given the wonderful discussion onthe "tyra banks" thread, i wanted to post this.
i was flipping thru the December 07 Runners World magazine. they are doing a big feature on Heros. there is an awesome photo of a woman runner , who is wearing a prosthetic leg. She looks amazing and resilient. i tore out the page and posted it on my frig, for me and for dd. (for when she gets into that teenage funk of self-pity and whine---maybe it will help pull her out)
anyway, just wondering if you all have visual inspiration/motivators/role models you could share.
Goals: 1. Stop thinking like a chronic dieter and start living to inspire. 2. HALT (hungry, anxious, lonely, tired) I will stop and tune in with myself should I experience these things, and respond with something healthy. 3. One word 2008: courage 4. Eat slow and mindfully.
I used to have a 'skinny' pic of myself, from college, on the fridge, along with a fat pic from when I was heavy. I think this will inspire me to find some pics of gorgeous curvy women, like Marilyn Monroe, to inspire me.
Life is NOT fair, but I'm grateful that I get to worry about things like how to turn down a cookie or how to convince my butt to get out of bed and go to the gym on my day off. And I'm glad I ended up on the positive side of the "fair" line.
Amen to that!
summer 7 challenge goals: - Meditate every day - Start the day with positive imagery and self talk Out of our beliefs are born deeds; out of our deeds we form habits; out of our habits grows our character; and on our character we build our destiny.
When my good friend who died last Feb was losing weight years ago, she stuck a pic of her hated MIL on the fridge. The pic made her lose her appetite so bad weight loss was a cinch. But then she went on to develop anorexia, so maybe it wasn't such a good idea.
Just an anecdote - not a recommendation!
****************** “The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight because by then, your body and your fat are really good friends.”
Back in high school, I had "What Does Not Kill You Makes You Stronger" written in block letters taped above my bed, with my "goal" 100-yard butterfly time written underneath it. As I hit my goal, I'd make a new one, and tape it up.
It was my mantra when I swam, and when I raced, I said it at a certain rhythm, with the emphasis on words where I needed my stroke to be strongest. As I got faster, the mantra got faster. I made my final goal, and set a record at my high school that still stands (I graduated in '91).
When I'm in the gym now, that's the phrase I use to keep me going. (For the record, I wish they'd stop playing the Kanye West song, because it seems like it's on my Sirius Hits 1 ALL THE TIME.) So it's not a picture, it's that phrase, a lot of the time. When I was recovering, my mom asked me if I remembered doing that (writing down the goal under the phrase and taping it over my bed).
There's a group of pictures I keep at work. One is of women in Darfur getting firewood, similar to this one (the women in the refugee camps walk for miles to gather wood, risking rape, torture, and death to do it...the trees don't have time to replenish themselves, so a terrible humanitarian situation turns into a terrible environmental situation)...another is of a group of girls in front of their new school in Afghanistan, kinda like the second one on this page (the Taliban government denied women the right to leave their homes without an escort, to work, to get an education, to do most everything we do without even thinking about it)...the third is of a mass grave in Iraq. When work REALLY sucks, those pictures remind me who I'm ultimately serving and that how well I do my job does matter.
They also remind me just how ridiculously lucky I was to be born here, with the world at my feet. I can go to school, drive a car, marry who I want, associate with who I want, worship how I want, watch/read/experience a free media, search websites I want, get paid the same as male co-workers, have control over the number of children I do or don't have...they remind me how lucky I am to be *here*, despite all the problems inherent with a democracy.
After that kind of daily revelation, going to the gym or eating healthy doesn't feel like as much of a burden ("Bleh, salad again. Well, at least I didn't have to walk three miles to a market where car bombs go off weekly, and hope my husband had a job yesterday so I could buy food today, and worry that I could be kicked out of my home by terrorists...yeah, a salad sounds okay."). It used to be hard for me to connect work with everything else, but it's working for me now. I don't have that thought process ALL the time, and when I was depressed, I'd spin off into, "Well, they all deserve it more than me, I can't even be happy I get to eat a salad!" But right now, it works as a motivator. Life is NOT fair, but I'm grateful that I get to worry about things like how to turn down a cookie or how to convince my butt to get out of bed and go to the gym on my day off. And I'm glad I ended up on the positive side of the "fair" line.
Challenge Goals: *10 minutes of unplanned exercise five times a week *Gym time twice a week *Socialize at least once every two weeks.
Goals: 1. Stop thinking like a chronic dieter and start living to inspire. 2. HALT (hungry, anxious, lonely, tired) I will stop and tune in with myself should I experience these things, and respond with something healthy. 3. One word 2008: courage 4. Eat slow and mindfully.
to your question, "did it help?" i think it depends on the person. some folks are very much motivated by performance so posting a brochure of an upcoming 5K run , or a chart of their progress in amount of weights lifted, or distance/time ran, etc. over a period of time .....is motivating.
for some, the standard "hanging up that dress i want to fit into" next to the athletic shoes or full length mirror is effective.
some folks i know will tape little bits of inspirational words (i.e. quotes, or passages from a book) to their bathroom mirror (even fortune cookie fortunes, if you can believe that)
when i saw the picture of the woman runner with her prosthetic, it pulled me in! YEAH!
Goals: 1. Stop thinking like a chronic dieter and start living to inspire. 2. HALT (hungry, anxious, lonely, tired) I will stop and tune in with myself should I experience these things, and respond with something healthy. 3. One word 2008: courage 4. Eat slow and mindfully.
Interesting that you posted this. I posted in another thread about being inspired by the Biggest Loser contestants. Their before/after photos are amazing! I have been thinking about posting photos of athletic/healthy people around the house for inspiration. Has anyone done this and did it help? I am thinking about gluing a picture to every Christmas cookie in my house too. So every time I reach for one the picture is staring back at me, plus, I definitely don't like the taste of glue, LOL!
Jill
Summer Challenge Goals: 1) Walk 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week 2) Plan weekly menus
