You Canโ€™t Eat Love

Stars arenโ€™t just for kindergarteners

Or how to trick yourself into building new habits

Leslie Lindsey Davis
3 min readSep 19, 2021

Have you ever set a goal for yourself? A goal of something you want to accomplish ๐˜ซ๐˜ถ๐˜ด๐˜ต ๐˜ฃ๐˜ฆ๐˜ค๐˜ข๐˜ถ๐˜ด๐˜ฆ? It ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ๐—ฎ๐—น๐—น๐˜† is not going to change your life, but ๐™ž๐™ฉ ๐™ฌ๐™ž๐™ก๐™ก change your life. One of those kinds of goals?

Well, back in July 2020, when it became really obvious this whole, โ€˜we will be back to normal in just a couple of weeksโ€™ thing was not going to happen, ๐˜ ๐˜ด๐˜ต๐˜ข๐˜ณ๐˜ต๐˜ฆ๐˜ฅ ๐˜ง๐˜ฐ๐˜ค๐˜ถ๐˜ด๐˜ช๐˜ฏ๐˜จ ๐˜ฐ๐˜ฏ ๐˜ด๐˜ฐ๐˜ฎ๐˜ฆ ๐˜ค๐˜ณ๐˜ข๐˜ป๐˜บ, ๐˜ธ๐˜ฉ๐˜บ ๐˜ฏ๐˜ฐ๐˜ต ๐˜ข๐˜ฏ๐˜ฅ ๐˜ซ๐˜ถ๐˜ด๐˜ต ๐˜ฃ๐˜ฆ๐˜ค๐˜ข๐˜ถ๐˜ด๐˜ฆ ๐˜จ๐˜ฐ๐˜ข๐˜ญ๐˜ด.

๐™Š๐™ฃ๐™š ๐™ค๐™› ๐™ฉ๐™๐™š๐™ข ๐™ฌ๐™–๐™จ ๐™™๐™š๐™–๐™™๐™ก๐™ž๐™›๐™ฉ๐™ž๐™ฃ๐™œ ๐Ÿญ๐Ÿณ๐Ÿฑ๐™ก๐™—๐™จ.

Now, I can hear you asking โ€œwhy in the heck would you pick ๐—ง๐—›๐—”๐—ง as a goalโ€? Well, I really donโ€™t have a good answer. The best answer I can give is I wanted to challenge myself to see if I really could lift that much weight. If you were to put goals into buckets of โ€˜life advancingโ€™ and โ€˜vanityโ€™ I guess you could say it would fall into the โ€˜vanityโ€™ bucket. (You have any of those kinds of goals?)

I told Jackie (the most amazing trainer in the whole wide world) this was what I wanted to do, so we got to work. The heaviest I had lifted (and with a lot of struggle) before this crazy decision was 130. I could struggle 150, but it was just that, a ๐—›๐—จ๐—š๐—˜ struggle and ๐˜ฏ๐˜ฐ๐˜ต very pretty at all.

I wanted to get to 175 by my birthday. Well, I blew past that and ๐˜ข๐˜ค๐˜ต๐˜ถ๐˜ข๐˜ญ๐˜ญ๐˜บ ๐˜ญ๐˜ช๐˜ง๐˜ต๐˜ฆ๐˜ฅ 185 ๐˜ฐ๐˜ฏ ๐˜ฎ๐˜บ ๐˜ฃ๐˜ช๐˜ณ๐˜ต๐˜ฉ๐˜ฅ๐˜ข๐˜บ. I still remember how excited I was! Jackie was pretty excited too. We jumped around, shouting and high-fiving. ๐—ง๐—ต๐—ฒ๐—ป, after savoring the moment, for a moment, I said, I want to aim for 210lbs.

Me deadlifting 185lbs

Why 210? Like so many answers to so many random questions in my life

โ€” โ€œ๐˜ž๐˜ฉ๐˜บ ๐˜ฏ๐˜ฐ๐˜ต?โ€

I must confess, I shared that goal with my youngest son and he challenged me to aim for 225lbs. I thought about it for a moment, and said โ€œWhy not?โ€

Well, for the past several months, I have been stuck at 210. ๐’ฅ๐“Š๐“ˆ๐“‰ ๐“ˆ๐“‰๐“Š๐’ธ๐“€.

I changed up some of my workouts on the other days, focused on being able to move heavier weights andโ€ฆ

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Leslie Lindsey Davis

Author, self-appointed podcast reviewer, mother, wife, crazy about deadlifting, and believes nothing should be left undone. No ragrets, Not a single letter.