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This weekend I sat around feeling slothful and eating too much. I blame the environment!
What I mean is that when I visit my Mother, I’m often in a physical and psychological space that I find hard to navigate. For one thing, she lives in one of the less walkable parts of town –there’s a sidewalk in front of her house but it ends after just a block. For another, when I’m back in the geography of my youth (well, high school anyway), it brings up a lot of memories and feelings that are still hard to process, even 35 years later.
I don’t mean to say that I blame my Mom, or that it’s impossible to visit her while also maintaining my normal activity and healthy eating.
Rather, what I’ve discovered is that when I’m out of my normal routine and away from my usual comfort zone, I often find myself less willing to do the work. It could be my Mom’s house or it could be a return to my other home, San Francisco. In either case, when I’m away from the day-to-day patterns of my life, I discover that I can’t just expect everything to effortlessly fall into place. I have to set an alarm. I have to purchase and prepare healthy food. I have to mark out a specific slot in the day for exercise. I have to make a plan to go walking.
It’s on me.
Life isn’t always a walk in the park. But that doesn’t mean I have to lie on the sofa eating cookies.
There is simply no more challenging environment for me than my mother’s house. So many reasons, not the least of which that she has many things around her house that I don’t keep in mine (two best examples - ice cream and chips). And, it tends to be pretty boring there, so eating become entertainment.
So I definitely feel your pain on that one.
Comment by denise 03.04.13 @ 9:54 pmI do understand how hard it is. For me, I do a lot of self talking and try to motivate myself as if I was in my space. I know sometimes that is not the case, but I do try.
Comment by Ronni 03.05.13 @ 9:29 am
There’s also some kind of oh-I’m-not-at-home-so-I-must-be-on-vacation mentality going on, at least for me. But the effort is SO worth it!
Comment by Debbi 03.04.13 @ 5:19 pm