I’ve been thinking more you know, about what we talked about yesterday – my love of the armchair and lack of inclination to exercise…it’s really not on is it? You all shared some interesting perspectives and I thank you for that…it helps. I get it. I can’t have a hissy fit at the bitch in the bathroom if I’m not keeping up my end of the bargain, and if me and my love of food are going to find a way to rub along inside a skinny body, limiting food intake is never going to be enough all on its own. So I guess I just need to take the bull by the horns. I don’t want to, but wanting to want to is chewing away at me like an irritating wasp flying around my head.

I’ve been in negotiations with the asshole in my mind for the last couple of days. I’m here to tell you whilst he’s starting to give me less grief about what I’m eating, he’s gone in hard on this one – why don’t you get 50lbs off first before you think about getting more active, if you try now everything will hurt ten times more, you work really long hours and you don’t deserve to ache from head to toe because you’re pushing yourself too hard when you’re going to be losing weight anyway if you’re eating the right things…

If you’re of a sensitive disposition, you might want to cover your ears for a moment.

Sod off Asshole, with your bad karma…I’m NOT LISTENING   

It strikes me that motivation is step one of changing a habit, even if it’s not a habit you really want to change. Knowing it’s something you need to change combined with really, really wanting the outcome that forming a different habit will bring is as good a starting point as any other, would you agree? There’s a bloody mountain of information out there about how long it takes to form a new habit and a number of differing views. I posted a link to one of the better ones on my interesting stuff page. But what all those clever people with letters after their name seem to agree on is this; if what you’re trying to adopt as a habit is easy, it will become habitual much more quickly than if what you’re trying to do is hard.

So. This is where I got to with my negotiations. There’s nothing to stop me continuing my love affair with the armchair, providing that’s not all I do every day after work, right? Now before you get giddy I’m not proposing that I go for like a 5k run every evening, or get up close and personal with some kettle bells – I want curing not killing – but I could do something manageable, and build up my stamina slowly. So here’s what’s going to happen after I get back from my trip…every day when I get in from work, I’m going to clip Charlie’s lead on and go walk him for half an hour. It’s an extra walk in the day for him, (he spends 3 hours romping through the fields every day with all his four-legged friends in doggy day-care whilst I’m at work) and it’s half an hour’s walk per day that I don’t normally have. So it counts…every little counts.

So I’ve said it out loud now…shared it with you guys. I’m accountable. That’s going to be a new part of my daily routine…rain or shine (yeah way to go with the timing Dee, with winter just around the corner, doofus) and I’ll turn it into a habit if it kills me. Which to be fair it very well might 🙂 But I’m going to persevere. I’ve walked far more on this trip than I have in a while…ankles are stiff, knee is sore but you know what, I’m on it.

I’ll keep you posted as to how many times it takes before it feels like a habit instead of a chore…together we can see just how much these experts really know!

Like it..? Tell your friends!