Motivation

Someone asked on a forum today, "What keeps you motivated" to keep losing the weight. What motivates you to keep going?

Weight loss is a really funny old thing. I have spent years being unhappy, and wearing my heart on my belly. I would use food to deal with emotions. My response to the "what keeps you motivated" question is below:

What keeps me motivated is the thought that when I am done with this, the blubber will be gone. I will no longer be the whale that I am.

This for me is about more than just the fat loss, its about re-taking control of my life, stopping myself from abusing myself and moving on with my life. For too long I have shut out the outside world, lived in morbid self pity and eaten myself stupid in the name of "comfort."

Last Friday I had a pizza at a work lunch, the first since starting this. It was delicious and hot and crusty and salty and cheeesy and all the rest of it - a 10" pizza, I ate the entire thing and afterwards felt fit to bust.

I felt sick. My stomach was so full it felt like a water melon; all taut. I spent the afternoon feeling horribly uncomfortable at my desk.

I couldn't resolve with myself why, before starting this weight loss lark, I had wanted to do that to myself. I used to eat myself stupid to GET that feeling and I associated that full to busting feeling with warmth and comfort. I honestly have no idea why I associated that feeling with warmth and comfort.

I spent the afternoon in the biggest amount of discomfort, feeling rough as hell from all the salt and cheese, unable to concentrate properly on work. My mind fogged over and I became irritable and snappy with my colleagues.

Oddly, that helped to spur me on some more. Today is weigh in day for me and I'm 2lbs up on last week. It's also TOTM and I know from my food diary I have not eaten the 7k calories over maintenence in this last week which is what I would need to do to actually put on 2lbs of fat. I also lifted the heaviest weights I've ever done in BodyPump yesterday. All these factors combine to help retain water. Also I had a big salty roast dinner yesterday that I did not weigh or count properly at all.

After Friday, I realised I never want to feel like that again. Why the hell did I ever think that was "comfortable" or "warming" to do that?

When I would have a bad day at work (and there were quite a few bad days for a while there!), I would drive into Tesco on the way home, stop and buy a 12 pack of Fresh Cream Chocolate Eclairs to have for pudding. I'd go home, order a take away pizza - a mammoth 15" pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms and extra cheese, garlic bread or breaded mushrooms, and breaded chicken strips as a "starter". I'd scoff the lot and then have the eclairs in a kind of ritual after. I'd open the first box and take out the first, shiny chocolate slicked choux pastry and slowly savour the taste. I'd scrape the chocolate stuck to the lid off with my finger and carefully suck my finger to get every last drop of chocolately goodness. Then the other 11 would just go in one after the other without even pausing for breath, barely chewing and hardly touching the sides.

Sometimes, just once in a while, I'd cry too. I hated the crying bit though, it was self indulgent and I was being selfish and not thinking of all the starving little children in Africa or wherever. Not able to just "pull myself together" as my mother would think I should. Or "just get on with it" as she would too. I would not think of the people worse off than me, and that was a terrible thing to do - selfish, self indulgent. I was a failure.

What motivates me? All of that does. I don't want to go back to that place. I don't want to be that person any more.

I just want to be "normal" whatever that is. Normality I guess is what motivates me.