Regret

You can't dwell on that stuff, Tom. Let it motivate you to be as healthy and fit as you can be NOW! You must know that by improving one's eating habits and fitness, a lot of the past indiscretions can be reversed. Meditate on that and keep going forward! Go on! xx

You can't change what you did in the past, so why bother fixating on it. You are making the right choices NOW. That's what counts.

I know what you're feeling...can't help but wonder what it could have been like. But let me tell you...I'm 53 and have struggled with my weight all my life - seems like it was just a part of me. I've been successful...say... 3 or 4 times, but always seemed to fall back into my old ways. This time it's different. My approach, my reasons, my outlook. Yea, I'm 53 but I feel like I'm 20 again. So now I'm just enjoying being 20, actually able to relive those years (kinda!) - hey, pretty soon my daughter will be older than me !!! - hey, maybe she can hand me down some of her clothes!!!!!

Forgive yourself as you would forgive someone you love.

I dont know if this sounds familiar to anyone else, but I have an incredible sense of loss about the damage and time I have wasted in my life by not being as healthy and focused as I am currently. I know you should never look backwards and that what you do in the future is what matters. I dont seem to be able to shift this feeling though and I am fearful the damage will catch up with me at somepoint.

Anyway a bit of self pity and self indulgence - if anyone has any suggestions, advice or just kick up the back side that may help, I would be grateful.

Tom

Acknowledge the feeling, and then gently try to move your focus to the present. You may have numerous such moments. Practices such as Insight (Vipassana) Meditation train people to do this. But as with weight loss and fitness, it's not an overnight process. It can take years.

Audiodharma.org offers many free resources. Once or twice a year they teach free classes with teacher support. There may be groups where you live. Finally, there are online groups, and there's an excellent smart phone app with timers that shows who else all over the world is meditating.

If it's a deep-seated feeling, you're probably not going to wake up with a method to magically out-think it.

So everyone is likely telling you to only look forward, you can't change the past . . . . well the past is part of you and sometimes it IS just hard to forget, especially when you are lugging it around in the form of excess weight!

Use the feelings of regret you have to fire you up to get pissed off at your former self. You have to experience the emotions of the loss of those years (as you put it) to move on. No one can tell you how to feel, you have to just work through that in your own good time.

I completely understand because I feel the same. On the surface Im a happy person, but underneath I am very hard on myself and quite disappointed in how I treated my body. The last year has been a very difficult and stressful one and sadly I fell back into some of my bad habits and backslid to the effect of adding 10 lbs instead of the other way around. I never quite made it to my goal, and now am a bit further from it . . . but every day is a new one . . . every morning you can get up and choose to be the person you want to be . . . every small choice you make each day is creating the person that you know you are in your heart.

Use your past as a learning tool of how NOT to treat your body. You already know what not to do from experience so everytime you have a choice to make in regard to your health use your life experience to make the choice to be who you want to be.