Here's When Weight Gain's a Good Thing
Over the holidays, I was hiking with my family in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. We went there to see the Thurston Lava Tube – sounds cool right?
Well, we drove 2 hours there and hiked for 2 hours and WE NEVER MANAGED TO SEE THE LAVA TUBE.
We made it to the mouth of the tunnel with just enough time to realize we had no time to go in if we wanted to be back at our hotel in time for our Christmas Eve dinner reservations.
As it turns out, the tunnel was totally swamped with tourists, actually making it really undesirable for us (I hate crowds).
I learned 2 things that day:
- My husband doesn’t know how to use the GPS on his iPhone;
and, All the joy and beauty (in anything) is in the journey.
See, if we’d made it to the tunnel, we would have missed seeing an incredible caldera (that’s what’s created, geologically speaking, when a volcano collapses), walking through awesome natural steam tunnels, and getting in a couple of trail runs (mostly to escape rain!).
For some reason, I seem to need multiple iterations of the same lesson for it to really sink in so of course this lesson came up for me again.
Last fall was pretty stressful for me, and as time went on, I found myself slipping further and further out of my healthy habits.
I knew it was bad, but I couldn’t seem to make it stop, and it took seeing it for myself for it to really sink in…
Now, this isn’t about my body, per se, but about what the changes in my body represent.
When my life is out of alignment, my body sends me a pretty strong signal: WEIGHT GAIN.
In all honesty, the numbers on the scale and the size of my pants mean very little to me. But, for me, this picture represents a being disconnected from my bodies signals and a complete disregard for my own health and wellbeing – something I think all driven women need to focus on to be their most successful and fabulous selves.
As a coach, I felt guilty that I was not “walking my talk”.
But as I dug deeper on what this meant for me, I remembered that no one’s journey is a straight line, least of all my own, and that if I’m struggling to maintain a healthy lifestyle with everything I know about fitness and nutrition – YOU PROBABLY ARE, too.
Now, I KNOW that I will bounce back from this (minor) setback and that it will only make me stronger – as a person, as a woman, and as a coach. All the joy and beauty (in anything) is in the journey.
Since returning from my Hawaiian vacation, I’ve developed and started executing on a 21-day plan that is helping me take my health back, while still leaving me lots of wiggle room for fun! (questions about what I'm doing to drop the LBs and get my bod back fast? Just ask). I’m also taking time out of every day, even just 5 minutes, to check in with my body – assess how I’m feeling, where I feel stress or resistance, and to make sure I’m balancing nourishment and rest with pushing my physical boundaries.
Take-inspired action: Set aside at least 5 minutes every day this week to do a body scan and identify the signals your body is sending.