...aka, fake it til you make it.
I think there are a lot of people out there like me. Fat, sick of it, but not really motivated to change much. Sometimes, people just get tired of the whole diet scene and burned out on weight loss efforts, blogging, counting calories, weighing everything they eat, eliminating whole food categories, etc. It's hard, and I think the older you get the harder it becomes. When I was in my 20's, changing my eating habits wasn't so bad. My first husband had celiac disease, so mid-marriage we had to switch everything we were eating and I had to learn to cook with potato starch, rice flour and xanthan gum. And I did it in a remote location, at a time when hardly anybody had Internet (not even the local libraries, if you young'uns can fathom it). There was no support, there were no stores with gluten-free bread or baking mixes, and if I wanted to know how to make something my husband could eat, I opened the one gluten-free cookbook I had and followed the recipe in there. And you know, it wasn't so bad. It wasn't terrible and I don't even remember being remotely phased by it. Sure, I still ate some gluten myself, but most of my cooking changed... a lot. I was flexible. It was easy to make changes. Now? Not so much. I am far more set in my ways (tastes) and have a lot less energy and interest in figuring out a whole new way to eat. And I think that's why a lot of people stay fat. You might want to change, but not CHANGE. Not like that. And sometimes, unless there is some crisis looming because of your weight (like diabetes or sleep apnea or whatever) or some big emotional turning point (like not being able to do something important with your family because of your size), the weight seems more like an annoyance and an inconvenience than an urgent situation that needs to be changed. Sometimes the dietary changes are more of an annoyance and an inconvenience than being fat.
But you know, once you get going and lose some weight, you start to feel better and move more freely and have a better attitude. You get ten or twenty pounds down the road and realize how much better life is and that carries you forward to more weight loss and hopefully better health. But getting started is THE hardest thing. It's something a lot of people are going to be thinking about in a couple of weeks, with the new year and resolutions and all of that. Me? Nah, I am pretty much over the whole new years resolution thing. I sit here and think about weight loss and part of me is angry that just a couple months ago, before my injury, I was SO CLOSE to being back under 200. I got to 208 and now after a month on crutches and a whole lot of physical therapy to be able to walk again, I am 18 pounds heavier than I was pre-injury. I wonder where I'd be right now had I not fallen. I was on a roll, I was doing so well, and then this injury took me out. It makes me mad that now instead of being 8 pounds away from 200, I am 26 pounds away. Makes me want to throw my hands up and give up. Almost.
And then another part of me, as I said in another post, sees the light and wants to keep on working at this. I did not come this far and keep so much weight off for this long to gain it back. But how to you do it when you SO lack motivation?? My answer is, fake it til you make it. Right now I do not feel like making a weight goal, or getting on a scale regularly, or messing with my food intake. But I am going to do it anyway. The alternative is too scary. So here it is.
I will be getting back on the scale every Sunday for weigh ins, to keep myself accountable.
My goal is to get back to 175 pounds in 2014.
I think if I can get the ball rolling with weight loss, I might even make it to 175 by my birthday in July. A pound and a half a week, maybe a little more, and I'd be there.
I don't know if it's possible, but that's my goal, and at least it's a start.
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