[Image from my Operation Beautiful Book Tour Post]
‘I don’t have a goal weight, I have a goal life.’
I heard this quote while watching an interview with an Extreme Weight Loss participant and it really clicked with me!
Along my journey, I realized that a certain number on the scale wouldn’t magically make my life perfect. For years I chased this number while becoming more and more unhappy.
I now focus on creating the life that I want, by taking small steps each day. It’s about how I feel each day when I wake up. If I wake up happy and eager to start the day, I know I’m on the right track. A certain number can’t dictate my happiness, but I can make changes in my life to feel my best.
While, I’m busy baking up orders today, I thought it would be fun to have a Glo Bar giveaway!
Leave a comment below sharing a lesson you’ve learned along your journey or simply share one of your favourite quotes.
One lucky winner will receive a delicious box of 10 Glo Bars! Goodluck!
Coming up, one of our favourite recipes so far in 2011….get excited!
One of my favorite motivating quotes is from A League of Their Owner.
“It’s supposed to be hard. If it was easy, everyone would do it.”
I’ve learned that sometimes to be truly wise is to understand that you can’t understand everything all the time :)
My favorite quote is by Eleanor Roosevelt: “Do what you feel in your heart to be right-for you’ll be criticized for it anyway”. In life there are always people that try to pull you in different directions, so you have to listen to your own needs and follow you’re heart regardless; if you do things only for other people they will still criticize you and you wouldn’t be nearly as happy as if you follow your gut instincts instead.
I have learned that body acceptance and confidence are not things you just achieve one day (at least for me) – they are things that need to be cultivated and worked on a little everyday. They are a choice, which amount from tiny choices I make almost every minute of the day, and I can choose to respect myself or to put myself down. Also that each day is new and an opportunity to move forward to a healthier, happier place.
On my journey to getting healthy I constantly reminded myself of the following quote: “It doesn’t matter how slowly you go as long as you don’t stop”. It helped remind me that getting healthy, losing weight and becoming a better me wasn’t a rush to a finish line or something I could power through. (Try as I might you cannot approach changing your life like you did a last minute cram session for a final in college!) It would be a long, and not necessarily easy journey, but as long as I didn’t stop and was moving forward, I knew I was heading in the right direction! It also helps remind me that it’s about a life style change, not just a quick fix.
“You only get out of it what you put into it”. I don’t remember where I heard this but it’s a good one to remember while running out of steam for a workout. I love that scale picture!!!
This was my high school yearbook quote:
“It’s not where, but who you’re with, that really matters.”
From a DMB song. :)
I learn more and more the importance of preventative medicine and how diet and exercise can keep us disease free. I have also learned to incorporate exercise for mental health. I guess as we get older there are many more stresses in life that affect our emotional well being, and its important to find prescription free remedies as outlets.
My new favorite quote that I’ve been telling myself as I start a new chapter in my life is “She believed she could so she did.”
“Change your thoughts and you change your world.” ~Norman Vincent Peale
I have learned along the way that my thoughts are one thing I can control, so why not use them to make a positive difference in my life. A positive thought can go a long way to helping me to make better decisions in all aspects of my life.
I’ve learned that my body is amazing, I carried a beautiful baby inside me for 9 months (she was early!), then fed her with my milk (as much as I could!) and in the same 9 months, was able to (mostly) get back to the body I had before. And it was a challenge to lose the weight, since it was the first time in my life I ever felt like I HAD to lose weight. I had some struggles with the scale over the past 9 months but have now fallen back in love with my body, yeah!! And it’s inspired me to help other moms to do the same, to fall back in love with their bodies.
I believe that when the body is strong, the mind thinks strong thoughts. -Henry Rollins
One of the greatest things I’ve learned is that I feel best when I eat a plant-based diet, and I feel even better knowing that no animals had to suffer or die.
“Danger spares those who confront it face to face.”
-Émile Zola
“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” -Abraham Lincoln
After struggling with anorexia, I have learned that the scale will never be my friend. If I gain weight, I am devastated and feel like I failed. If I lose weight it feeds my ED and I want to lose more. I am relying on my body to tell me things now. If I am hungry, then that means it needs nourishment. If I am tired, rest. Learning to appreciate my health is my goal.
In honor of the upcoming season of Project Runway, I’m channeling my inner Tim Gunn and saying “Make it work.”
I LOVE “Make it work.” It applies to everything. Not loving your wardrobe selection? Make it work. Feeling uninspired by your fridge’s options for dinner? Make it work. Not having the very best of days?
Make. It. Work.
With the help of this website, I have learned that the sun will always rise tomorrow. I used to always feel like my life was over after a “bad” day. Now, I veiw it as – tomorrow is a new day, and a chance for me to be happy and healthy. Even more, I have decided not to take things day by day, but second by second.
“being happy doesnt mean being perfect, it means you have decuded to look beyond the imperfections”
Thank you for all of your help Angela. Your blog has truly made a difference that has changed my life!
Thank you Alex, congrats!
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
I have a little rebellious side to me. It is so hard to love and accept myself sometimes, especially when society and the media are constantly telling me not to: that my body is something to be fixed, altered, controlled, suppressed, or fought. However, whenever I remember this quote, the rebel in me starts to come out, and I promise to love myself a little extra that day, to be a little more accepting and understanding than normal.
I’vee learned to have hope in the face of adversity. I have been through a lot over the past few weeks, and making a big change again soon, and it is scary. I have learned that in the past fear has paralyzed me and it is still something I struggle with. And of course those food and control issues are a part of my life too, but under control. I have learned to let go of fear and rejection as something that paralyzes, and learned that picking yourself up after you fall is what life is all about. Learn from those mistakes.
“Success is relative. It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things.”
T.S. Eliot quote