Go ahead, take the summer off!

“Go ahead, take the summer off!”

Don’t you wish somebody would say that to you??? Like maybe your boss? No such luck, I’m afraid.

And I couldn’t in good conscience advise you to take the summer off from healthy eating and exercise. After all, we’re coming up on the halfway mark for the “100 days of awesome!” and you can’t achieve awesome if you don’t do the work.

I am, however, suggesting that you take the summer off from some of the behaviors we get sucked into when we aren’t 100% where we want to be.

Maybe it’s negative self-talk:

“Oh, you did NOT have a second helping of potato salad, did you???””

Or maybe it’s beating yourself up when you don’t like the number on the scale:

“Gah, up by three pounds?!? It can’t be! I’ve been doing everything right.”

When we’re not happy with where we are we can be really hard on ourselves. This is when our internal drill sergeant starts blowing his whistle and yelling at us to drop and give him fifty. While it may seem like a good idea to hunker down, redouble our efforts and try harder, sometimes the answer is that instead, we need to back off a little bit.

It may sound counterintuitive, but softening into change may be a healthier, more holistic approach than running at it, ready to wage war.

The good news is that, though the urge to see progress may seem immediate, we have our whole lives to get this right. Give yourself all the time and space that you need to get better. Or at least, take the summer.

Have a happy, healthy week!

-Marilyn

7 things I do when the scale makes me a raving lunatic Eight years ago I had what I describe now as a “rock bottom” experience. Impulsively, in a wave of exasperation with my work, my home life and my weight (I was more than 100 lbs. overweight at the time), I quit my job. Read more…

Stuffing down food = stuffing down feelings The scene: my bathroom, this morning. My husband (29 years later this summer) and I are both getting ready for our day. Read more…

The path to self-forgiveness The book on my nightstand right now is different from what I usually read; my tastes run towards weight loss books and fitness magazines for research, or current bestseller fiction like Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, which I hear is great, but have yet to start. Read more…

Can we just stop pretending that our hormones don’t mess with our weight? There are a lucky few who seem to breeze through hormonal changes without consequence. I am not one of them. You’re probably not either. A little over a year ago I started having hot flashes. Read more…

Podcast: The Motivation Myth We’ve got it all wrong when it comes to motivation. Most of us assume that the “highly motivated” are somehow different from the rest of us. Read more…

Podcast: Interview with “Halo Found Hope” author, Helo Matzelle Some people come into your life and you know instantly that you’ll be friends forever. Helo Matzelle is one of those people for me. Read more…