Just this morning I finally noticed my jeans are hanging a little looser. Not much. Just enough for me to notice. But also just enough for me to open up my brain to The Future Lindsay.

I was sucking in … maybe a little.

I’ve been very happy to take on good habits for their own sake (and proud of myself, too). I have this idea that I want to set a preliminary weight goal of 115 (I’m about 124 now). I know I want to be stronger and stand up straighter.

But those goals have felt far off and detached. All the work I’ve been doing for nearly two months has made me feel *good*, but in only barely-discernible ways.

Which has suggested to me a homeostasis. Healthfulness but little change otherwise.

And then Boom. Bam. Jeans are loose! Inside my brain, something like this is happening “I could be trim! Lean! Maybe I’ll wear bikinis, like, ALL summer. I’ll have muscles. Other people will be able to see them. No tummy roll? REALLY? Maybe! Just maybe!”

I’m not on some get-skinny rampage now. It’s just that I suddenly feel like all this healthfulness might also lead to a Lindsay I’ve never seen before. (I have weighed as little as 107 lbs., but I didn’t get their with exercise. I was still flabby, with little muscle [which I didn't think was possible at 107? Apparently it is?].)

This Lindsay might look like an … athlete? Like one of those cute yoga ladies? A gymnast (I *do* have trunk-y thighs)? I actually don’t know. But I am totally stoked to find out.

And all because my jeans are a tiny bit loose! Who knew?

Getting fit / losing weight / eating better can focus so much on all the things that have been wrong, plus a long list of things that Must Be Done To Do It Right.

The process can revolve around setting high goals, introducing good habits, eliminating bad ones, and all this all at once. Because things were bad! And I want them to be good!

In previous attempts to adopt a healthy lifestyle, I’ve spent a lot of time making plans, writing lists, establishing incremental goals and imagining a finish line.

But this is all to say that this approach can be … stressful. It can feel a lot like setting myself up for failure. If I decide that certain actions fall in the “good” category and others fall in the “bad” category, I seem to leave myself little room for forgiveness when I inevitably stumble back into a bad habit, or fail to achieve a good one.

this time around
I can feel a difference in myself with this most recent attempt to be healthful: I talk about my goals for the gym as my “ultimate” goals; I eat the donut (and count the points); I sleep in some mornings that I’d planned to head to the gym.

I hadn’t found it terribly easy to articulate why I think this is the right approach this time, but I tried to relate it to someone just the other day, and I think I hit the nail on the head. It went something like:

So why is this looser tactic good for me right now? I see two key things that make it feel right:

1. (Specific to my gym goals) I want to establish a happy relationship with my exercise. There are some mornings I DO NOT WANT to go the gym. On those days, I would be very grudgingly hitting my alarm clock at 5 a.m., I’d be donning workout attire that would likely feel a size too small (because of my own frustration at even being awake) and I would take my heavy, slow legs to the elliptical machine.

I ain’t dumb. I know that on days like that, many people say that once they make themselves go and get on the machine, they feel better. And I’ll get there, one day. But right now, I want to work on building a strong and happy relationship with exercise. I want to reinforce the notion that the gym is a place I go because I’m excited to go there. That it’s a place I go because I have the energy and motivation to make it part of my life.

And I have those days a lot. And I have this strong notion that those days will breed more days like that. And then longer visits to the gym. And  then adding weights to my routine. And a class.

I want to nurture my exercise through positive experiences. I *also* want to have room for forgiveness on the days I don’t wake up at 5 a.m. and don sneakers. I don’t want to rack up guilt over my actions. I know me. Feelings of guilt feed my bad habits. So how about eliminating that guilt?

2. (And I think this is perhaps more valuable) I want to trust myself. The lists, goals, enumeration of bad habits that I’ve taken up in the past, they sometimes felt like penance for having made wrong, unhealthy choices.

The thing is, I’m not a bad person. Nor am I an untrustworthy sentinel of my own happy life. I treat myself like I am sometimes, and that’s another way I rack up guilt; another reason to berate myself; another way to introduce negativity into my life.

I can trust myself. I refuse to do otherwise.

So adopting the attitude that I know it’ll all be OK if I decide to skip the gym this morning or to eat that one donut, it’s empowering. Because what I *know* is that I’ll continue to make good choices. I’m going to find bad choices peppered through my life. It will seldom be the bad choices themselves that lead to trouble, but the idea that I can’t recover from them, or that they define me.

I’m defined by the smart, able person that I am. I’d like to start giving her credit.

caveat, of course
These two concepts only work in the context of me having finally come to terms with the work that it takes to be healthy. If I had never learned how to eat nutritiously or that exercise was an absolute must in my life, these could easily be crutches to justify bad decision after bad decision.

I get the feeling, though, that I have learned some things that I cannot unlearn … about how to be a thoughtful eater and a motivated, active person. Within *that* context, this approach feels absolutely right.