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Gardening: A Great Way To Better Health
By Flower | March 11, 2010
After a long time working for a big company, I quit my job and started my own consulting business. I loved not having to wake up to an alarm clock, not having to commute, and having the freedom of making my own schedule. After awhile, I started to notice that I had put on a few pounds. I told myself it was no big deal, I would get into a workout routine after my business was up and running.
Well, in two years I managed to gain fifty pounds. Instead of making time to work out, I poured all my energy into my business. The business was doing great, but I was falling apart. Instead of making my own schedule, my schedule was controlling me. I was fat, stressed, tired and running out of motivation to stay in business. I knew it was time to do something drastic.
As a last-ditch effort to turn things around, I made the decision to join a gym. I figured the gym contract and expense of the whole thing would guilt me into never missing a workout. It would force me to follow through.
I kept putting it off. Then, one particularly stressful day, I made some coffee and went out on the back porch to take a break. It was a beautiful day, and I was feeling upset that I never got outside anymore. To distract me from all the negative thoughts and stress, I grabbed a book from the side table. It was a gardening book.
I was completely in love with the idea of gardening and had been since I was a kid. I loved everything about it, from digging in the soil to harvesting. I had a huge collection of gardening books and a file cabinet full of articles. It was all for the day that I would finally have time to get a garden of my own.
That’s when it hit me. Why force myself to go to the gym when I could get a workout doing something I always wanted to do? All that money I was about to spend to motivate myself with guilt could be used instead to by garden supplies. I could motivate myself with something rewarding! No treadmills or bikes, no ugly rooms filled with other sweaty, stressed people. At that moment I realized I a garden could help me live longer and also be happier.
So I went for it. And though I won’t be getting into skinny jeans any time soon, I have lost some weight. But even better, I found an effective way to manage my stress while realizing a dream. There is nothing more soothing and satisfying to me than to take a basket outside and fill it with fresh vegetables from my garden. On a hectic day it is so easy to give myself permission to shut the door to my home office and go out in the garden for a half hour to recharge. When I crave a snack I graze in my garden or treat myself with a gardening article. My garden taught me being healthy is not just about weight. It’s about finding out how to be happy.
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