Denise Austin LifeFit Program Week 3! Post 9: Take Perfection and Throw It Out the Window!

Denise Austin shared this post today and it truly resonated with me. 

I've been on my weight loss journey for about nine years now. In that time I've lost an average of sixty pounds, twice, once before and once after having children. And through that time I've found myself at various states of commitment. Undoubtedly, I am at my absolute healthiest when I am not aiming for perfection. When I have a "must be perfect" mindset, I fail and then I take it further and fail miserably because of the guilt that I feel for not being perfect.

In the two years following the birth of my son (four years ago) I did take perfection and throw it out the window. I lost the sixty-five pounds s-l-o-w-l-y and over a two year period, by eating healthily and exercising a lot of the time...Definitely not all of the time. I spent those two years taking my daughter to doctors' appointments and tube-feeding her all day. I spent many lunches and dinners in hospital cafeterias and I celebrated each small victory of my daughter by going out to a celebratory dinner at someplace like Old Town San Diego. There was no way that I could have been perfect! The life that I was leading was one of fear, not knowing what was going to happen next, being completely exhausted every minute of every day, and I was covered in feeding tube formula from my little girl and breast milk from my baby boy.

I did the best that I could and I didn't harshly judge myself. 

This round of Denise Austin's program has me confronting many of my beliefs and thought patterns recently that have been unhealthy for me and have ultimately held my back from my goals. 

And perhaps no thought pattern has been as unhealthy as me telling myself that I must be perfect. 

So I'm going to do as Denise says and throw it out the window!

We've been working on stretching. Breathing deeply, stretching, and truly thinking about what being healthy means.

 

I am about five pounds from my goal weight. (I've chosen a goal weight that puts me at "normal" size).  I've been contemplating hiding the scale for the next few months...throwing away that "magic" number...and just being healthy. Letting the scale fall where it will. Or maybe just not giving it such power.

I still have a lot to think about. 

I do know that part of being healthy is having a higher self-esteem. So I took a selfie when I put makeup on the other day. It felt good.

 

All through my twenties I tried perfection, and the second I made a mistake, I'd give up. My success came in my thirties when I just did the best that I could, and lost weight slowly, while occasionally having a candy bar.

What does "healthy" mean to you? Have you considered throwing perfection out the window, and how that just might change your life in amazing ways? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Please hop on over, "burn the butter" (a "Denise-ism) and read my previous posts on Denise's program.

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I was compensated to write this post, but I promise that it is my utmost honest opinion!