… Well, it took me longer than I’d hoped to post an update.
Okay, so I have a lot of catch up on:
August 6th - This one gets even a little harder… resolve to say nothing negative at all for a whole day (or a week, or a month… how long can you go?) about anyone else’s appearance or your own appearance. If you think a negative thought about the way someone looks, counter it immediately with a positive one. This will help you to train yourself to better judge people on their actions and words, rather than theirappearance.
August 7th – Now that we’re feeling good & positive lets back those feelings up with some knowledge! Think about one health-related question you’ve always wondered about and do some fact finding. For instance: what BMI is/isn’t good for, what a “healthy weight” really entails, etc. I’ll be posting some excellent resources for research on August 6th!
August 8th – Take a day off [from doing these activities] to process the first seven days of your journey. Write about your experience, whatever it may be, and continue doing health research if you do desire.
August 9th – Lets help each other out in our fact-finding missions. If you have any questions you can’t answer/don’t want to research I’ll have a big open post this day where we can ask & answer questions as a community.
August 10th -Let’s do some heavy lifting today; set aside some time and write about your relationship with your body & the life experiences that have come to shape that relationship (like I did here.) Push yourself to really be honest and think about the cause & effect of things – sometimes knowing why you feel bad is all you need to stop feeling bad (and sometimes its just a fantastic first step!)
August 11th – Now that you have a more positive mindset & some good, reliable knowledge under your belt its time to set some goals. Think about the ways in which you can take concrete steps to feel better about your body and write them down as achievable goals. For instance, maybe you want to be able to run a mile without feeling winded or cut down on junk-food so that your body can function at a better level. Pick one goal and write it down, along with some steps you can make to achieve those goals. Plan it as specifically or as vaguely as you want, there’s just one catch: your goals have to be based on function, not appearance because the point is feeling better about our bodies without making judgments about how they look!
August 12th – Document your new body-positive mindset through art – write a poem, make a collage, body-map, paint, draw, doodle, write a song… I don’t care what you do so long as you do it!
Okay, since I have a lot to catch up on- I think I’ll cross out a few. I know for the past year or so my little negative voice hasn’t been around nearly as much as it used to be. It still pops up, but I know when it comes to judging others, it’s almost non existent. I know this is much better because I hear my mom and my sister make comments about other people, and I just think “Why would you say that?”. I notice them doing these things. I also notice how they judge themselves more. I know that I just think how I could care less what someone thinks about me, and I don’t really care about their appearance. I tend to stick to either being positive about someone, or not saying anything. After doing that for awhile you tend to stop thinking negatively at all. It’s better to see the beauty in others anyway, and there is always something there.
As for numero 10, I think the best I can give is my essay that I wrote. I don’t think I could re-do it much better.
I’ll go to the 11th next- in all honesty, I would like to be healthier. I think my habits are pretty normal- I’m not a health nut but I also don’t eat twinkies all day either. I just never really feel like exercising, mostly because I think there’s a stigma to it (I also never feel like it when I have to work, which is often, because I’m standing around on my feet hours at a time and I’m already tired from that). I think exercise, I think weight loss. That’s the point of it, which has been continuously drilled into my brain. I’d really like to take up yoga, because I honestly hate sweating. Ugh… Yoga is nice and relaxing but still works you out and feels good. So I think I will try and get into that habit of that. I know my college has some water aerobics classes- I might look into that since the sweat factor doesn’t really matter there (and I lurvee the pool lol!). As I did last semester, I’m still debating about singing up for Healthy U… I think I might try it- if they push too much weight loss shit I’m just end it. But what i heard about it before it seems to encourage different goals depending on the individual’s wants. While I wish it wouldn’t encourage weight loss as an ultimate goal at all, everything can’t go the way you want. And maybe I should eat less french fries. I didn’t binge on them or anything, but they always had them for dinner at school, and I’m a picky eater so I would always get them. They were fucking good! And I won’t mark them as “BADBOOGIEBOOGIE” food, but I guess I should try to eat other things (I’m just too much of a picky eater… I should try new stuff)
And I think tonight for today’s goal- I’m going to draw a pretty picture (lol). Now, it will probably take a week for me to finish it, but I’m going to start tonight.
Well, that’s all for right now! I have to go get ready to go to the police station to get my finger prints taken- LOL! I have to do it to declare my major at school.. And then totally watching Mad Men because I just got the first season after hearing so many good things about it! WOO!
I will try and do a better job of keeping up with this! These last two weeks before I go back to school are becoming pretty hectic though!
I’m just starting to watch Mad Men too! Its so so good
By: J on August 12, 2009
at 5:25 pm