Motivational Monday

Your body can do anything. 

It's your brain you have to convince.

Oh yes. This. I am finding more and more often, my body is doing things I didn't think possible. I can run a half marathon. Wha?!? I can run hill repeats. Who woulda thought? I ran a Spartan Sprint. That may have been a colossal mistake overall, but it sure did teach me that I can finish what I start. My body has done many a thing that I never thought I'd be able to do.

Ah...but the brain. The brain doesn't always recognize this. The brain constantly goes back to what it knows...or thinks it knows. It thinks it knows I can't. It thinks it knows I can't follow through. It thinks it knows I will always revert back to bad habits. 

Sadly, many a time the brain is right. Or I allow it to be right. I fall back into the mindset that it's easier to allow emotional issues to be soothed by food. I allow a bad day to keep me from working out (this is different than a day when I'm sore from work, I need to know when working out is not worth the toll it will take on my body - work in progress). I succumb to cravings too easily. I chose to snack when people aren't around or watching. I allow the excuse to take charge too often.

I doubt I'm the only one who has this problem. My guess is there are many, many like me whose body is taking on the challenges set before it, but is being sabotaged by the brain. I've heard losing weight is 80% diet and 20% exercise. I have been trying to out run, out lift, out bike my diet for months and it's not working. The brain is not allowing the hard work to take effect. 

It is time for that to end. It is time that my brain becomes convinced I can do this. That I can succeed. That I have succeeded in the past and that due to it's refusal to believe, I have back tracked. I must reign in my wayward thinking brain and remind it that the body is strong, so can the brain be.

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