Sin #7 - Saving the Best for Last - Lazy Bones

I am not the laziest person I know, but I think like most things the adjective can be applied to many points of a persons life or personality. Fortunately I am not lazy in all walks of life, very few as it turns out but exercise would take the Number One spot. It probably has held that honourable spot for a multiple decades. I loath exercise. I said it ... I own it ... and contrary to my beautiful sibling who adores working out for hours on end, it is not addictive "once you get in to it"... WHAT? Something got missed in our DNA imprinting because I have joined gyms, signed up for classes, purchased expensive bits of equipment, Youtube videos, swim memberships, buddy walking, okay I am naming just a few of the ones that I think I actually liked .... You get my point? Not for me..Sloth~

Now at WeightWatchers I was told, from the beginning of my 'journey', that 80% was diet and 20% would be exercise for the total weight loss goal that I had in mind. At the time I wanted to lose 150 lbs and never thought it to be an achievable goal. Thankfully I did not have to give exercise a second thought for a LONG LONG time, also because at 325 lbs I could not even do that much because my body would hurt or injure in an instant. I was also on my feet 10 hours a day running my restaurant therefore I pretty much hurt all the time anyway - further torture of exercise was completely out of the question. I was ready for the WW meal planning food makeover!! IT was hard work AND it WORKED....until it didn't...the dreaded plateau!!! At 100 lbs lost I plateaued for 6 months, total flat-out STALL! I was cringing the advice from my WW leader and fellow lifetime members and other dieting know-it-alls that the next step HAD to be EXERCISE to get things going again...NO WAY! I turned to googling ways to kickstart my weight loss, I researched and poured in energy to finding any way possible to avoid exercise. I told you I wasn't lazy...about everything... :) Fortunately for me my just body needed to 'catch up' to the fact that it had lost 100 lbs so the hiatus did end after 6 LONG months and the weight started to come off again. Let me state for the record here - maintaining my weight loss during that 6 month plateau while not giving up on myself was one of the biggest achievements I have faced in my Big Weight Life! More to come on that mindscrew later... So on I worked to lose yet another 50 lbs. I did it! 150 lbs down and no real exercise to speak of. I weighed 175 lbs and I was at the top of my game....balloons, confetti, rah rah rah...but I wanted more, I wanted to weigh 150lbs or less. My doctor signed off on 160 lbs due to excess skin, surgeries, my age, underlying health issues etc but I knew what I wanted, I could taste it! This time however I had to come face to face with EXERCISE. You might be thinking at this point I should feel lighter than air and that donning a bathing suit would feel amazing (not when you look like a melted candle it doesn't - HA) or that I would want to show off my new bod in lycra at the Gym .... NOPE ... still lazy, just thinner. So now as the Italians would say I have arrived at the crux of my situation. To exercise or not exercise This Became The Only Question and because I wanted that prize I had to at lease try it! So how does a lifelong lazy exercise person become enthusiastic about organized planned fitness??? Oh, for context, it was smack dab in the middle of the Covid Lock Down! Not exactly the best moment in time...or maybe it was!

You know when one of those moments happen, you don't give it much credit at the time but later, upon reflection, you realize it was a turning point in your journey or life... A little bird moment when someone or something happened to guide you down a different or better path, maybe even catapult you towards something that reshaped your forever? Well this happened to me, her name was Susan. Susan has no idea she was my little bird but she told me of a person doing online live video streaming during lockdown - a 1/2 hour exercise session to music - totally organic, from her basement - free, fun and basic for beginners with little to no athletic abilities. With ZERO expectations I Zoomed in and Bingo, I was hooked, 3x a week and 3 months later I was dancing around my kitchen to my own playlist like a crazy person. I realized that my form of Exercise was just dancing to my own groovy music while cooking. Eventually I dusted off the decade old treadmill and purely to prove to myself that I could NOT do it, I actually ran for 10 minutes, which later became 20. I did it! I pushed that lazy lady to the curb - Guess What - One Year Later I reached my goal of 145 lbs.

I am not going to say that I have conquered exercise to the point that I would say that I love it...NO WAY! That mindset reshaping would take a lobotomy and it has proven to be far more difficult then changing my way of eating. Maybe if I move to a tropical place with sand and sun shining more days than not I would embrace the types of physical activities I enjoy. I think that is what fitness comes down to for me, not formulated as exercise but rather joyous movement. We tend to gravitate to our strengths and what makes us happy, therefore we need to give thought to those pursuits. I love cooking and dancing so when I am in the kitchen I put on dance playlists geared to the country I am cooking. For example if I am whipping up a veggie chilli I will put on some great latino dance music or if I am making some Falafel I will put on some Turkish beats...It's fun, it's educational and above all I am MOVING without thinking about it - Lazy Girl for the Win - The Hips don't Lie!