Love the One You're With!

**I just blogged this but people suggested I post it on here so others could read it... )**

Hello Fellow MFP'ers!

I'm such a huge advocate for this site. I absolutely love it. I've never met a more supportive group of people. I suppose its because we are all working towards the same goal in one, way, shape or form. None the less, I truly thank God a friend showed me MFP.

I mentioned on a status earlier this week that at my Zumba class there was a delightful woman taking the class with me and she mentioned that she was doing weight watchers through their website. She wasn't too thrilled with it because of how negative everyone was online. While I've never been on the WW's site to be able to comment, I encouraged her to come join us on MFP. Because we are awesome!

We are supportive, encouraging and even when we have our bad days, at least we are online talking about it! I love being on here and being able to ask my exercise questions and chit chat with everyone about their struggles and their victories! I care about the people who float across my news feed and how their life is going that day. My heart goes out because I understand the burden, the commitment of making such a huge lifestyle change. And I think we all understand that for each other. We have compassion and kindness for our fellow MFP'er when the occasional status reads “Scale didn't move today. “ or “I went over my calories...what is wrong with me?” Because we have been there done that!

But this got me thinking. *Oh no! Tara is thinking! Duck and cover!* I see so many pal's out there encouraging and comforting fellow pals when they have bad days: Would you do the same for yourself? Hear me out on this one. I know we all have bad days. There are so many factors. Kids, spouse, hormones, weather...a bird just flew the wrong direction and threw off the trajectory thus leading to a rip in the time space continuum which resulted in a bad day. I SO understand! Lol! But since we are on this site, more likely then not we have other reasons lending themselves to our bad days.

I think back to a year ago when I started on this site. I was getting ready for a hysterectomy. I was sicker then about 239 dogs and 125 cats. I couldn't get up off the couch to do anything for myself. I was miserable because of my weight which was 185 pounds on a good day. If someone had come to me A YEAR ago while I was laying on that couch and told me they had the exact same symptoms, I would have cried with them. Comforted them. Sympathized with them. But I never gave myself that same compassion. That same kindness. I was just hard on myself. Throughout my weight loss journey I was hard on myself. Why haven't I lost? Why did I eat that? Why isn't this darn scale moving?

Its SO hard not to give in to those negative feelings when you are working so hard to do such a positive thing for your life. But if someone was standing in your bathroom, on your scale, and looked at you with tears in their eyes: What would you tell them? That they weren't doing good enough? That they needed to try harder? That they out right sucked? Or would you tell them that tomorrow is another day! Maybe you need to mix things up a bit, lets look at your diet and see what we can change. We can't stop the bad days from coming but we can change how we react to them.

If I could change anything from this past year and my weight loss journey, I would go back and be my friend. Because I never was. That's what I needed. And that is MOST assuredly what you need. You can be your harshest critic or you could also be your most loyal friend. You need to tell yourself exactly what you would tell anyone else.

This journey is huge. Its a change from the inside out. If you can learn this then you are learning a skill that is irreplaceable that no one could ever take away. Since you are making the effort to improve your bod and become that skinny minnie: Why not love the one you are with? No matter what size jean you are in at the time?

Spoken from someone who wishes she had... )