"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts"

I’ve been on this journey for a very long time. When I first started out, I felt so overwhelmed. I thought that I would never understand everything there was to know, that there was just too much information to seek, gather, process, and commit to memory. But I assumed that, one day, I would “get it”. I would have learned how to be healthy. I would learn everything I needed to know about what foods to eat, and how to cook them. What exercises to do and when to do them. What things to say to motivate my husband, what things to say to motivate my kids, what things to say to motivate myself.

I never woke up and thought “ok, now I know it all” The day just didn’t come. My passion for health and fitness grew and changed, and with it came a desire to learn more and more each day. I started toying with the idea of becoming a personal trainer when I lived in England. I didn’t pursue it though, because there was just so much more to learn. I wasn’t ready. I considered it again when we were living in Las Vegas. But, again, I told myself I just didn’t know enough. I had too much to figure out.

When we moved home, I finally made the decision to follow my passion, and accepted that I was always going to be learning. There is always something new out there, some idea I have never heard, an exercise I haven’t tried, a new recipe to prepare, new studies. I accepted that it’s ok to not know everything. I’ve learned a lot, and I am ready to continue learning.

The most important lesson I have learned, with the help of sparkpeople, the moms at MLW, my co-workers and my training is that this is a journey with no end. It’s not about reaching a goal weight, it’s not about fitting into size 4’s, Goals are wonderful motivators, but they are not the end of the journey.

I’ve learned that self doubt is normal, that even experts have problem areas, that we judge ourselves far more harshly than anyone else will ever judge us, and that body image does not magically change.

This is not a journey to have a perfect body- this is a journey to learn to love and appreciate my body for what it can do. I am not going to be able to completely rid myself of doubts, and I can accept that now. Because I know that the goal is not to remove all doubt, but to learn to live with it without letting it consume me. I know now that I am not going to wake up one day and just automatically feel confident and 100% pleased with how I look and feel. Changing my body image is a choice, and one that I will work on each day that I am on this journey.

Most importantly, I have learned that there is always more to learn. The goal is not to have all the answers. The goal is to keep asking questions.