want

All the time, I hear folks talking about how they don't want to feel deprived. They want to be able to eat whatever they want. They want to eat NORMAL.

Um, you can.

But it's a matter of changing what you want. 

I WANT to be healthy. I WANT to feel good an hour after I eat a meal. I WANT to sleep well and wake up feeling like I can get through my day. So you know what I want for breakfast? Some gluten free granola with almond milk. And you know what I WANT for lunch? Turkey meatballs and broccoli. And you know what I WANT for a snack? A banana.

Because at the end of the day I WANT to eat to fuel. I WANT to sit down to a meal and feel good about it, start to finish, not just for those five seconds that one bite is in my mouth. 

If you want to feel deprived, you will. That's your choice. I eat how I eat (most of the time) and I don't feel deprived because I chose to not feel deprived. 

I've said it before and I'll say it till I die....if you need to treat your body poorly on a regular basis in order to be happy........something ain't right.

what are you worth?

Back in the day, when I was in my first marriage and it was floundering and we would half-ass go to therapy once or twice every few weeks, one excuse we had was "It's too expensive, we can't afford it".

And one day, our therapist called us out on it. "Is your marriage worth $80 a month? If not, what IS it worth to you?"

I mean...that kind of stopped us in our tracks. How do you put a monetary value on your family? Of course our marriage was worth $80 a month! I know I walked away from that session feeling like an ass. And it was around that time we started going regularly. Because.....yeah. It was worth the effort and the money.

Getting healthy in any manner carries value. We all know folks who say "I can't afford the gym" or "I don't have time to work out." Maybe we say it ourselves. I'm pretty sure once upon a time I had myself convinced that a gym membership wasn't in my budget.

So what IS your health worth to you?

Is your health worth an hour a day? No? Then how much? How much of an investment are you worth? If you find yourself saying things like "I don't have the time/money for that"....maybe it's worth answering the question "Ok then....how much time/money/effort ARE you worth? What is YOUR monetary value?"

Because when you say "I don't have time/I can't afford it" to whatever it is that will help you........therapy, a trainer, a gym, a trip to the farmers market......whatever it is......when you say you can't put that in your priority list, what are you saying about yourself? Aren't you saying that YOU aren't worth an hour a day? Aren't you saying that YOU aren't worth X number of dollars a month?

*********

That was one of my "A HA!" moments a couple of years ago. While I was sitting on the edge of joining a gym, I was walking one night and the words of my old therapist popped into my brain..."Is your health and happiness worth spending that money?"

And I felt like an ass. Because...just the idea of telling myself "No, you aren't worth $40 a month" felt really really stupid.

It's what keeps me going right now. I'm worth the gym membership. I'm worth having an hour to myself most nights. It's worth investing in that now so that maybe I'll be able to play with my grandkids in the future.  It's worth it. I'm worth at least that much.

I think we're all worth it. Right?