Fly by the seat of your pants Friday

Well hello everybody!  I'm happy to report that my weight is already back down to my pre training-week-fiasco weight. 233.2 on the scale this morning wooohooo!  So that was a 3 pounds on and 3 pounds off fairly quick in my opinion... now to get down below 232 and head to those 220's like planned.

I'm not sure what I will do to celebrate 100 pounds lost (when I reach 219) but it's gonna have to be something good... something that I will wear or look at everyday to remind myself how far I've come and how hard I've worked.  Ideas anyone?  Is this mike on? *tap, tap, tap*  LOL

Last night before my running class we had a great guest speaker.  Her name was Pam, she's 61 and she used to be over 320 pounds and used to work for one of the government departments until her retirement.  She's like me, but 20 years-ish older:  I used to be over 320 pounds and I work for the same department as she did :)  Her session was about Motivation, not about weight loss, but it's unavoidable to talk about weight loss when you've lost over 150 pounds... wow, I was quite impressed.  Her topic focused on motivation, and she said the way she motivated herself (with the help of a great doctor) was to write a list of things she wanted to be or accomplish. 

Her first list was something like this:

- I don't want to be really fat anymore
- I don't want to be unappreciated anymore
- I don't like the townhouse I live in
- I don't want to be invisible anymore
etc etc.

Her doctor said it was a great start, but that he list wasn't good enough.  He wanted her to write down positive things, because her list has a lot of negatives in it (unappreciated) and they needed to be tangible, reachable goals.

I can't remember her second list very well, but her final list was something like this:

- I want to be healthy
- I want to live in a mansion
- I want to be published (article in magazine)
- I want to win a medal
- I want to get flowers from a handsome man

Already you can see the trend of the positive thinking, no more "I don't want" and all about the "I want".  Over the following few years she lost 150 pounds, she started walking/running and won a medal in her age category, she had several articles published about her journey to getting healthier, she bought a new house (slight tweak from mansion, but it feels like a mansion to her) and finally after she had her tummy tuck from loosing all that weight, her handsome personal trainer came over with flowers when she was recovering from the surgery.

Her journey isn't over, she's struggling with the last 30 pounds and she has come to another conclusion; she's only struggling because she believes she's let herself subconsciously decide that where she is now is good enough.  She believes that because of that and not wanting to reach her goal "enough" she's self sabotaging herself without even knowing it.  She said the key is to want something so much that you'll do almost anything to get it and at that point my brain made the *TING* sound (in my head of course) which of course signals an "Aha!" moment, and no I don't mean the band Aha LOL  The reason that bell went off for me is because it solidified the idea in my head that has been forming slowly for the last year or so.  Success is about motivation for sure, but it's also about dedication and sacrificing the immediate pleasure, for the long term goal.  Which is something I pretty much already knew, but the part I hadn't clicked on yet, was the fact that I'm capable of doing that, the fact that I've done it before.

I thought back to the things that I've accomplished that are non weight related and thought about how I felt about those accomplishments.  For example, when I went back to school at 32 years old to get my IT diploma, did I want to succeed and get a promotion at work?  You're damn right I did!  And what did I do to accomplish that?  I dedicated myself to studying really hard and I sacrificed some short term pleasure by going on a very strict budget while I was at school to help pay for everything.  The end result was that I graduated with honors, I became an IT technician level 1, which was a promotion from my administrative assistant type job, 4 years afterwards I became an IT technician level 2 and in September I'm applying for a level 3 position....  I graduated in 2004, which means that I potentially have gone to 4 levels of promotion in 6 years.  I wanted it, and I wanted it bad.

Now thoughts turn to weight loss.  I wanted to complete a 5km race.  I wanted it bad.  I worked at it for a year and finished with a 47:36 race time.  I want to complete another 5km race this coming Sunday with a 45 minute race time.  I want it bad.  I will get it, I already got it in the practice runs.  So what is stopping or slowing me from the success of weight loss?  Is it because I'm not dedicated?  I am, but I think I could be even more dedicated to the eating plan.  Is it because I'm not sacrificing enough?  I am, but obviously not enough.

I'm not doing enough.  Why am I not doing enough?  FEAR.

Fear?  You scardey cat of the little points measuring system?  You scardey cat of sweating a bit?

Nobody every drowned in their own sweat and nobody ever goes on Weight Watchers for eating too many carrots.

So what's the dealio?  Come on, spit it out!

I'm afraid of success
I'm afraid of getting to goal weight
I'm afraid of being in a place I've never been before
I'm afraid of the number 150 on the scale
I'm afraid of feeling like I'm not me anymore, afraid that the image in my minds eye will shatter
I'm afraid of things that I can't even formulate into words to put here, it's just a nameless emotion, almost like a feeling of being in a dingy in the middle of the ocean with no oars to move you around and just floating around forever.
I'm just plain afraid.

I'm not sure how to fix it, I just know that as time goes on, as I keep running with the groups, listening to the guest speakers, trying new things like spinning and learning as much as I can that slowly I will figure out how to deal with the fear.  I need to figure out how to conquer it because let's face it.... I can probably get to goal eventually in the long run, someday, but staying there and maintaining will be the hardest part of all if that fear is still with me.

I need to train myself to want it... to want it bad, badder and baddest of all.