I’ve been a really good girl this year. Oh sure, it was probably so much easier to be good in the year of the pandemic. No parties, less drinking, and fewer happy hour appetizers and far less travel. How much easier could it have been?
Optimized time for fitness (I did it). More time to plan healthier meals (yep, did that too). Nap time, early bedtime, less (read: no) commute time meant less stress (um, yeah). But once Halloween hit the calendar, I fell clean off the wellness wagon and landed amongst the cookies, candy, and all things sweet. I just couldn’t help myself. As hard as I tried, getting back onto the fitness machines felt like shoving a chubby hamster back into a moving wheel! Ain’t gonna do it!
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I put back on five of the twenty I lost this year and have endlessly scolded myself for the setback. (Insert rolling eyes gaze here.) This morning, I told myself that today was the day that I would get back up on that horse and instead I brewed another cup of coffee and climbed back into bed and quietly scrolled through my morning memes while trying hard not to laugh too loud. Not my best attempt, but I got points for trying.
I had to remind myself that life turns in cycles, and as the song goes, there is a time for everything. It was time for me to rest. After months of punishing my body into fitness submission, my joints and muscles said, “Enough!” Eventually, I acquiesced.
Instead, I returned my attention to my writing, my studies, downsizing (de-cluttering), and my ever-growing list of creative endeavors. All the while, dunking cookies, stuffing graham crackers, and devouring the occasional orange slice (I sense your judgment — I am not ashamed).
It’s not that I’m on a fitness strike. I still work out at least three times a week and walk the dogs to get my 12000 steps a day (you can pull back now judgey pants), but I am not trying to be something that I am not. I am no longer 20, 30, or even 40. I am a curvy, fit, real 50+ woman who knows her limits and pushes them often. I don’t believe that life should be only about restrictions and deprivation. That’s how bad habits start and get their claws in ya.
Rather, I would like to believe that life is meant to be an adventure savored one day at a time with a few crunches in between. Care to join me?