Once the exercise and healthy eating are under control the last part of the puzzle is managing your stress. There is tons of research that indicates that stress causes you to add fat as part of the "fight or flight" response.
The thing I most struggle with is my expectations of others. It's funny because I used to preach to my sales people back in my car business days to manage their clients expectations. Basically, to under-promise and over-deliver. That makes for happy clients.
I am great at managing others' expectation, but I have been failing miserably at managing my own. This is my new goal.
I know, for instance, that Athena and I are lucky if we only have 2 close calls with vehicles while we are out walking less that 1 1/2 hours. I KNOW that it will happen and yet I kept allowing it to make me angry. That makes me an idiot more than the person in the car is. Obviously, they do not encounter people using crosswalks as often as I encounter them.
The last 2 walks I have employed this new way of thinking to great comfort. Instead of making them feel miserable by chiding them I make sure they see us and give them an opportunity to recognize that people do occasionally walk in crosswalks. I bet they learn more from that than they do from the yelling anyway.
In a more global vision my goal is to continue to try to affect change where I can control situations. Those are good places to keep your expectations high. Mirror the behavior I want to see in others where I can. There is no better way to teach sometimes. And learn to expect people to act the way they are going to act anyway and not mess up the flow by expecting a higher level of cooperation than is realistic.
Basically, if I can't fix it - forget it and move on. I have spent over 50 years learning the wrong way so this new plan will remain a work in progress for a while, but I am working at it.
Be very well and more soon....
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