I'd like to start off today by thanking Jennifer at slim-shoppin.com for featuring me as part of her "weight loss success" series. You can check it out by clicking HERE.
One of the questions she asked me was: "What kind of obstacles did you have along the way, did you ever want to quit?"
My answer:
This is probably going to sound unbelievable, but I would have to say that losing the weight wasn’t the hard part. Making the initial decision to DO IT was the hard part, after that it was simple. The only obstacle I truly faced was that initial decision. I had to love myself enough to take those first steps. January 5, 2009 is what I refer to as “the day I saved my life”. I knew each step was bringing me one step closer to a new “healthy me”.
I know people WANT to hear that it was hard, that I struggled, that I “fell off the wagon”. That may make me more relatable, but it wouldn’t be true. No, I never wanted to quit. Looking back there’s not a single thing I would change about how I ate or worked out along the way. There was no wasted time or mistakes. Sure I would occasionally eat bad but those times were few and quite frankly that’s just part of life. I think what has made me so successful is that I never looked at an overindulgence as a mistake. I just moved on from there and looked at the next meal as an opportunity to eat right. And that’s what counts, moving on. Because in the large scale of things a few overindulgence’s mean nothing.
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I usually have the words to express my feeling, but I'll admit that question took me awhile to answer. I didn't want someone to read that and think I'm demeaning all the work that goes into losing weight and getting healthy, but at the same time I had to answer truthfully. I understand the wavering that some people go through when trying to lose weight. I did that for years, trust me... I get it. But this time was different. This time failing wasn't an option.
Of course that doesn't mean that completely overhauling my lifestyle was easy, so I got to thinking about "tips" I could pass on to you.
Along the way I found that one of the things that helped me achieve and maintain obesity could also help me succeed in my new healthy life.
Procrastination
In my past life (I'm talking fat life, not reincarnation here people :)), I procrastinated working out, put off eating well and always planned to change TOMORROW. Well, tomorrow turned into weeks, months and years and before I knew it unhealthy habits were in place and I was heading towards and early grave.
Well, in order to lose weight and regain control of my life I needed to break those habits so once again I turned to the power of procrastination. I'm aware that word usually has a negative connotation, but I found I could use it to my benefit.
In the beginning I didn't even realize I was doing it. When faced with a food temptation I would just tell myself, "You don't need pizza right now. You can have it tomorrow." And I would repeat that for whatever temptation came along. Soon, I no longer even thought about it. Putting off eating "bad", by default eating "good" foods, soon created good HABITS. It stopped being about denial and started being about actually ENJOYING eating well.
The same thing went for working out. I have mentioned before that when I started this journey I issued myself a 21 day challenge. I promised myself to eat right and work out for 21 days straight, hoping to form new habits. After that set time frame I gave myself permission to quit. But that didn't happen. Once again procrastinating, even putting off quitting in this case, led to the healthy habit of regular exercise.
And of course later on I applied it (and still do) to running. It turns out, no matter how much you love running, you're just going to have days where you're not feeling it. So I tell myself, "Just get out there for 15 minutes, if you're absolutely hating it then you can stop." I've used that technique many times and haven't ever stopped mid-run because of course I start enjoying myself and soon forget about my plan to quit.
So, for all of those out there that are struggling with weight loss, healthy habits or running then I say feel free to quit. Yep, I said it. Go ahead and quit, but just do it TOMORROW.