Looking for that Inspiration!!

My AH HA moment came when I hated being too out of shape to play with my new born son and my older daughter. She is just getting into sports and I realized that she looks up to me and was taking a lot of my bad habits. I don't want my kids being me. And I realized that you never know who is looking up to you to teach them about life. You hit a point when you have to think about what life will be like when you are older and out of shape. I don't want to be a pathetic fat guy who is useless to my family. Might not help you, but just what hit me a few months ago. Good luck!

I was only able to start losing weight and getting healthy after I started to gain some perspective and feel confident in my own skin.

Of course fear and anger don't work. Or they might work for like, a day, but they won't sustain you long enough for you to get anything done.I spent so many years feeling ashamed of my body and all that did was keep me locked into bad habits like overeating and not leaving the couch. Any effort made felt pointless. Because when I had no real confidence or faith in myself, I was not in control of the situation. The situation had control over me.

But over the last year, I have come to appreciate my body for what it is and gained a lot more confidence in myself. If I were to give advice on how to do this I would say: travel, maybe? Read some newspapers? Astronomy books? Have a good long think about how this is your one life that you get and only you decide how to live it. Gain some perspective, is what I'm saying. Maybe this sounds strange. I'm just trying to tell you exactly how I finally arrived at a place of motivation. I found when I realized that my weight loss is not the be-all-end-all of my existence, it became manageable and fun instead of all-encompassing and draining.

My motivations changed too. Instead of just wanting to get smaller so that I can feel adequate compared to other women, I really, really want to be in better shape. I want to enjoy life the best that I can. I want to climb mountains and enjoy it.

So many people spend the majority of their time thinking and obsessing about losing weight or getting in shape or whatever, and then never do it. And it becomes nearly their whole identity. This is sad and boring. Don't be that.

Be grateful that you have a body, capable of oh so many things! Focus on the wonderful world you live in, see the beauty and the pain. Focus on living, on being fulfilled in your career, your family, your friendships. Be grateful for your life.

So, after that incoherent mess, I guess here is my advice to you, at the most succinct I can make it: don't just focus on the concepts of "dieting" or "working out". If you really want to get healthy/lose weight, whatever, do it because this is just another thing to do and you are a strong individual who gets *kitten* done. Realize that this is not your whole life. Realize that if you stick with it, good things will come. You say you want to start running. So do it. Or at least start walking at first. Then add little bits of running. Then run. Ease yourself into it. Walking is seriously like the easiest *kitten* ever. Babies do it. If you can't offer up that little bit of commitment, ask yourself if you really want this.

"If you're sick of starting over, you have to stop quitting". -Unknown

I hope that this helped at least a bit. I know it is quite rambly. Good luck to you.

Emmie!! I think you hit the nail on the head!! Everything you said made soooo much sense to me. It's like you know me personally. I do know that how I feel about myself at any particular time affects how I see myself in the mirror. Depending on my confidence level at the time...How I think I look and feel is determined by that confidence. Even at the same weight depending on my mood I can feel attractive or not and feel like a blob. My problem comes in how do I get that confidence back to keep me feeling good enough to make me want to get healthy again? Can you recommend any books you read or articles, videos you saw to help you?

Thanks soooooo much for sharing!
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Here's what I think:

I think that confidence comes from experience and from perspective.

I don't think that you can gain confidence from a book or a video. Not confidence that lasts anyway. For me I think it was a combination of travelling, reading/learning in general and being forced into situations where I had to meet new people and take initiative to get what I wanted.

Confidence comes from the experience of confidence. Fake it till you make it. Join a class or a random group from meetups.com or something like that. Go to some event and introduce yourself to random new people. Put yourself in some kind of new situation where you have no idea what you're doing and just go. When you are focusing on your interactions with other people and the relationships you form, thoughts about your own physical appearance take a back seat. That's what I've found anyway.

Perspective helps you gain confidence because it allows you to have a sense of humour about yourself. Perspective allows you to think of weight loss as a little sliver of your life, a task that you WILL get done if you commit to it, just like any other task. Like doing the dishes everyday or what have you. What I mean is, I think that the more you learn about the world, the more you want to be a part of it, the more you want to contribute to it, the less you worry about whether strangers think you're chubby. Perspective helps you to get over yourself and get *kitten* done.

Also, gaining/having confidence (much like sticking to a new health/fitness plan) is an ongoing thing. You always have to be pushing yourself. It's not a "oh I watched this one video and now I'm going to feel awesome forever and ever" type of thing. You have to remind yourself of whatever motivates you day in and day out. Maybe it gets easier with time, but it takes perseverance. It takes reason triumphing over emotion. By that I mean it takes reminding yourself of fact and perspective even on days when you feel gross or defeated. It's an ongoing endeavour.

So I'm sorry that I don't have the sort of recommendations that you were probably hoping for. I recommend you find something new and exciting to do. Or just try to take new relish in the things that you do already. Read something awesome. Don't read self-help books. Maybe they work for some people, I don't know. Read some great literature like East of Eden (you are talking to a fiction writer/future English teacher. Praise be unto Steinbeck.) or some Virginia Woolf or Bronte. Don't watch things like Dove beauty commercials (yuck). Watch cute videos of hamsters eating tiny burritos. (google it I'm serious). Read Newspapers. Think about said newspapers. Read Humans of New York (http://www.humansofnewyork.com/) Get high on life and the fitness problem shrinks, becomes far less daunting and much more pleasant.

On a more practical level, may I recommend you check out Fitness Blender:http://www.fitnessblender.com/

Fitness Blender has a ton of free workout videos of all kinds and for all levels. The people who run it are likeable and great at what they do. I purchased one of their 8-week workout plans and it is great. It's like having a personal trainer. Very motivating and easy to stick to. They have meal plans too but I don't know a lot about those.

That's about all I've got. I'm not really qualified to give life advice, but apparently I do anyways. I hope that this has been at least a little helpful. All the best of luck to you.

I love everything said here… it's inspired me to be better. Emmie, you're absolutely right, we focus our whole lives at trying to diet and exercise and forget to live our lives… we need to live in the moment and enjoy each day. That being said we need to get healthy to live long and a good quality of life, that is my goal. At 85 I want to be able to wipe my own bum. Thanks Guys!

Hey . Feel free to add me . Your story Def reminds me of mine. Very similar . Could use some new friends