Some portion of us got up Monday morning, took a look at the scale, and went into Vengeful God(dess) mode. Now that it is Tuesday, we’re tired from all that frenetic exercising and we’re not feeling better or thinner or lighter.
May I suggest a different approach (and maybe theology, although that is well outside my area of expertise)? How about some love?
When we treat ourselves with love, even when we make less than optimal decisions, we are much more likely to succeed and we’re definitely going to be happier. Starting from love helps us begin right now—we can’t change the past, so yelling and carrying on about it is not going to make a difference. Love is a forward-looking thing that can envision our better selves. It encourages us to take steps, even hard steps, to move toward our ideals. (Note: ideals, in this context, have little to do with the weird body-image messages we get from our culture and advertising, but everything to do with our personal values for health, beauty, and happiness.)
Starting from love, we recognize that we have time to make incremental changes, ones we can live with in the long term. We are able to balance our long-term need to build good habits with our short-term need not to croak over dead while working out. We can gently remind ourselves, as if we were our favorite toddler, that while cookies are delicious, we do also need to eat the occasional vegetable.
Perhaps what I am trying to say is that we’re not letting ourselves off easy when we begin from love. We are giving ourselves a reason to choose the best options, which will sometimes be pie and more often sweaty breathlessness.
Go play.
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