PNP...It's a Lifestyle

We just wrapped up our first retreat and it was AMAZING. I sit here in astonishment at what wonderful women find their way to me, join our site, and then come together to make ourselves stronger and healthier. Trust me, it's a true measure of the quality of people you have in your life when you can get 30 women together and all they do is get along, laugh, cry, and celebrate having the chance to grow themselves.

Pictures will be coming soon but today I wanted to blog some of my thoughts from camp to help all my readers who love to learn through the PNP girls experiences.

Lesson One: PNP, losing weight, and getting fit really is about a lifestyle.
Getting healthy is not a program or today's hottest eating plan. It's about finding how you can be the healthiest person you can be while juggling family, friends, work, hobbies, and a world of other commitments. Sometimes that is eating clean and other days it means having two slices of pizza versus a whole. Basically - being the healthiest person you can be is not black and white and limited to what some trainer or nutritionist said to eat. It is evaluating and making honest choices given each time you go to the gym and put a piece of food in your mouth.

Lesson Two: It takes work.
Life isn't easy. It takes planning, prepping, scheduling, moving around, juggling, and doing things VERY OFTEN that you need to do versus you want to do. The same goes for you health. Eating better and moving more often takes a little planning, prepping, thinking, and juggling to get it done.

I have saying, "If you are out of shape it's because you are taking the easy way out somewhere." Find out where that is and get to work.

Lesson Three: Lifestyle means being mindful of what you do.
I talked all weekend about two ideas: work to YOUR OWN potential and make the best choice you can. Do you know which girls I worry about the most on my site? It's the ones who don't think before they skip exercise or shove a big mac in their mouth. Those girls have no awareness, they have no chance to do a little better, and they go to bed each night feeling guilty and ashamed of their choices.

If I could offer one piece of advice to anyone who wants to lose weight and be a healthier person it is to simply make a choice every time you exercise and eat. Some days a walk is all you got in you. That's fine. It's better than doing nothing because what you know you can do isn't on the "schedule". Other days, life is coming at you like a hail storm. Your old self would just go to the local pizza buffet for dinner and eat until happy. What if you decided ordering pizza, thin crust, and just enough for the family? Having pizza isn't the best choice but it damn sure is the BETTER choice.

And, that is the lesson in the end. We all have to strive to be BETTER than we were yesterday. Some days you will be on fire and other days a slow burn is better than fizzling out.

I am having surgery tomorrow and you will see some surgery blogs coming up as I intend to chronicle the journey. I hope you all enjoy it and thanks for being such a supporter of PNP.

Comments

[Emily]

You'll be in my thoughts and prayers today! :) Emily

[lizzy]

Good luck with the surgery and congrats to you for making this decision! i know it can't be an easy one to make, but you deserve it!! Hope all goes well!