Working Towards the Tipping Point

I really feel I'm nearing a tipping point when it comes to my health practices, inasmuch that I feel the start towards making some changes where it comes to my health.

I'm noticing more and more that bad-for-me foods are becoming less and less appealing. Partly in taste, and partly in their residual effect on my body (i.e., I feel like crap after eating it).

I'm noticing how good real food tastes; fresh fruit is a revelation, and a cold fresh salad is highly enjoyable most days.

I'm noticing more that when I exercise in some moderation (as in, I actually break a sweat), I feel GREAT afterwards; I enjoy the muscle soreness because it feels like I actually DID something. Yet I never seem to remember this feeling enough to motivate me to work out for the sake of working out.

I'm somewhat unhappy with the fact that I've gained back some of the weight I'd lost when I took my health issues seriously; now I don't take care of myself and BAM, weight is back. I also know that I need to lose this weight to increase my chances of being given permission to "pull the goalie", and I also know that if we hit one into the goal, I will need to be VERY vigilant about what I eat and my exercise due to these health factors in order to keep the pregnancy... I've just been ignoring these things.

There are so many areas of my life that the perfectionist in me feels needs major overhauling, but there is a fair amount about myself that really isn't as bad as I make it out to be. Am I Martha Stewart? No, but let's be honest: Martha Stewart can only be "Martha Stewart" with a lot of outside help. Am I a perfect housewife? No, but I have improved by leaps and bounds in a lot of respects, and that is something to be proud of rather than bemoan that my house isn't spotless 24/7 - it is a lot less cluttered and a lot more organized, something The Hubs and I have worked very hard on as we've matured into adults. Am I a whole-food eating jock? Nope. Do I want to be? Not exactly - so why do I immediately strike myself down because I don't think I could eat nothing but fruits and vegetables and run 10 miles a day? I'm not Chris Traegar, and that's ok. I can be my own definition of healthy. What I'd really like to do is exercise at least 3 times a week, and cut out the crap. If I could eat good-for-me food that avoids processing and chemicals as much as possible, and resist the temptation of refined wheat and sugar, I feel like I would feel a lot better about myself. And if I really look around at what I have available to me to eat, it's really not that difficult. I just need to make it happen.

It takes three weeks to build a habit. Maybe I can start building little habits one at a time; small changes add up, right?

But I've had these thoughts before, and it's only ever worked out temporarily. What makes me think it'll be different this time?

Maybe it feels different this time because I'm tired of being the same. Maybe it's changing intrinsically. Maybe, just maybe, I'm starting that slow climb up the hill to the tipping point.