Saturday, July 25, 2009

Self-Discipline

My efforts to lose weight and improve my physical condition are at odds with my lack of discipline, genetically embedded laziness, and fanatic devotion to food of all kinds and in unreasonably large amounts.

Today's feeble attempt at physical conditioning, a 1+ hour walk with my wife, was sabotaged after we got home by deciding to get a "breakfast snack" consisting of a sausage patty and cheese made into something of a sandwich with two thick halves of a roll.

If I'm going to slim down and get more stamina, I need a personal trainer, someone whose relentless insistence that I exercise cannot be quelled except through my following the prescribed regimen. How can I become my own abusive and commanding personal trainer? How can I berate myself into doing what I know I must do? Even when I try the other tactic, praise for my own performance and productivity, I fail. I need a partner who will insist on following a daily regimen, someone who will do the same thing. My wife is not up to it, especially with her heart condition causing her to tire far more quickly than I do.

It's not just the need to exercise and cut back on unnecessary food. I need to stop swilling alcohol in all forms and replace it with water or low-calorie cranberry juice or something else that will not fill me with empty calories.

I cannot be so weak as to unable to find sufficient self-discipline to do this! I will succeed in bludgeoning myself into submission, one way or another.

3 comments:

Kathi D said...

Hello twin, separated at birth.

For myself, I have decided that instead of waiting 10 years to appreciate today's me ("Wow, look how YOUNG I looked!") I will appreciate today's me today.

Springer Kneeblood said...

Kathi D...there is some wisdom there. The problem, of course, is whether there are people here smart enough to apply it.

Phil said...

From an old SNL skit, where Julia Sweeney was a self-help guru of some kind:

No food tastes so good as being thin feels! (repeated as a mantra).

Trying to chip away 10 lbs myself.