This has everything to do with you!

I woke up with inspiration and time to write.  Training time has taken a toll on my writing but I though this is an important subject to share.  Call it inspiration, call it a light bulb. Whatever it is it went off in my hard when I read the subject line of this email I received from my BeachBody coach: “This has everything to do with you!”.  It was a forward from her coach, about where BeachBody is amongst the many work from home businesses types like Avon.  Not the point.  I read that email and though, that is such a great message!  So this post today will not be about the last marathon I ran or the equipment I used last.  The blog is all about me, but today, the topic is really about you!

I have been working out for so long it seem I have forgotten the process to affect change.  Before even making the changes one must stop the excuses and accept the problem.  For me, that was easy, I stepped on a scale, I was already not happy with my body frame, I had felt for a long time that I let myself slip away as had gotten fatter and fatter by the day.  Food was a comfort, I was fueling my feelings with food rather than my body.  Number 205 on the scale was the trigger.  I recognized that it would only get worse from there and decided I would be easier to try do something now rather than later.

Fast forward to early 2012, Seven years after I made that faithful decision to loose weight, I was, in a way, back into a similar situation.  I was complacent about my nutrition, my performance.  Done my research and I squarely placed myself in a performance box that said: “that’s how fast I can run, this is how long I can run; I suck at pull-ups; nutrition? why I can eat whatever I want because I run”.

Yet, at the highest of my complacency, SGF started her own journey to get healthier.  She question the food we eat, the medications she takes.  In a way she has it much harder than I have ever had.  I was fat, but always been healthy.  I was fat because I let myself get fatter as the years went by not because of a medical condition.  I never questioned why I got fat, I just was and reluctantly accepted it because it’s easier to accept being fat and lazy and make excuse for it.

Not until recently did I realize that I witnessed SGF poking through her cocoon starting a metamorphosis of sorts.  Where she is now and where she was just a few months ago is a huge achievement.  I think, yeah I ran a few marathons ... but running marathon is a continuum for me, not a break from the norm.  Instead, I see a beautiful woman inside the cocoon that has thrown away the status quo, that stood up, that said I can do, and be better.

I started my own metamorphosis of sort 70 days ago when I pick the P90X challenge.  I had to decide if I was going to just “go through” the program, or “do” the program.  I choose the later.  I choose to push hard, follow the program’s format with the  Yoga and the stretching ... most importantly I opened my mind to the possibilities, believed I could run faster, longer, do more pull-ups.  Witnessing SGF transformation, how could I continue to keep myself into a box like I had?  I lived in another set of excuses really, because it’s easier to say can’t eat better, I can’t run faster, I can’t run longer or I will get injured so I shouldn’t.  I walked the “Go Me 10k” with Wendie and witnessed first hand that indeed no one is boxed in, including me !

Today we both are looking brightly at our next endeavors.  For SGF she sheds her cocoon a piece at a time while I break out my box a limitation at a time.  The changes we are going through have everything to do with us.  And that’s the message I want to give to you reader.  It’s a great message.  Wherever you feel stuck in your life, where you think that you can’t change the situation or condition you are at or in, YOU can.  It’s begins with you deciding not to accept status quo.  Status quo goes away once you stop making excuses or justifications.  You have the time to eat healthier, you can find the money to eat healthier, you have the will to work out harder, you have the will to start being a better you.  The mere fact you are reading this and wondering ... shows that you do!  And not only do you have the will to start ... You have the will to see it through!