Day 26 of 365: Stress

103in365 Day 26: Stress

This week has been relatively high on the stress scale for your humble narrator. I thought I would talk a bit about stress and how I was successful this week at making good choices, and how I managed to not do (practically) any of the stress reducing behavior that I typically engage in.

Short story long, in recent years I have managed stress in a few not so healthy ways. My “fat” voice would help me to rationalize exceptionally “short-term benefit/long-term cost” decisions. “You made it through a long stressful day, you earned a cheeseburger (or two if I’m being honest).” Or “today is going to be stressful, so this large amount of food will take the edge off.” The fat voice is really good at making me feel like I deserve or have earned the privilege of making really bad food choices. Herein lies the rub though. The fat voice is really only good at doing one thing. Helping me to get and stay FAT!

Stupid fat voice. (I roll my fist at you.)

Enter the fit voice, … stage left. I am being reminded that the fit voice is measurably smarter than the fat voice and that the fit voice has some really good “short-term benefit/long-term benefit” choices that, it turns out, are pretty hip! This week instead of overeating or fast food eating, I worked out. Turns out it helped reduce my stress level significantly, and best of all, I lost a few pounds instead of getting or staying fat. Get down with your bad self fit voice!

I have lifted more heavy things this month than I have lifted in the last few years combined, and it feels great! I have been a bit sore from time to time, but not crazy sore on account of the fact that I am pushing myself, but not going crazy. I am making progress in the right direction and that is what is needed right now. I can train for my triathlon later. Right now I just need to get more healthy and less fat. (Side note: I am not going to train for a triathlon later). 

I am purposely making a point of asking myself, “How do fit people handle their stress? Or “What would a fit person advise me to do right now?” This is helping me make better choices and helping me to choose moving around and lifting heavy things more than I have for a ridiculously long time.

I keep reminding myself that I need to get back to my inner fit voice and start making more decisions that fit people make, if I want to be a fit person, and make decisions that fit people make. (That got a bit confusing. I will do that if left unattended).

(Speaking of what I will do if left unattended, one time in kindergarten the teacher was either late or left the room to get something and left us kidlets alone for a few minutes. Bad move teach! We went bonkers! Papers and blocks were flying all around and I thought I would do something that I always wanted to do but could not do while being supervised properly. I got up on the table and after letting off giddy laugh/scream, I jumped! I landed on my feet (don’t worry, this does not end up with me saying “and that is how I got this artificial hip”) but I landed flat footed and stiff legged and my little head whipped around like a Dwight Schrute bobble head, giving me whiplash! I remember my parents taking me to the doctor because my neck hurt so much after that. Good times.) That was the longest parenthesis aside comment I have ever written.

 

Here is a take-away for today. Maybe your goal is not so much getting more fit, but to be better at something. (Maybe you want to be the Bocce Ball champ of your whole block. I am not judging.) Try asking yourself what a person that has reached your goal would do right now or how they would deal with a disappointment or setback of some kind, and then do that. This weekend, think more like the person you want to become and less like the person you are ready to say “Thanks for the memories, but hit the road Jack” to.

Maybe you have seen the bumper sticker “Be the change you wish to see in the world”. (sometimes Gandhi is quoted as saying this, but there is debate about that being fact. Or at least that is what the interweb would have me believe.) I like this version of that quote that I came up with in my very own head too. 

“Be today, the person that you wish to become”.

In thinking like the person you want to become and acting like the person you want to become, you are becoming the person you want to become, today!

There you have it!

Have a great weekend!

Scuba