Positivity

I'm working on being more positive with myself, focusing on the things I accomplish instead of the things I didn't. The comment from my dear sister on my last post helped remind me of that. Instead of being frustrated with myself for only running 5 miles, I should be proud that I got out there and did the 5, even though they were difficult. Instead of beating myself up about eating Yogurtland three times last week, I should be proud that it wasn't seven times.

My job is being the assistant to the director of about 15 medical offices in the Salt Lake area, and every other week, we meet with the managers of all of our clinics to discuss issues, present new information, and talk about how things are going. One of the biggest things that my company is promoting is Living Well, both to our employees and our patients. Since we all will have better health if we focus on exercising more and living a healthier lifestyle, it translates to our jobs and how we provide care to patients. With huge changes in the health care system, we are all going to be held responsible for the choices we have control over, and will probably start to see serious consequences if we choose to ignore the issues.

So part of our wellness kickoff was giving presentations about healthy living to our managers. Each person on our admin team took a topic (Eat Well, Sleep Well, Move Well, Stress Well), and mine was Eat Well. I felt a little silly going in front of 35 people who manage employees and run clinics, since I am not the poster child for healthy eating (see paragraph 1, sentence 4). But I did a lot of research and gave a presentation about what had worked for me: never trying to "give up" your favorite foods, looking at healthy eating as a lifestyle instead of a diet, and fads that don't work on a long-term basis. I don't talk a ton about when I lost all my weight, mostly because I feel like it's not relevant to most conversations, and I don't want to be the person who is always talking about weight loss. But it was interesting to give this presentation to people who don't know much about my history or story, and still give information that was useful. It made me feel good when several people came up to me afterwards and thanked me for the information about how to pack a delicious salad for a quick and healthy lunch, without all the lettuce and veggies getting soggy (pack it in a mason jar), or share their own favorite healthy eating tip that can help me as I continue.

My boss gave a presentation in which she mentioned what she calls "drops of awesome." This is a system that her family has initiated, where you focus on all the little successes instead of the big, overwhelming goals. So my drop of awesome last week was cutting out one Diet Coke per day, and substituting water in its place. Oh, and not going to Yogurtland every single day!