Finding the Motivation
About 6 years ago I lost 50 pounds. The motivation to lose the weight came out of a very unusual place for me. Let me explain...
I am not a vain person. I can go days without even looking at myself in the mirror (odd, strange, yet true). I have been fat all my life and I guess I just know that others will see me as 'the fat guy' and judge me on those merits, and there is nothing I can do about it.
Well, then I received an invitation in the mail for my high school reunion. At first, I wasn't too keen to go -- I have not attended any of my other reunions -- but as I looked over the names of those involved, I felt I wanted to reconnect with some of those schoolmates after all these years.
But the one thing that I was determined to do was lose weight. I did not want to go back to school and see all my old friends and still be the fat dumpy guy I was in school. I wanted to lose weight to show that I could succeed in something. This was very out-of-my-normal-way-of-thinking or behavior, but my determination to not go back to see those people in my fat body was an incredible motivator.
Then about a month before the reunion, I had a change in work and realized that I would not be able to take the time off or be able to afford the travel to attend the reunion. I was severely disappointed. Of course, without attending the reunion as the goal, it reduced my motivation to work out. But the real cause for my weight loss to end was that with the change in my work schedule, I no longer had the time to exercise. On top of that, what put the nail in my weight-loss coffin was giving up my watching of what I ate. I ended up back in all of my old habits I had had for 45 years or more. In the years since then, I have put the 50 pounds back on, plus a little more.
I recently went to the doctor and found out that I really need to lose weight... for the sake of my health. The really odd thing is that, even with a threat to my health, I just cannot seem to find the same motivating force that I had been shocked to find when I wanted to shallowly impress my old high school friends with a slimmer body than they had ever seen. I am not sure of what is wrong. I know I can lose weight because I did it before. But for some reason I just cannot get going on my weight loss plan this time around.
Any suggestions? Or am I a lost cause?
You are definitely not a lost cause. A lot of people always think of losing weight as this huge lifestyle change that has to happen immediately. That is far from the truth. My advice to you is to make small changes in your lifestyle. That includes your diet and working out. For example, instead of drinking a lot of soda, minimize it to only drinking soda like sprite or seven-up. Or, instead of having a burger with bacon and cheese, just do the cheese. Or, instead of taking the elevator all the time, take the stairs in the morning and the elevator at night. Or, park further away from the entrance of any building you go to, to get more steps in. Small things like that will become your "normal" and then you could build on things from there. A lot of people fail when they try to do a drastic change. Those usually fail because, like you said, you lose motivation or it becomes too hard, or you don't see improvements fast enough. Think about things you can do long-term and stick with that.
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