Working from where I am

I have tried many times to lose weight. But I am in a period where I am making a lot of changes in my life, and I'm doing a lot of things differently than I did before.

One of the things I am doing differently is proceeding more mindfully and deliberately. Rather than rushing headlong into wholesale changes, I'm starting new behaviors a few at a time and waiting for them to become the new "normal" before I make more changes. This is building new habits and I have the feeling that they will be permanent ones.

Part of being mindful and deliberate is making an honest assessment of my physical and psychological abilities. Working out at a gym is not on my list, because of my shyness. Rather than wait until I have lost the weight to go to the gym (a previous notion I had), I am walking outside in my neighborhood and doing exercise DVDs in my home. I don't have to wait to improve my cardiovascular health! Strength training comes from bodyweight workouts found on SparkPeople.

I am also choosing the exercise DVDs carefully, rather than wasting money on ones I will look at once and then never touch again. Leslie Sansone has a free try-before-you-buy 15-minute mile on her site, and I used that for a week before I purchased some of her videos, because I wanted to be sure that I would actually use that kind of exercise. After using it every day, I decided it would be worth it to buy 3 DVDs; the reason for buying more than one was so I would have variety to avoid boredom, another reason things get put to the side. I now have the options of 2 gentle 1 mile walks, 2 brisk 2 mile walks, and a fast-paced 3 mile walk. It's a form of cardio workout that I know I can and will do.

Yesterday I came to the realization that I am extremely inflexible. My range of motion is limited in a lot of ways from being so physically inactive. I can walk without trouble, but I'm in serious need of stretches for increased mobility. I had a little bit of credit on my Amazon gift certificate left, so I started looking at yoga DVDs. Again, I was worried about spending resources on something that I either couldn't or wouldn't use. I have great difficulty getting up and down from the floor and many videos seem to presuppose a level of flexibility that I just don't have.

I found an answer in something I'd never heard of before, chair yoga. Evidently this is a whole little sub-group of yoga videos because there were several from which to choose. Many of them seem to be aimed at seniors, which was rather humbling. I have let myself deteriorate to the point that I need to do disability-modified yoga. But I can either beat myself up about it, or I can press forward and use this as a stepping-stone to future ability. It's a choice I can make to make a change. I have to start somewhere, I may as well start with what I can do, rather than what I wish I could do.

So that's how I am working from where I'm at, in order to get where I want to be. I'm making changes that will stick this time.