Are You Nurturing Habits of Disease or Habits of Health?

There was a point in my journey where I distinctly remember making a choice to STOP nurturing habits of disease and START nurturing habits of health. 

It began with a wild and crazy idea I had, that I would STOP watching the Food Network.

"Why??" my inner-brat pleaded with me?  "That's just crazy talk.  I mean come on, if you have to TURN IT OFF to be in control, then there is more wrong with you than that...."

Nice, inner-brat, nice.

No, I realized that wasn't true.  In fact, the opposite was true.  Watching those programs, night after night, day after day, was actually nurturing my habit of disease.  It was making me discontent with the process of getting healthy, it was contributing to me thinking this was one big party pooper process and I'd have to deny deny deny myself of my favorite treats for the rest of my life.  Boo hoo!

When I stopped watching it (by canceling cable altogether, BTW), and got up off my couch, I realized I was no longer focusing as much on food.  I didn't see the commercials anymore.  I didn't see Paula Deen or her sons cooking up a storm.  I didn't see Guy Fieri stopping by all those Diners, Drive-ins and Dives every day.

I bought a pair of good walking shoes.  I began to let myself dream about being active.  It was a chore at first, because for years and years I had let myself descend into such a state of atrophy that it felt unnatural to move more.  It felt unnatural to even view myself as someone who could be HEALTHY.

I began to really focus on being spot on with  my 5&1 program.  I bought a bicycle for $50 at a garage sale and put a few bling crystals on the handlebars.  Then I started riding it.  I didn't miss my cooking programs.  I didn't miss the feeling of denial that I had been nurturing for months and months.  Not at all.

In fact, something very interesting happened.  Hope crept in.  Hope got stronger.  I fed hope.  Hope grew. 

Then I started meeting my goals.  It was amazing what I could accomplish by nurturing my habits of health that I chose to incorporate into my life.

You see, you can go about this process in one of two ways.

You can look at it as someone telling you what to do, and one big pity party.  You can do that.  You are free to do that.  You will be making it very hard on yourself, you will struggle in ways that you really don't have to struggle, but it is your choice to look at this as a "diet".

OR,

You can embrace this transformational process and ditch your habits of disease, instead nurture the habits of health because you are looking towards the future with ANTICIPATION and not APPREHENSION.

I chose way number two.  I've also done it the first way, and gained every ounce back that I had lost in the process of refusing to give up my habits of disease.  So really, the choice is yours.  =)

Rinse and Repeat!