I find that concentrating on what I can’t do,
tends to limit my choices.
Concentrating on what I can do
tends to expand my choices.

 There’s no law that a person has to exercise
for at least 20 minutes or more to get even the slightest benefit;
or that one must do high intensity exercise;
or that strength training requires the use
of more than one’s own body weight.

In fact, small bouts of fitness add up.
Something is always better than nothing.

Dieting is another thing I can’t do perfectly.
What I can do is make my food choices better quality,
and I can eat smaller food portions of everything I choose to eat.
I can choose to mostly eat foods that make me less hungry,
like those containing more protein or fiber and less sugar.
My goal is to do well, not to be perfect.
I can’t be perfect, but I can do well.

It is easy to get a very black and white view of fit living.
Either you are dieting and exercising or you’re not. 
 There’s another way….a rainbow view.
We can see all sorts of colors and shades in between.
Adopting a “fit” lifestyle is very individualized
and it often includes more than a specific diet and exercise.
What makes one person fit may never work for another.
It could be genetics, environment, health, or just because
our lives run in completely different directions.

There is no on-or-off of the fit living issue.
We are just on the road.

It’s a winding road with mountains, bridges,
detours, vacation spots and a million other things.
We can be positive drivers and enjoy the scenery, 
sing with the radio, have fun with our passengers,
and find ways around the obstacles of the road.
It’s even okay to stop at the vacation spots here and there.

  We can choose not to give away our freedom
by saying: "I can’t."  There are far more choices with "I can."
When we hit a roadblock, we don’t have to say…

"I can’t go on until this clears away.”

Instead" we can say

"What can I do from here, right where I am now?

Today's video is one of the "Ask Grandma" series made specifically for YouTube,
if you are interested, you can see it by clicking the link here 
which is located under RESOURCES, Videos, Ask Grandma.

There is only NOW and SOMEDAY...
and SOMEDAY is some imaginary time in the future.

Right NOW I'm having a difficult time getting it together.
I woke up with a negative aura...for no particular reason...,
and it's taking a great deal of effort to displace it.

I work to feel and accept my feelings
without actually cultivating those I find difficult.
I've found that if I don't "feed" negativity,
it will soon dissipate.

The issue is....I am not merely giving in to a bad mood.
I'm working at refusing to dwell on negative thoughts,
by telling myself positive things,
by listing some of the many things I am grateful for.

Right NOW I am addressing the daily tasks that are necessary,
....although I would rather do them SOMEDAY...
including writing here this morning.

I know and understand that feelings come and go,
both good and bad, and that
although I can work to minimize the feelings
that I'd rather not have, I can't escape them.

A great deal of my own emotional eating issues
came from an inner belief that it was necessary to escape
from negative feelings...rather than let them run their course.
Now I know it's okay...and necessary...to feel them.

I've also learned that although I have to FEEL my feelings,
I don't have to act them all out.
I don't HAVE to cultivate them and help them grow.

Right NOW, not SOMEDAY,
I can work to be pleasant to both myself and others
even when I feel a bit low and mean.
An important life lesson I've learned is that my life works better for me,
when I don't try to bring myself up, by bringing others down.
While my negative feelings exist and must be felt,
every unpleasant thought I have doesn't need to be verbalized,

There's a really good chance that I'm going to feel good again within a few hours.
However, part of writing daily articles in a Blog like this,
is sharing both the ups and the downs.
Everyone's life has both, mine included.

                          

"The body stubbornly clings to what it knows."

I found this phrase in a June 8, 2011 New York Times article about barefoot running.
I am not a runner,
however, I have friends who are runners,
and this makes me interested in the subject.

The article said:

"Most of us grew up wearing shoes. Shoes alter how we move. An interesting review article published this year in The Journal of Foot and Ankle Research found that if you put young children in shoes, their steps become longer than when they are barefoot, and they land with more force on their heels.

Similarly, when Dr. Lieberman traveled recently to Kenya for a study published last year in Nature, he found that Kenyan schoolchildren who lived in the city and habitually wore shoes ran differently from those who lived in the country and were almost always barefoot. Asked to run over a force platform that measured how their feet struck the ground, a majority of the urban youngsters landed on their heels and generated significant ground reaction forces or, in layman’s terms, pounding. The barefoot runners typically landed closer to the front of their feet and lightly, without generating as much apparent force."

Going barefoot is only one behavior involving the body,
there are many others. 

I find the barefoot running example to be a good illustration of the way
the body adapts to what has always been its normal lifestyle pattern,
and how it "stubbornly" attempts to keep that as the status quo.

This is one of the biggest difficulties which must be dealt with
when working toward weight-loss and maintenance of weight-loss.