Sunday, October 9, 2011

Decisions

I made a decision about exercise this week and posted it to the Ten in Ten group.  The decision is that I'm no longer going to stress about how I'm going to fit it in.  When I can, I will.

This decision raised concerns  - that were very kindly expressed - that I was practicing self-sabotage.  I've been thinking about that for a few days here's my response:


My decision to not make a commitment to exercise was the result of the stress I was feeling whenever I would set an exercise schedule and almost invariably, I got stuck at work or in traffic and didn't get home in time to get my workout in.  Right now, I don't have an answer to this road block so instead of continuing to keep adding that stress, I'm simply removing it.

Thru my experience with weight loss, and maintenance and then gaining, I've come to the conclusion that exercise should never be made critical to weight loss and maintenance.  Life throws crap at you at times (illness, injury, work, etc) that prevents consistent exercise.  This is not ideal, of course, but it happens.  And when exercise is critical to weight management and that crap happens, then losing or maintaining becomes almost impossible.  

Instead weight management really is about healthy choices about what to eat and how much to eat.  That, no matter what life throws at you can be more consistently practiced.

I'm not saying that exercise is not critical to overall good physical and mental health. It is.  And when I can, I will exercise.  I'll even, when I can, shift things so that I can get some extra movement in.  I'm just no longer going to stress about it.

Today's exercise:  over an hour of Kundalini yoga.  And OMG - I had not idea how breathing a certain way can raise the heart rate.  I'm half way tempted to wear my heart rate monitor the next time I do the practice just to see how the much my heart rate did get elevated.  There was definitely a "cardio" aspect to the practice, even though it was very gentle and slow.

I'm not giving up on me - just taking a slightly different approach than I have in the past because what I did in the past is no longer working

I truly appreciate the comments - they made me think about what I'm doing.  And that is always a good thing.

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