I love that first one, I have it in my inspiration collection also, not seen the second one befor. That is one very dedicated father. People are amazing
youtube.com/watch?v=ZrasQOojFyo&list=PL535AC5D58C712BB1&index=24

youtu.be/NkMJdytTSXU?list=PL535AC5D58C712BB1

youtube.com/watch?v=Y8zEPAukWpA

Last night, while watching a couple of videos on YouTube, I stumbled upon an American programme called 'My 600lb Life'. It detailed a year in the life of a guy who had reached 600lbs, and had decided to have gastric surgery to help him lose weight.

I don't know what I expected when I started watching it, but it showed this young guy, 23 years old, who had hit 597lbs. Now, my starting weight was a fair way below this, but there was things on the show that really spoke to me.
My first thought while watching it was, honestly, that I wanted to give the guy a hug. He'd obviously been through an awful lot, but he seemed like such a sweet guy; the bad things he'd been through hadn't made him a bad person, but he'd internalised his sadness. It was what he said about 'eating his emotions' that got to me.
I sat up until 4am this morning, just thinking about things (not good when you need to be up at 6.15 for work!). Thinking about things that happened in my childhood, things that happened to me in my teenage years, and how food had become both my best friend and my worst enemy.

I know that I 'eat my emotions', I do, and even though I am going down a different weight loss route than the guy in the show, it made me think about how I need to confront some of my issues, and maybe let go of some things too.
I have a lot of anger still over things that happened almost twenty years ago, and there's nothing I can do about it now, but I cling on to that anger anyway. It also made me realise that if I hadn't started this journey in January, my weight would have continued to creep upwards. Again, I'm sure I was aware of this, but the show really smacked me in the face with this fact.

It may be an odd thing to find inspirational, but it was, for me anyway.

LCSt68 wrote: »

Why do you cling onto the anger? Do you know? I do this too. Cling onto hurts that don't serve me and are years in the past.

I'm not sure. I sat with my fingers on the keyboard for a while trying to think of a proper answer to this.

I think maybe its partly to do with the fact that I'm angry at myself for not doing anything about the things that happened to me, angry because I didn't speak out or fight back, and angry because I let those people affect me for so damn long, when they clearly just forgot/shrugged off/whatever what they did to me and moved on with their lives. That doesn't even touch on the anger I still feel for those I asked for help, but who ignored me.

I harbour so much resentment for the years I've lost. For the years I continued to be their 'victim'. I let myself believe that I was what they said I was.

Now, I know that they weren't there holding a gun to my head forcing me to eat, forcing me to shut myself away. Its just that when I'm eating, for a short while I'm not thinking about those people, about the years I've wasted. I have lived with depression and anxiety since I was 14, which obviously hasn't helped, but I'm not sue I could get to the bottom of how complex and issue my anger is.

There are a few things in life that take me away from the anger I have inside; a good book, food (which I need to alter), good music. I've worked this morning on setting up a playlist of songs that make me feel happy, songs that I'll be able to listen to when that urge to angry eat happens, or when I start to feel like those people are winning again. I can't promise it will work, but I need to ditch this anger, its so toxic.

Phew. That took longer to type than I expected! After all that bleakness, I'll try and end on a positive note.
I'm not a fan of Christina Aguilera's normal stuff, but maybe we should adopt this song as our anthem

Fighter: (I don't know how to embed videos, sorry).

https://youtube.com/watch?v=PstrAfoMKlc

Motivational song for the day:

David Bowie: Heroes

"We can beat them, for ever and ever
Oh we can be Heroes,
just for one day"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tgcc5V9Hu3g

LOVE David Bowie!