Pressing reset

Last week brought yet another closet makeover. There weren't quite as many bags of clothes this time. And this time, they're not going to Goodwill or Salvation Army. These ones I'm keeping.

The other day I noticed that my closet was rather full. Granted it's a tiny little thing but there was no physical space left on the rack. As I looked through the clothes I realized that they were all still really cute & in good condition. I would wear all of them again but unfortunately they don't fit. Many of them are a size too small. So I decided it was time to change.

I started by pulling out everything that didn't fit. And for a while that's all the further I got. The clothes just sat there in a pile while I tried to figure out what to do next. If I wasn't going to start losing weight then there was no point in keeping the clothes. If I was serious about getting in shape then I would be willing to find the space to store them. In my head I've wanted to lose weight for a while. But my heart was never really in it, not past the first day or two anyways.

Today my heart finally got on board. While home sick I set about organizing the books on my Kindle (if you like to read and don't own a Kindle GO GET ONE. NOW). I stumbled across a weight loss book that I had bought about a year ago during one of those phases when my head overran my heart and I got swept away in this "I'm going to be a size 2 like next week" mindset. The book starts with a simple two week program in which you add in certain foods everyday. And it doesn't ask you to add in things like chia seeds. It's quite simple actually: oatmeal, eggs, whole fruits, veggies. I looked in my pantry, my fridge and my freezer. All of those things were there. It was one of those divine moments. Everything just felt...right.

So the clothes are still on my floor. They aren't going to Salvation Army. But soon other clothes will be. My goal is simply to fit back into the pile of clothes on my bedroom floor. That's only one size. And who knows--maybe more will follow. But I'm done aiming for a new wardrobe by Christmas or some other grandiose goal. The idea is still there, still tucked in the back of my mind. It's just not in the forefront anymore. When it was in the forefront I would get easily overwhelmed, focusing on how far I still had to go instead of on each healthy choice I made.

Now it's time to hit reset not just on my food choices but on my thinking as well. It's time to embrace where I am now while simultaneously looking to the future. It doesn't have to be just one or the other; it was always that way in the past. Either I embraced my size and stopped trying to lose weight. When that happened I would become almost defiant, angry if anyone mentioned my weight. At the other extreme, I looked so far into the future that I hated what I saw now. That also made me defiant and angry if anyone mentioned my weight. There has to be a balance between those two extremes. For me that balance is thinking on a week by week, day by day basis. It's not dreaming about where I want to be at the very end of the journey. It's about embracing each healthy choice I make.