One week till RWA

With just one week till RWA '12, I've gone from resolutions to to-do lists and schedule-making. I won't bore you with an accounting of my multiple lists and spreadsheets.  Suffice it to say I'm the type who plans out my outfits for each day and has a schedule of workshops with second and sometimes third choices for each hour should the first prove less intriguing and useful than the title and handouts led me to hope.

The last six weeks have led me to reflect, glumly, on my habit of making vows to eat better, exercise more, and really-o, truly-o stick with Weight Watchers this time, only to give up after a week or two, as soon as some mini-crisis upsets my precarious equilibrium.  It makes it hard to start over again, because why should I expect myself to do better next time?

But I don't want to give up, either, and say, "This is the body I have, and these are my eating and exercise habits, now please pass the potato chips." I've got the family history, and I'm starting to have the cholesterol and triglyceride numbers, to tell me what a bad idea that is.  Not to mention that I'd really love the wider array of shopping options open to me if I were at my goal weight, two or three sizes smaller than I am now.  Plus, I'd see my cheekbones again. I miss them.

Yet somehow I don't think deciding to start Weight Watchers again the day after I get back from conference and really meaning it this time is the answer. I'm still figuring out what the answer might be, but I think it involves A) starting with smaller steps to give myself some victories, and thereby build in some new habits that won't collapse as soon as I have a deadline or a fever or something crazy happens at work, and B) stepping back and doing some serious brainstorming about what a healthy life would look like for someone with my combination of gifts and constraints, and then planning what it would take to get there.  In other words, plan my healthy lifestyle the way I plan my writing schedule for a new manuscript, or my ever-evolving 5-year writing career goals, or the way we tackle backlogs at my day job, rather than grabbing some one-size-fits-all plan and trying to force it to fit.

I've got some ideas for both A and B, and I've also got a new, marathon-distance goal for myself: the big European trip I'm planning for the summer of 2015.  I'm planning to be at Waterloo for the bicentennial of the battle, and I'm hoping to spend at least a month in Europe on either side of the anniversary. That's just a little less than three years away, and a smidge over 1000 days.

So that's the new goal.  1000 days from now, I'll be making lists and schedules for the trip of a lifetime instead of an annual conference.  I want to be ready to jaunt around the Continent as the healthiest, fittest, and most energetic version of me as I can muster. All I need is the right plan and steps to make that happen.