Day #79 in A Year of Positivity

“The greatest oak was once a little nut who held its ground.” – Anonymous

Good morning, my darling readers, and welcome to Day #70 in A Year of Positivity! I hope this morning greets you with warmth and a boost of positivity; if not, then I hope this post brings to you a big smile to brighten up your day with. Today’s quote comes from an anonymous source, “The greatest oak was once a little nut who held its ground.” I love this quote for 3 reasons:

I love nature, and I love positive quotes about nature that are easily relatable.
I think we’re all a little “nutty” to a degree. I know, not really related to the post, but hopefully it brings a little chuckle to ya. I know I can be a little nutty in my personal life at times, but that’s okay. Life can’t be all serious all the time, right? 😉
The reason why I’m talking about this quote, that it really is motivating to remain persistent in the goals and dreams we’re trying to achieve.

Most goals and dreams that we have in mind for ourselves and our future aren’t things that can usually change overnight. These things can take weeks and months, and even years, to achieve! There will come a point in the time of which we’re trying to reach them that becomes daunting, tiring, and it can be easy to give up and try moving to something else that may be easier to go after.

According to Wealthy Gorilla, statistics show “that it takes 5-10 years of hard work on a project before it becomes incredibly successful. However, many individuals give up, especially if they don’t see huge results after a month, 3 months, 6 months, a year, even 3 years in. Giving up after 3 years in is stupid. You’ve already put in all the hard work. You’re so close. The modern world is governed by instant gratification: people expect success to show up on their doorsteps after few months of putting in effort.”

I 100% agree with this. I, myself, have reached this point in several key areas of my life, like weight loss and dieting, trying to eat healthier, and doing what I can to make money faster in the most legitimate ways. Something in life always got in the way, like an event that causes me to turn to food for comfort, or injuring myself just when I was looking to find an additional job for extra income.

Money is a huge stressor for me, and I’m an emotional eater. I turn to carbs for extra comfort, but I’ve decided this isn’t the way I want to keep going in my life, because if I do, I know in my heart that the end result is going to be deeply dissatisfying to me, and I don’t want to be one of those people who regret the decisions I’m making now, that will only impact me in the long run.

For me, it really doesn’t help when I’m faced with a kitchen of cabinets full of chips and cheese curls, and ice cream in the freezer, and chocolate in the fridge, which are all things that my grandma insists on having in the house. Yes, she’s a healthy eater, but like most people, she enjoys that extra snack, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. She has the type of metabolism that doesn’t really pack on the weight of those carb-y snacks like my metabolism does. For me, though, it’s also about the time of day that I eat, so if I eat too late, then I’ll be waking up the next morning with a pound or two added to my weight. No joke, the scale has proved this time and time again.

I’m really not happy with my weight. For starters, it’s slowed me down a lot due to my knee problems. I was in a major car accident when I was 9 years old, and in this car accident, I was run over by the car, and my left pelvic was crushed. They said I was lucky to live, and they weren’t sure I’d ever walk again. It’s left me with some child-bearing issues (which is a tremendous blow to my biological maternal instincts), and I already had arthritis in my left knee at the age of 13 (from traction with weights in the hospital to put my pelvic back in place, for 2 weeks, before they could put me in a body cast for 3 solid months).

/This made running for me in middle school and high school a nightmare. I was really good in gym class prior to my car accident, but once arthritis set in, I ended up compensating with my right knee to take the pressure off my left knee. Physical Education was never the same for me. I was a steady C-student in this specific area once my middle school years came, and that remained steady until I graduated. I hated to run. I hated it with a passion.

However, once I had my first summer job at my local amusement park in 2007, and I worked at the ride at the top of the park, I had a really bad day and was incredibly frustrated, so I ran down the hill to the employee exit that was at the end of the park. This was 2007 and the night I truly discovered how cathartic it was to run. Now, I love to run, but it’s truly a nightmare for me because, after years of compensating my left knee arthritic pain by putting all my weight on my right knee and leg, I now have arthritis in my right knee.

There are certain leg exercises I can’t do, and as much as I love running, it truly is painful when I have days of flare-ups in my arthritis. Steadily, over time, I ran less and less because it seemed I had more days of arthritis flare-ups than not. Now, I’m 50 pounds heavier than my normal weight. Did you know that for every 5 pounds of your overall body weight, that’s 20 pounds extra that your knees have to carry around? I recently found this out, and it’s a scary thought. That means I have 1,000 extra pounds of pressure on my knees! My poor knees!

Do I want to live like this, in so much more pain, for the many years to come in my life? Do I want to be 50 years old and possibly looking at partial or total knee replacements, or maybe end up in a wheelchair? Hell no! This is my motivator to consistently watch what I eat, at what time of day I eat, and work on cardio exercises that aren’t bringing as much pressure to my knees as, say, running. It’s a long, daunting, and tiring task because running – maybe – might be a faster way of losing weight, but I can’t handle running right now. However, for me, the future for my knees scares the crap out of me, and I want more than anything to get back to the weight I was at 50 pounds ago, so after learning this fact about 20 pounds extra on the knees per every 5lbs of overall body weight, I’ve decided no more am I going to let this go.

As I said before, it’s hard for me to ignore the snacks stocked in my fridge, but I’ve started learning a few tricks along the way, like eating a healthier snack or replacing my cravings for too many carbs with a cup of water. I even drink a cup of water before and after each meal, and I eat my meals slowly for 20 minutes. Some people have a hard time drinking water, but not me. It’s the one thing that I can consistently drink throughout my day, and I’ve never had a problem choosing water over sugary drinks.

For starters, after my car accident, a couple years in, I developed calcium-deposit kidney stones and didn’t know I had them until I passed one (they gave me too many calcium supplements during my recovery for my crushed pelvis, so it makes sense that some of the calcium was bound to turn into kidney stones), and I was under medical advice to stay away from sugary drinks. Passing a kidney stone isn’t fun, boys and girls, so I learned early on to love H20. Very rarely do I touch a soda or a fruit drink these days, though sometimes I do add “cheat” flavors to my bottles of water, usually in the form of a few Mio Energy drops, usually first thing in the morning or as a mid-day perk-me-up.

Bottom line, it may take me longer than most people to lose the weight I need to, but as long as I have my key motivator to remind me every day, I’m good to go with my patience at the overall level, and I’ve learned to be okay with being “slow and steady,” because sometimes slow and steady really does win the race. It’s healthy to lose an average of 1-2 pounds per week, but no more, and so far I’m on point with this weekly goal since I re-dedicated myself to this goal. Being consistent with how I handle eating, and ensuring I consume plenty of water for hydration, also helps me out a great deal in my patience.

So, how about you? What’s one goal or dream of being successful at, that’s been incredibly arduous for you? Have you identified the reasons why? Have you figured out resolutions to the why or why-nots? If the answer is no to both, and you’re highly unsatisfied with where you are in your path to what you want, it might be time to do some serious self-evaluation. The wonderful thing about that is, you don’t have to explain yourself to anyone, because it’s a personal evaluation of being honest with yourself at your core, and you need only consult with yourself on it, because what works for someone else, may not work for you, and what works for you, may not work for anyone else.

It’s not easy, but being brutally honest with yourself is the best thing you can do, especially if you’re quiet about the way you want to handle your journey on the way to your goals and dreams and, ultimately, your success. Be patient with yourself, and even though you’re being brutally honest with yourself, don’t forget to be kind to yourself in the process. Don’t let the negativity get to you. You’re not alone in the fact that you could use some self-improvement because guess what – we could all use a little growth too. It’s up to us whether or not we want to truly change, and it’s up to us to be our own personal cheerleaders, in order to get to where we desire to be in our journey of life.

Don’t give up, because the greatest things in life aren’t easy to obtain. Then when the path gets to a point of feeling like you’re never going to “get there,” remember your key motivator(s). Never ever let go of the reasons why you started down your path. Don’t let all that beautiful hard work go to waste! Just keep on keeping on, because I know you’ve got this!