A little over one year ago, frustrated with my unwieldy weight and a knee that ached from injury, and determined to age better, I grabbed ahold of the fitness reins and headed in a new direction.
The gym quickly became a routine friend–a priority regardless of the demands of business and personal obligations. After all, without a healthy vessel, what value can we fully offer our clients, family and friends?
It’s amazing how gym discipline can be both rigorous and exhilarating. How the near-immediate endorphin high you feel when pressing that first dumbbell over your head or doing that first pushup of the morning creates not only physical relief but also mental empowerment.
During this time, which is currently ongoing, I also have discovered a new relationship with the kitchen, as I invested in better habits and tools that not only fed my body but nourished my emotional soul. As I watched fat melt from my body and my body shrink, my optimism grew.
Strength Underpins Healing
And, 25 lbs. later, not only have I shed weight, but I’ve also gained new strength and healing. My ‘bum knee’ is renewed, and I’m able to do so much more without the stress of weight on my joints.
The 30-day pause I mentioned in an earlier blog post ties directly into this holistic journey. We are now more than 2 weeks into that pause, and the results have been interesting and rewarding. I’ll write more specifically about that in a future post.
This is not the first weight-loss journey I’ve traversed, but I am determined it will be the last. I definitely see differences in the mindset from a 2012 similar-such path where longer term philosophical commitments to more sustainable change were not in play.
Moreover, my husband, Rob, is equally on this journey with me, as we aspire to bring a more natural vibe and healing to our current and future selves.
As I’ve matured, I’ve come to realize that fitness is a holistic melding of so many physical, mental, emotional and intellectual aspects of one’s life. Moreover, I can now embrace more than 5 decades of life experience, both highs and lows and successes and failures that inform today’s behaviors and thoughts–and, God willing, tomorrow’s.
The Journey Continues
Determined that this journey will not become static, I recently invested in a Lily Garmin smartwatch. I leapt into this new phase of fitness intentionality with vigor, as this watch tracks so many things. In addition to very specific aspects of my workouts, including muscles that are targeted and number of reps with the dumbbell, it tracks my heart rate, stress, steps, sleep patterns and much more.
Already, in a few short days, I’ve stumbled upon new ways to interject hope and joy into my journey of growth and change, with this sweet new, feminine sports watch. Its little beeps that celebrate midday milestones related to number of steps walked or calories burned, give me that little lift I need to keep going.
A couple of taps to the face of this fitness-tracking gem enables me a little jolt of adrenalin that I’m doing more today than I may have thought, or perhaps it serves as a gentle reminder that a few more steps or another 8 ounces of water will spur me forward to that next goal.
-By Jacqui Poindexter
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