

Happy Martin Luther King Jr Day! Or, in the words of the national service movement, MLK Day is “a day on, not a day off.”

What does “a day on” mean anyway?

Generally, for those of us who have the day off from work, MLK Day is touted as a day to volunteer and be engaged. While metrics is what drives the service movement (or any movement for that matter) to up the numbers, metrics don’t take account into true value. If an organization hosts volunteers to paint their walls and the walls need to be repainted, that’s a loss of both time and money. But if an organization organizes volunteers to pick up trash and repaint the fences to beautify a park, there’s now a park that more people can enjoy.

A lot of organizations and individuals are doing the right thing. But there are also those who aren’t. Participating in this day when you haven’t figured out what you or your community needs is catering to your self image. When you fill a need, that speaks to your own self awareness.

But it feels good…

Only in your head.

It’s like resolving to not eat sweets in order to maintain healthy teeth, and not brushing your teeth. It’s an impressive commitment to stick to and tell yourself and others, but you’re not doing the actual work of achieving your real goal.

Or like posting a selfie of yourself working out, but you were only exercising for 5 minutes.

So what do I do about it?

Let’s get this straight — self image is not all bad. If there’s no self awareness behind what you do for self image, however,  it’s not going to last and you’re not going to get any better.

Be like a kid and keep on asking yourself why. When you can answer that, you’ll be stepping up.

Don’t ever let anyone build your world for you. They always build it too small.
—Holly Dean