Why the "Perfect Fit?"

I call this blog the “Perfect Fit” because that is what I am aspiring to find in my chaotic life.

Not a number on the scale. Not a clothing size (and let’s face it – clothing sizes vary from company to company, style, design, and everything else – who knows what size we REALLY are anyway?)

I am talking about fitness.

The Perfect Fit for someone who must juggle many, many things: Family, household, full time job, part time job. Not to mention other aspects of my life – date nights with my husband, reading books, pursuing spirituality, and just good old fashioned doing nothing but laying on the couch and being a potato!

I am 37 years old. I stopped wanting to be “thin” a long time ago. I don’t focus on the perfect body, because, really, I don’t even know what a perfect body is anymore. I have gone through so many phases in my life – the “hating my body” phase. The “not caring anymore so I am going to let my body go to shit” phase. The “tired of covering up my body” phase, and of course, the “gym rat hard body” phase – only achievable when you have nothing else to do but spend hours in the gym every evening (ahhhh – the good old days!!!)

I have the week off this week – I am staying with my sister-in-law in NJ. On Sunday into Monday, we had the snow storm. Knowing we were all going to be inside together with nothing to do and nowhere to go (not to mention a house filled with munchies and movies!) I offered to go out and shovel in the morning. Hey – a workout is a workout, right? It also racks up some bonus points for me! You have to love a house guest who will do the snow shoveling!

It has been fun looking around for new places to work out while I’m here as well. This morning, my sister-in-law babysat my 3 year old (cashing in my bonus points already!) so that I could take an hour and 15 minute power yoga class and stretch out the kinks from the holidays, the driving, the cold, the shoveling, and everything else I have dealt with the last few days…. I felt so calm after it. Such a nice way to finish off the holidays.

Since I am here for the week, I decided to see what else is in the area. I found a gym right around the corner, and if I play my cards right, I can get a good workout in everyday.

My husband will be joining us tomorrow night, so once again, the balance will be family, marriage, AND working out. We plan to take in a movie night, just the 2 of us, since I received a bunch of movie gift certificates. Luckily we also have my stepdaughter, grandma and grandpa, and my sister-in-law here to watch the little man while we go out and spend some time with each other (lately we have been 2 ships passing in the night…)

So, as I discussed in my first post, I am looking at 2011 with new goals. I want to get out of the “phases” phase of my life, and embrace my accomplishments wherever – and whenever – I can.

Carving time out of my life for fitness is a juggling act in and of itself, but at the end of the day, I love the feeling when I can tell myself – I did all of this today AND went to spin at 5 in the morning!

What are your goals for 2011? What do you hope to achieve? What challenges stand in your way? Are they real, or imagined? What can you do to shift those challenges so that it works for you?

Starting with Intention

As I stepped out Christmas morning to try out my new running gear (a gift from my husband to show me that he is fully supporting my goal for 2011 – to run my first half marathon), I reflect on what I intend to get out of my run.

It was the first time I ever started a run with some type of reflection, intention, or purpose other than “run as fast as I can and as long as I can until my legs shake and my lungs burn for air.”

The notion of beginning a workout with intention finally made sense to me last week, when I started doing Jivamukti yoga again for the first time in ten years. During the entire class, we were reminded to focus on our intentions, rather than on our bodies.

Our intentions, and our breath.

I don’t know where it came from, or why, but that thought popped into my brain this morning as I headed down the steep hill from my neighborhood onto my familiar running route.

It was interesting how aware of myself I became doing this. I know it sounds so cliché, and I read other people writing things like this all the time so it almost becomes background noise, but really… something inside me just woke up.

It was more than just the strength I felt in my stride, or the fact that for the first time in a long time, I did not feel the need to stop to walk, catch my breath, or curse myself for not “doing better”.

It was this awareness that I’m a “Pushy” person. And it takes away from all the good I intend to do. And it slows me down. Weakens me.

I push myself.

I push myself in my workouts – to do better, do more, do faster, do harder.

I push myself in my career… to do more. Work more hours. Finish more projects. I take my work home with me. I go to sleep thinking about it.

It is my job to push others to do better, do more. The students that I consult on, and the staff that work with them. As a result, I see the students excel. I also get a lot of amazing teachers who step up to the plate, but just as many who resent my manner.

I have gotten so used to that. I have gotten used to the mirror I carry around. It is a “you are not doing enough” reflection I see everywhere I go.

In the blink of an eye, I decided this morning that whatever I do, it will be enough, because the other option would be lounging around on the couch watching the new DVD’s I received.

But I chose to run, and since I was so happy I made that decision, I forgave myself ahead of time for not doing it well.
And in that forgiveness, I excelled.

With every breath I took, it was a prayer to myself. My body. My life. That with my intentions, my awareness, and my forgiveness, I can do better than I could if I were pushing every step of the way. I made a promise to myself that I will celebrate my intentions, and my accomplishments.

I will stop to look around me from time to time – not straight ahead at the thing I haven’t gotten to yet.

It is a habit that I have gotten so used to. And with habit, comes complacency and stagnancy.

There is nothing wrong with challenging myself – and using that as a way to push myself in the right direction. But with challenges comes strategy to become efficient and powerful, not pushing to the point of exhaustion – whiny and miserable all along the way.

I juggle so much. I never give myself a break, because if I do, I’m afraid I will slow down.

If I slow down, then I will lose my stride, my momentum.

I am notorious for never stopping, never slowing down. I am The Woman Who Does Too Much. There are books about women like me.

But objects in motion tend to stay in motion unless an external force gets in it’s way. Just because I’m always in motion doesn’t always mean I am going in the right direction. Or with efficiency. Before an external force gets in my way that I cannot control, I am deciding to create the right forces around me to knock me off my path before I self destruct.

I will be my own external force.

As part of my vow to myself to find that “perfect fit”, I will do the best I can to begin everything I do with intention.