Take that Advice!

Have you ever had a problem and asked for advice--only to completely ignore the advice that was given? I feel like I'm constantly guilty of this--but I never really know that I'm doing it. I have two prime examples--I wanted the results, but didn't want to put any effort into it.

The first one has to do with Maverick and bloody noses. This kid gets bloody noses ALL THE TIME. His pediatrician said that it was from the dry heat where I live, and if I wanted to prevent them, all I had to do was spray his nose with a saline spray or put a thin layer of vasoline in his nostrils. For whatever reason, I didn't take his advice (don't ask why, because I have no idea). The bloody noses kept coming, and we just kept dealing with them. Finally I was tired of waking up in the middle of the night to tend to his bloody noses, and I remembered what his doctor had told me. Now, every night before Maverick goes to bed, I grab a q-tip and give his nostrils a thin layer of vasoline in there--and sure enough, it works: no more bloody noses. It makes me wonder how many nose bleeds I could have avoided had I just taken the doctor's advice. 

Another example of me ignoring advice is losing weight. Before I started working out and eating healthy, I kept looking for a shortcut that could get me to my goal weight without me actually having to do anything. Everyone does this; whenever someone loses weight, everyone seems to ask them what their secret was. I received many of these "what's your secret?!" emails--only to disappoint them and tell them that I counted calories, ate healthy, and worked out. No one wants to do that--its not fun--but once you get into the routine of it, it just comes naturally and is no longer a chore. Because I was counting my calories, I am very aware of the portions I eat and how much of it to eat. I can eyeball how much 1 tablespoon of peanut butter looks like now, without having to actually measure it out. I know that those iced coffee drinks (and probably every drink at Starbucks) has an insane amount of calories in just one drink--therefore I never drink my calories anymore. There's no magic pill in the game of losing weight--you just have to want it for yourself. Once you reach your breaking point, eating healthy and exercising wont be hard because you'll crave seeing those results.. and if you're killing yourself in the gym, you can almost guarantee you wont want to eat that brownie because you worked so hard to burn those calories when you did your workout. It took me a while to understand this concept--and my weight ended up getting higher than it had ever been. Thankfully I reached my breaking point pretty quickly and was able to get dialed into the gym. My birthday is in a few weeks, and that means that my drivers license needs to be renewed. I cant explain how excited I am that I don't have to lie about my weight when I renew my license--I'm finally happy with where I'm at. :)

I don't know why I'm hard-headed (sometimes) and don't listen to advice, but now that I'm aware of it, hopefully I can realize when I'm doing it and stop. Are you hard-headed too? Thank goodness I'm only hard-headed sometimes otherwise I'd probably drive Joe crazy! :)