I have a love/hate relationship with fresh starts.  I love the idea of being able to start over with a clean slate; a new day or a new beginning.  I mean, it’s nice knowing that you don’t have just one shot to do it right.

I hate it though because if I am starting over that means that somewhere along the way I failed, fell of the wagon, crashed into the dark abyss, or ate my weight in chocolate.

Here I am in the first full week of January and the new year and I am in desperate need of a fresh start; a complete overhaul if I am honest.

What’s the plan you ask?  I have given this a lot of thought and I decided to go back to where I started last June.  I had begun working out with a trainer, changed my eating habits, upped my H2O intake, was keeping a food and workout journal and was the most motivated that I had been in a very long time.  In fact, I felt better than I had in years.

And then the bottom fell out.

My trainer, then and now, makes me take a photo after each workout and post it to her Facebook page.  I had taken a photo that morning before my life turned upside down.  It’s hard for me to look at it now, but my face looked healthy, happy and bright.  The next day, that spark was gone.  I kept working out for another five weeks, but it wasn’t the same. I had lost my mojo.

We’ve all been there. Life is going along smoothly and then we get thrown a curve ball. Sometimes we try to work around whatever has thrown us off course, but it doesn’t always work.  And so, we find ourselves in need of a fresh start.

They say that if you want to accomplish a goal you need to be specific about what you want.  I don’t know who “they” are, but I read it somewhere recently and no I can’t cite any articles.  Just go with me on this because it makes sense, right?

So what do I want…specifically?

I want my life back.  I want that bright, healthy, happy face. I want to have the energy that I had back then. I know what I want my body to look like, how I want my jeans to feel when I put them on and the sense of accomplishment that I want to feel when I get into bed each night.

I realize that I am not the same person I was last July when I started that fitness journey.  I’ve been through a few things since then and I have learned a lot about myself.  I’ll save those reflections for another day, but what I can say for certain is that:

 it’s okay to start right where I am.

So, at the end of this first full week of January 2019 I have begun again.

Sunshine & Sarcasm,
Lowi & G