This new start is it! No more! No way will I regain this weight!

How many times do we tell ourselves that? How many times do we start over?

I know that in the last year I’ve told myself many times. Every time I would lose a couple pounds then put on 5 more. I had hit the evil lose and regain cycle. Gain a few then “start over” fresh with new motivation that lasted all of five minutes. Thank goodness I finally broke that cycle recently.

The depression of living at home with my verbally abusive little brother, having no money, no hope for the future made it hard to figure out my health over the last year. I gained 20-30 pounds in a year of living at home all while “trying to lose weight.” Now that is commitment, isn’t it? HA!

But I finally found hope from that situation last month. I woke up from whatever daze I have been in and I decided to make BIG changes to my life because I don’t want to live in a half alive state. Now I am working hard on losing the weight that I gained once I moved home. I am almost down 1/3 of what I gained.

This is all because I really am committed. I have to lose weight. There is no other option and I don’t want another option. I don’t want to die of a heart attack when I’m 25 either. I don’t want to spend my whole life worried about my health. I don’t want to spend a life wondering “what if?”

The difference between this mindset and what I was thinking over the last year is the time frame. I am now thinking long-term, big picture. I’m focused on making the rest of my life as amazing as possible. During the last year I was scared and focused on small time frames, trying to get through a day or a week without knowing what I was doing. When I focused on such small periods of time it was hard to remember the importance of exercise.

In the context of my entire life I realize how important exercise and eating healthy is to my overall well being. I am motivated by the fact that if I do the right things now I won’t be bed-ridden when I’m older. If I do what I should now maybe my mind won’t succumb to dementia as soon. If I do the right things now I can help myself out  for the rest of my life. Makes 30 minutes of daily exercise sound much more important when I look at it that way.

Sometimes we have to take a few false starts to get to our true starting line. I know that in the last year I had a lot of false starts and detours on my road to a healthy life. Those practices steps were confusing at the time and felt unnecessary, but they made me more able to complete my journey. No matter how many new starts we have that turn into dead ends, there is always another chance to change our lives. We can live the way we want to no matter what we have done in the past. So let’s get to it.