The importance of remembering where you started

I had been "big" for my whole life. It wasn't that I made poor nutrition choices, I just liked to eat. A lot. I mistakenly equaled "nutritious" with "low-calorie". I never really ate typical "junk food", I just ate way too much. I liked to cook, and eating made me feel good - whether I was hungry, depressed or just plain bored. As a result, my 5'7" frame carried 220 pounds on the day I graduated from college. I carried it well (as well as you can carry it, I guess), but I still didn't feel like my outsides matched my insides.

In 2011, I moved to China for six months teaching English to high school students. Maybe it was a result of being surrounded by a million tiny, waify people, but I finally decided that enough was enough - I joined a gym (an adventure in itself) and began using MFP to track my daily calorie intake.

Over the past year and a half, I've gone from about 220 pounds to 155 pounds. However, despite this loss, I have spent the last few months firmly planted around 155 pounds, my weight fluctuating by about two pounds on either side on a regular basis. And, while losing slowly has been a great thing for me, as it's allowed me to maintain a sustainable lifestyle and not feel deprived, it can certainly be frustrating when yet another week passes, and no movement on the scale.

As a result, I found myself beating myself up about this "stall", the more weeks passing, the more frustrated I grew. An incredibly active person, I was engaging in a lot of negative self-talk for not having reached milestones I figured I'd have hit by now - where are your abs? What are you doing wrong? Why aren't you trying harder? Why is this taking so LONG?

This morning, weighing in at 157 but still feeling "small", I took the picture on the right and compared it to my "before" picture, taken on October 25, 2011.



Seeing the comparison made me remember one of my favorite quotes - "I may not be where I want to be, but I'm sure as heck not where I started." Sometimes, we can get so caught up in how long we have to go that we forget how far we've come.

Instead of beating myself up, I should be celebrating my success. Not only have I changed how I look, but I've made great changes as far as endurance - I can run for an hour! I biked 50 miles for charity! I should wake up every morning and pat myself on the back, because every little good decision and positive change adds up over time. So when you find yourself feeling negative or frustrated or as though nothing is changing, do yourself a favor - step back and take a moment to look over your shoulder and see what amazing progress you have already made.