Lessons learned from MIL visit

I know, a weird concept, but I think there were some lessons I learned from her visit. Her words are quoted.  My MIL is in her 70s and based on this trip, Hubby and I think this might be her last trip to AK.
She spent just a week with us, and I'm glad she was able to visit. It took some time for me to learn these lessons, but they are still something to think about.

1. "I did the things I wanted to and some I didn't. I climbed that mountain, even though I didn't want to." Yes, these were my dear MILs parting words.  We all do things we don't want to do, but have to do them anyway.  The mountain she talked about isn't really a mountain but a walk to the waterfalls.  It felt like a mountain to her because she does not get out an walk.  She admits she is out of shape.  For me, getting healthy is my mountain.  It seems like I will never reach my goal, but I won't give up.
2. "You used to be skinny?" Perception! I has taken me a month to get over "being skinny" to "being healty", but when a person doesn't understand why you are working out, it hurts to hear that the work you have done is gone unnoticed.  She is older, and conviced that her weight gain is only because of her Thryoid. 

3.  "Isn't your weight determined by your Thryoid?"  This is her reason why she isn't healthy.  It helped me realize that there are lots of excuses, some sound sillier than others.  My weight issue is because of what
I eat and exercise.  I used to not exercise, and that helped my weight gain.  I saw this saying on the web somewhere: You can't out train a bad diet.  If I'm eating like crap, I will gain weight.
4. "This is a typical house in Alaska.". Typical...nothing is ever that easy.  She is trying to put Alaska in a little box that fits her thougts, but just like there is not a typical house, there is not a typical workout.  As my body gets used to what I'm doing, I need to change things up; either increase the weights or do something different. 
5. "You don't just look around the stores anymore?" She went grocery shopping with us and wanted to look around.  Hubby doesn't like crowds, and generally we shop early Saturday or Sunday morning.  Since she was here, we went on a Friday afternoon (not the best time for hubby, but we were making MIL happy.)  She wanted to look around, while he wanted to get our groceries and get out.  Rushing through life...sometimes you have to slow down. Whether it is slowing down to actually smell the roses, or in weight loss, sometimes, slowly is best.