A decade ago, the way I gauged my health was the scale. What I weighed determined how I felt about myself. Which meant that if the number went up, even by a couple pounds, I felt worse about myself. It didn’t matter how much yoga I was doing, or how I was eating; I let the scale drive how I felt about myself.
It has taken me all of these ten years to move into a place where my health is not based on if my weight is up or down; it’s based on how I feel.
Now, I gauge my health by how much energy I have. I look at whether I’ve gotten four-plus miles of walking in that day. I schedule my day around moving. If I feel tired or sluggish, I go for a walk and make sure I eat more vegetables.
I also am so much kinder to my body. I appreciate what it can do. I am amazed by how strong it is.
If you had told me ten years ago I would be healthier now than I was back then, I would not have believed you. If you had told me I would be writing a book about movement, I definitely would have laughed and said, “Who are you talking about?” I would not have believed that I weightlift. At all.
But that’s the thing about life. You always grow and change more than you think you have. You make choices that bit by bit add up to major change. You make choices and decisions that seem small and then add up to giant, seismic change.
But to get to the future, you have to go back. You have to see what you’ve done before to get to what’s next.
Perhaps the last ten years have been hard on your body. Perhaps you had a baby, or two. Perhaps you had an injury. Perhaps you’ve put your health on the back burner, and there’s been a great cost.
It is even more important for you to look back.
To see what did not work. To know what you need that you didn’t give yourself. To understand what may have driven you around health, or what you needed to get that drive back. And then to make a new choice in 2020 to do it differently than you did it before.
You can always choose a new way through.
What can you appreciate this week about your health and your progress from ten years ago to now? What milestones have you crossed? What tiny steps have made all the difference?
Watch below to hear more about my journey.