Being Mindful of Where I Need to Go

I'm trying to figure out how to get my motivation back to where it was 18 months ago. But I can't seem to work up the state of mind that it takes. That got me to wondering, what is the psychological mindset that it takes to get into the groove? What is that motivator? I'm sure it's different for everyone. But what was it that made me "ready" 18 months ago that I'm having trouble recapturing today?

For one thing, I was so fat I couldn't bend over to pick something up that had fallen on the floor. For another thing, I spent about a month mentally preparing myself for what would be a long and difficult journey. I watched FitTV even if I didn't workout. I looked for healthy recipes even if I didn't prepare them—yet. I read other blogs. But the whole time, I kept telling myself that on this particular date in the future, I would begin.

So that's the point I'm going to start at today. I'm not going to rush myself. I'm going to stop pressuring myself with internal talk like, "By next Friday I will be" how ever many pounds I've decided is a good number. I'm saying one month from today, I am going to begin again. Until then, I will be preparing. Not by eating everything in sight, but by becoming mindful of what it is that I need to do.

So my beginning date is June 5.

I Have My Fat Suit On

This morning I met with a psychologist at my gym. As part of our program, we have the opportunity to explore why we overeat. I had my first session today. I know that I'm an emotional eater—and any emotion will do. I eat when I'm angry, happy, sad, whatever. So what I needed were some tools to deal with it. I'm going to try using a rubber band wrapped around my wrist so I snap myself whenever I have a negative thought. I'm going to try tracking how I feel about myself when I want to overeat. You've probably heard all of this before. I have too. I'm just actually going to try to do it this time. 

And as it turns out, I have a lot of emotions going on right now. My number one difficulty is a fear of success—not failure but success. If I succeed in my weight loss goals, I won't know how I'm supposed to behave. I won't know who this person is. I've hidden behind my fat for so long that I'm not sure I can make it without my "uniform." I think that's also one of the reasons that I plateaued and couldn't get past it. So we'll see what happens if I snap myself enough times. 

Today I feel unsure of how to move forward. I have some ideas, but I'm not entirely sure. I want to meet my weight loss goals. I'm just not sure of how to get there. I'll write more later.