I need some help!
You see, a few years ago, I was rather fat. I had let my weight creep up and up and up. I topped out at just under 190 pounds. Because I didn’t pack all the weight on at once, I didn’t realize quite how fat I was getting until one day I looked at some recent photographs. I was crushed.
That day, I made up my mind that I was going to lose weight. Weight struggles run in my family. Sure, my family tends to be rather skinny until 21 years of age or so. Once we reached that magic age, almost every single person in both my immediate and extended family gained a ton of weight. Myself included.
Over the next two or so years, I slimmed way down. At first, I just watched what I ate, meticulously counting every calorie. I lost quite a bit of weight that way but plateaued around 145 pounds. Then I started exercising, using the Wii’s Walk it Out video game and running 3x a week. That helped me lose the remainder of my weight and I dropped down to 118 pounds. I was quite proud of myself but it was hard to maintain that weight. I didn’t keep up with the exercise, nor did I continue tracking my calories. My weight slowly crept back up and I settled in at 124 pounds for a few months. I was happy there.
And then… I’ve had two pretty big bouts of drama in the last eight months. I’m an emotional eater. I also struggle when I lack control of my own life. I was out of town on two separate occasions, both of which involved very stressful events, and my weight has suffered. I’m now just ounces shy of 140 pounds and am very unhappy about it.
I’m sort of motivated to get back to 124 pounds. I WANT to get back to 124 pounds. But I cringe at the amount of work it took the last time I lost weight. I’ve been tossing around ideas with my husband, trying to find a way to get the motivation back. The last three weeks, I’ve run 2-3 times each week. It took a couple runs but I’m back at 1 mile per run. It’s a starting point. I used to run 5k routes every weekend. I ran a couple of 5k races and enjoyed it. Running is not a favorite form of exercise but it’s doable IF I force myself out the door. It’s not exactly fun, but it’s effective.
I want to get back to my ideal weight by the time we travel to Taiwan. I want to meet my daughter in a body that I feel comfortable with. I don’t want her to look at me and cringe at the thought of going home with “the fat American lady.” We travel in 6-9 months. Hopefully. It’s hard to guess how long it will be because the process can speed up or slow down. But I think it would be fair to say that I can reach 124 pounds by the end of October. Right?
15 pounds in four months. Now I just have to make myself do it.
Tell me… how do you motivate yourself to eat healthy? To exercise? To lose weight?
