 |
| Photo courtesy of harmonyharbor.com |
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?
