Weight Loss Motivation

The moment that triggered my weight lose motivation was when Sary told me she didn’t want to have a big butt like me when she grew up.  She had just watched Peter Pan the original where there is a focus on Tinker Bells thick thighs and how she is jealous of Wendy’s relationship with Peter.  It was an innocent moment but it hit me hard.  I also felt like that was how I must look to her.  She saw me as a Tinker Bell who was not satisfied with herself.

Another moment of realization and motivation was when Sary asked me if when she grew up she would be on all the vitamins I am on.  That was so sad for me to hear because I knew that if I lost weight and I took control of my life I would be able to get off all of my medicines.

I had always thought that my weight was out of my hands.  I had received this message over and over again from my mother as a child.  She would go on these yo yo diets never really committing and finally giving up and saying I guess I will be fat forever.  I had tried to lose weight but it was never instantaneous enough for me.  I would see when I exercised that my arms got more toned and I looked different but it didn’t change anything about how I felt about myself. 

By the time I had my reality check moment with Sary I had skills I didn’t have when I was a teen and had run out of the excuses I had in my 20s.  I was no longer trying to get pregnant and taking hormones and I knew I would never do that again because my family was complete with Sary and Piper.  I knew that I could overcome PCOS because Jillian Michaels has it too and that didn’t make her stay fat.  So it was up to me.  I could not let the negative thoughts in my head lead me down a path where I would be the mom with the shelf of pills to keep her healthy when I knew controlling my diet and exercise would keep me healthier. 

So here I am 40 pounds lighter seeing that I have met my goals of being healthy for my daughters.  Now I have a new motivation.  I have never been shallow enough to be motivated by pants size or a goal weight.  Mostly those numbers demotivated me because I saw them as unobtainable stumbling blocks.  What motivates me know is being healthy and strong enough to do the physical feats that my husband and I can enjoy together.  I am excited about doing runs with him.  I am happy that we can go on Parkour dates.  I am looking forward to hiking this summer. 

I feel that if the motivations must also be internal or they will fade away.  I am motivated by my own dream to hike the Appalachian Trail and my dream of climbing Gallihugh Mountain. (Where the original Sary lived.)  Last week I celebrated as I went for a walk in the snow with Sary and wasn’t too tired to go back and retrieve her lost glove, which I found half way between home and where we turned around on our walk.  I look forward to rewarding myself for my birthday and getting a bike.  I have always enjoyed riding a bike but for a while I was too fat to comfortably sit on a seat and didn’t have the stamina to ride. 

What motivates you?

When did you take the easy way?

This is a hard one for me because I am someone who likes to take on a challenge the idea of taking “the easy way” rubs me the wrong way.  I have been working my butt off literally and figuratively this year.  I have not taken the easy why with my weight loss.  I have changed my diet I have exercised I have sweat and cried.  I have worked my butt off at work too I have written winning proposals and I have earned awards and I have commuted all the way around the beltway 4 days a week for 6 months.

Where have I taken the easy way this year? Putting in my resignation may appear as taking the easy way out of the challenge.  Maybe I could have tried to find a different project or a different schedule or one more compromise.  But for me the hard answer was to admit Deloitte is hard and not everyone is up for the challenge.  At this time, though the challenge is appealing, being with my family is more important.  It may look like the easy way to my friends still climbing that ladder but to me it was a very hard decision to give up the prestige and the challenge and return to the other side of the beltway where my babies are reminding me that my own eminence is not the most important thing in life.

Why I wanted to improve my fitness

Often in the Beachbody business they're asking what is your "why".  I always here different variations of my children are my inspiration.  There's nothing more humbling than knowing that there are people who rely on you for everything.  If you cannot see your own self-worth you can see your value to somebody else. That can take a while to hit home. That really didn’t hit home after I had Sary I didn’t miraculously gain maturity and perspective that my mom friends said I would gain. I was still pretty petty actually. I reached a new level of maturity after I had Piper.  I began to understand who I am. I put into perspective my relationships with my family of origin and with my place on this planet.  And if you hadn’t already guessed from my previous statement I went to therapy.

 

I learned that though the way Piper came into this world was the most horrible experience my life.  I lived day to day like at any moment my whole world could come crashing down around me.  During that time I felt like at any moment I could be totally destroyed.  This was my selfish view, my petty view.  The mature mom looks back on those days and remembers looking at the small baby, at all she went through for 65 days. I look at the fact that little did I know after the first week we were out of the woods all she was doing from that point forward was getting better.

 

Everything we take for granted in a full term baby, lifting their head, coordinating suck swallow and breathe reflexes.  My baby was suffering and struggle to just do normal everyday things like breathe. Through it all she didn't indicate that it bothered her at all and maybe it never did.  For people who have to struggle in life from the very beginning they don’t know any other reality.  It is only us that have had things come easy to us that resist pushing our limits or even reaching our potential for that matter.

 

There were challenges that she came home with after being born at 28 weeks.   We started occupational therapy.  I had to stretch her neck to tolerance that means you'll be stretching her neck she can deal with it anymore.  She had to accept not being held while being fed because her little body would go into sensory overload by feeling me touch her, feeling me breathing, and trying to accomplish a coordinated suck swallow breath, all at the same time.  Not only did she survive but if today you put  her next to a full term baby born when she was due in April she has not only caught up but she has surpassed her peers.

 

If she can achieve that I have no reasonable excuse in my mind that I could put together to make an excuse for why I would not make myself as healthy as possible. So that I can give them the quality of care and the fun experiences that they could only have with a healthy, fit mother. My children deserve for me to be here as long as possible. I have no doubt in my mind that if I can survive 65 days of the craziness of the NICU, I can do anything.

Social Pariah

It's amazing what an impact dieting has on being social. I knew that eating was a social activity, but it hadn't occurred to me until I changed my eating habits, how giving up social eating would bother other people. I realize now that I had been bothered in the same way before I was watching I was eating. Before I was eating healthy I would give somebody a hard time because they didn't want to have an extra dessert or go out for Starbucks or what have you.

Another thing that amazes me that when I go out for a work event how much food is being served. I eat appetizers and I have plenty to eat for dinner and then after the presentation dinner is served. The buffet is open! When I didn't get up to get food a senior manager asked me why am not eating dinner. For the first in my life I actually felt like I was worthy enough to say to somebody who "outranked" me. "I'm okay I have lost 20 pounds since I started this project. I ate my 300 cal worth of dinner off of appetizers and I don't need to eat anymore." (Plus on top of that I had a dirty margarita-martini and a beer.) I never knew there's so many calories anything I was eating at these events!

I even feel awkward when I go out to eat with friends and I order "diet" food. My standard McDonald's order is no longer a #8 (Southern fried chicken sandwich with french fries and Sweet Tea), it is it is a grilled chicken honey mustard wrap, with no fries, and a Diet Coke.

I know how I use to feel when skinny girls would sit there and  split a salad or whatever. I would be like seriously that's all you are eating is salad?!? I would see the girl that had a perfectly good figure and she would say "I want a half salad with half the normal amount of cheese with dressing on the side. I don't need any cookies. I'll just drink water." And think what are you trying to prove?

And what about the people at work with the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies (I made them myself.) Or the meetings with Chick-fil-A catering with those yummy chicken nuggets, waffle fries, and the gooey yummy brownie. Thankfully I don't have a donut day on Friday bagel day Wednesday at this office. It's not the temptation for the lack of willpower - it is the social pressure. Why is it that it bothers people to see other people refuse food? Why does that bother people when other people are making healthy choices?

Some people have more positive motivations than others for example when someone is a host they're offering food because they're trying to be hospitable. Other times people feel that by you refusing what they offer is you acting superior to them, there food isn't good enough for you, or they think - you think -  you are superior because you have more willpower than they do. Of course there is the neutral most common motivation which is to be social, when somebody is enjoying something, they want you to enjoy it too.

Studies show that fat people are viewed as having a lack of willpower. That the obese person has not organized and is slovenly. These assumption made in the workplace really do have an impact on the idea that when you eat together you are leveling the playing field. (And that by not eating with the group you are raising yourself above the others.)

But when you go out for a happy hour and it's expected that you're going to drink 2 to 3 drinks and then you're going to eat a couple thousand calories of the food that has nothing to do with your performance as a team player or leveling the playing field. It has to do with his over-indulgent society that likes to use the food to give them pleasure anf joy. Often you go to these events is about drinking your money's worth eating money's worth it's about getting as much from the corporate sponsorship of activity as possible. I'm not going to fast so that I can get my money's worth. Maybe I need to bring a Tupperware dish to bring my money's worth home.  But actually I don't want to most of the time the food isn't good enough that I want to eat it again later. Maybe I will just put a bottle of wine in my purse!