Perspective and Redirection!

The past two weeks have been filled with heartache and joy!  Two weeks ago, I spent most of my time each day helping my family deal with the loss of my wife's grandmother.  We took a few trips up and down the highway to attend services and spend much needed time with family.  Last week, I went on an annual beach trip with my wife's family.  It was a great time to get away and spend some focused quality time with my family.  Getting to be with my wife, kids and my in-laws after the previous week's emotional roller coaster was such a blessing.  Relaxing at the beach, sharing stories, laughter and sweet fellowship really healed many things in my heart.





I also had the opportunity to spend some time on our way home with my Mom, Step dad, Twin Brother and various other members of my family.  I especially enjoyed the time I got to spend fishing on my Mom's dock with my twin brother.  It is in those special alone times that I am reminded how much I love and miss him.  Our connection is so very special and it hurts more than I realize not seeing him more often.  While we fished, something that our MeMaw taught us to do many years ago, we had some time to talk with each other about what is important in life.  It was during this talk that I came to some conclusions and decisions about my life. 

1. My life is great....I have an amazing family, wonderful friends and abundance from God that is truly remarkable.
2. I love myself...yes, there are many things about myself that I hope to improve and make even better, but genuinely, I love who I am.  I spend entirely too much time focusing on the negative aspects of myself and not enough time appreciating the person I am.
3. I care way too much about money...I waste so much time worried about finances and how good of a job I am doing as a provider for my family that I make myself either worried and/or frustrated to a point where I am not happy about anything. 
4. I am a hard worker....I dedicate myself to the many jobs I do and I try to be the best I possibly can be.
5. I focus entirely too much on weight loss and not enough time on being healthy...my brother helped me regain perspective about what I really want to accomplish in my physical life, I want to be healthy.  I always talk about how I want to avoid the "fad diets" and the "quick fixes", yet I basically create my own diets and quick fixes by pushing to have immediate and mind-blowing results each time I plan a new weight loss goal.  I need to focus on slow and steady and look for real results that last.

It is with these new realizations that I have decided to redirect my focus.  I will continue to work on my summer challenge and use my BodyMedia armband, but I am going to approach it more scientifically.  I want to really look at the information that I receive from my armband and track the times that I am truly working achieve my goals and not just talking a good talk.  Hopefully, by doing some real analysis, I can make the needed to changes to reach my goals....whenever that may be. 

I do have one small victory to report....I made it through the past two weeks of crazy schedules and beach vacation and did not gain any weight.  The simple fact that I was able to be out of my comfort zone and controlled environment and not go crazy with putting in the pounds was pleasing to see today.  One thing I need to take advantage of and work on this week is getting to the gym.

So, next Monday I will post my BodyMedia stats for the week and will include something to work on and a victory.