In my experience, I find that I eat healthier when I’m by myself versus when I feel like I’m around people that I feel judge my eating habits. I almost want to rebel in the presence of those people. It’s not the smartest, but… it’s what happens.

I actually experienced the exercise thing this morning, too. I woke up and got ready to make breakfast, then thought – “Wow – I’d really love to go hiking today.” I hadn’t been in 4 months and was way slacking on the exercise, but I hadn’t been beating myself up over it and the exercise was that much more rewarding today.

I love you!
Rachel´s last blog ..My friends ROCK. Birthday presents revealed:

I also have this theory that not doing something for whatever period of time has a lot to do with rhythm. I think it’s hardly ever because the person is lazy or not good at following through or all the other things we beat ourselves up about. I think it has a lot to do with what’s right, right now. I’ll get in exercise grooves and then I get out of them and get down on myself. But then if I take a look, often I see that I got out of the groove because something subtle in my schedule changed and I needed to shift to accommodate. Or I’ll see that it was really that I had become tired of the certain exercises I had once been excited about. It’s always about some kind of subtle shift.

Anyway, thanks for your words about giving full, loving permission NOT to do something. Just reading that makes me feel relief (and I’m not even stressed about this topic right now!) and reminds me of that precious self-acceptance that we know we need but then forget in what seems like every second.