what motivates me?

one thing i expect about this journey is to get questions. mainly the question of: how are you doing it? but i think i've only been asked that question once. weird. the main question i get, which i wrote about on saturday is "how do you feel?" this is a question i wasn't really expecting, and a question that i don't know how to answer. ask me "how are you doing it?" and i could talk forever about working out and eating right and the struggles that come along with working out and eating right. but ask me "how do you feel?" my first instinct is to say "i don't know".

a few weeks ago a woman see's me in the restroom at work and asked me "what motivated you?". now i see this woman probably everyday at work, and she often makes comments of "you look great" etc... i also don't really know this woman. we aren't in the same work group, we just happen to work on the same floor, and use the same restroom. when she asked what motivates me, i said "what doesn't?" because really, why wouldn't i WANT to be thinner? i feel like the reason's behind my weight loss are endless.

to be more comfortable

to live life more fully

to shop anywhere

to increase my chances of meeting my husband

lastly

to be healthy

i didn't have one A HA moment. i believe that nobody WANTS to be fat, and that every overweight person out there doesn't want to be overweight. and of course everyone has their own excuses for not losing weight. no need for me to go into those. i'm truly lucky because a lot of people use the excuse as time for lack of being active etc... i don't have that excuse, i never really have. i have all the time in the world. single, no kids, i do realize how blessed i am to be able to focus this time on myself. because i don't have any time to divide. i don't have a husband or kids to think about.

the other thing that rarely happens when you are an overweight person is actually seeing a success story. you see overweight people stay overweight. prior to last year the only successful weight loss stories i had personally seen with my own two eyes were people who went under the knife. then last a year a friend of mine did slimgenics, and i saw the results. everyone else i had seen lose weight had gained it all back. so finding motivation (besides the obvious) is hard.

so what finally happened for me to kick my ass into high gear and actually do it? well a few things. i definitely had some very low moments at my highest weight. one of which was realizing i was actually gaining. after aaron and i broke up i was depressed and eating a lot. not just eating a lot, but also eating out a lot.

at the end of 2007/early 2008 i was working four 10 hour shifts, 8am - 7pm, and had a 40mile commute, and had just starting working for the Union in my call center job. with various meetings throughout the day i would always have questions to ask my Union "boss", and since i had almost an hour drive home i would always call her when i got off of work to chat and ask my questions. during our conversations i would always stop at a local drive through and order dinner. after many conversations of asking my boss to hold so i could order food she once came on the line and said "do you ever cook?" that was one wake up call. it was shortly after that time that i gave myself the rule to not eat out during the work week.

another happened at an airport in florida. it would have been either the ft. lauderdale or tampa airport, i'm not sure. ...this is where my timeline gets hazy. i believe i was probably at my heaviest sometime between summer 2006 and summer 2008. anyways i was at the airport to return home from my annual florida trip. i was standing in line to board the plane and this little girl looks and points at me and tells her mom "look mom, that lady has a baby in her belly." she kept repeating it over and over. thankfully she wasn't saying it loud, and the mom was distracted having a conversation with someone else. another wake up call.

another low moment also happened at the airport, but this time inside the plane. this would have been either christmas 2006 or christmas 2007. i was flying to albuquerque for the holidays.

i couldn't get my seat belt buckled.

i was horrified. this had never happened to me before, and has never happened again. it was SO close, but i could not get my seat belt to buckle. it was winter, and i had with me my large winter coat. i was way too embarrassed to ask for one of those seat belt extenders, so i flew the whole way home with my coat over me, praying that a flight attendant wouldn't ask to see that my seat belt was buckled. huge wake up call.

lastly was sorta realizing i was actually gaining weight. seeing pictures i don't think i ever realized how much i gained, even though i obviously knew because of how i looked and having to go shopping to buy larger clothes. it's a very similar feeling with losing weight. weird i know. sorta like you don't know it's happening but it is because of the proof. but i remember when i was gaining my clothes feeling so tight and so uncomfortable. everything hurt. i remember when i finally gave in and bought new pants. thinking i had only gone up from a size 20 to 22, i was horrified when i realized that the 22's were also too big, and that i had to go to a 24. and now my clothes are uncomfortably too big. my size 16's are getting looser!

none of the above moments were the 'one' responsible for making me lose weight. but they are all reason's for why i started this journey. embarrassing to share with the blogging world?, absolutely. but i think it is important to share as i'm getting rid of the person who lived all of those moments. i think mentally putting all of these details out there is like shedding skin. yes, it was once part of my "imprint" and always will be, but the actual layer is gone.

i will say that it does feel great to be my own success story. although i still have 40 pounds to go i know that i'll get there. then the journey will take a new twist from losing to maintaining. because i know maintaining will be a completely different type of challenge. that i will still have to do what it is that i'm doing. along with the rest of the thin people in the world. it is somewhat comforting that all the thin people in the world really have to work to be thin too. which is true. have you ever been inside of a gym? majority of the people working out are thinner. why?, because they don't want to be fat. simple as that.

zumba 60min