To be or not to be.... Fat

Photo courtesy of harmonyharbor.com

The other day I went to the store to get a pair of jeans and they didn't have a single pair in my size. Not one! Now, I know that I am overweight and it is something I am making a conscious effort to fix, but I think it’s silly that stores don’t carry anything larger than a 12. It’s embarrassing. I walked out of the store in tears, tired of being fat.

I have been reading a lot of blogs today about weight loss success stories and tips people have for sticking with it. I have wondered for a while what the difference is between the person who is able to succeed and the person who doesn't.

It can’t be that one person just has better luck. We all have crappy things that happen to us and often the people who lose a lot of weight have suffered far worse than those who can’t seem to hack it.

It certainly isn't money. A lot of people lose weight using nothing more than an outdoor track and their own body weight.

I had a wake-up moment yesterday, in which I think I figured out the major difference between the people who successfully get healthy and those who keep failing. My husband and I hit the gym yesterday for the first time in a while. I was pretty pumped up about my work out until I came home to shower. I stripped and was standing in front of the mirror and it just hit me: Losing the weight I need to is going to take forever, and wham! Just like that my excitement and adrenaline rush dropped through the floor.

It didn't seem to matter that I figured out how many pounds per month I needed to lose to meet my goal (or that the goal was pretty doable), it didn't matter that I’d busted my arse on the elliptical and it didn't matter that I’d given up soda. I was fat and the weight was not coming off easy.

When I told my husband that going to the gym made me feel even fatter, he responded that I was “looking at it the wrong way.” He told me, instead of focusing on how far I still have to go, that I should be focusing on what I already accomplished. I went to the gym-for the first time in six weeks and I didn't die. I haven’t had soda in 53 days. We haven’t eaten out in 36 days.

What I think the difference is between people who successfully lose weight and those who keep failing is that those who finally succeed do so because they start focusing on the right things. Instead of focusing on what they “can’t have” or how much longer it’s going to take, they really focus on what they are going to get in the end.

No, I can’t have my Dr. P. No I can’t snarf down pizza for late night snacks and no, I can’t sit on the couch for hours on end and expect to lose weight. Yes, it hurts like mad to work out. Yes, I cry because I’m an emotional eater and I am no longer eating to get rid of my stress and it’s an embarrassingly emotional issue for me. Yes, it’s going to take a full year for me to lose the weight I want while maintaining a lifestyle that is doable for me.

I know that I am capable of a lot more. I just never finish anything because it gets to hard or too stressful. I know if I can just lose this weight I’ll know that I can do anything, and my hope is that boost of self-confidence will help me make improvements in other areas of my life.

So my goal this week is to stop the self-sabotage. Stop quitting before I really get going. Stop making excuses to avoid the long journey and just do it. Like I tell my girls: Suck it up Buttercup! It’s time to put my big-girl pants on so I can fit into little girl pants!

In what ways do you find yourself sabotaging yourself when it comes to finishing a goal?