Losing confidence

If you rely on the scale to give you motivation/confidence on this journey, you aren't going to get too far. Too many variables factor into scale weight...especially if you are weighing in more than once a week...and even that is unpredictable to an extent. I know this is hard to accept, but scale weight is not the end all, be all of this journey. I can only tell you that if you are persistent and commit to the journey, the scale will ultimately comply and you will achieve whatever goals you want (but not as quickly as you'd like).

I recommend that for motivation/confidence, you rely instead on the deep, dark, pulled from the inner guts of you, brutal truth(s) as to why you are on you are on this journey. Write down all of the things you hate about being overweight. If you dig deep enough and are honest enough with yourself...then either you have enough reason to stay on the journey or you are really okay with your current lifestyle. and, hey, if you are okay with your current lifestyle, I'm not going to tell you otherwise. I'm here to help encourage folks who hate being overweight enough that they want to make a change.

Now, once you have those things written down...and assuming they are enough motivation to stay on your journey...the next thing I want you to do is to start appreciating the little victories this journey has to offer (victories that are not always reflected on the scale). I recently suggested to my pals that they make a chart and check it off daily to show all of the little victories that pile up. For example, your chart could have the following items:

ate healthy breakfast instead of pop tarts (or unhealthy breakfast of your unhealthy lifestyle)

ate healthy snack instead of Ho-Hos (or unhealthy snack of your unhealthy lifestyle)

ate healthy lunch instead of Crapdonalds

ate healthy afternoon snack instead of cookies

ate healthy dinner instead of fried chicken wings

avoided nighttime munchies because I wasn't really hungry

exercised according to my plan

drank X cups of water today

logged all of my food and drinks today

ate within 50 calories + or - of my calorie goal


.... I promise you that if you persist, and make achieve these small victories most days, you will achieve bigger victories on your journey. When will you achieve those bigger victories? No one can tell you that. But if you think of this as a journey to good health that lasts your lifetime...who cares how quickly you achieve your goals (you certainly didn't destroy your health in a few short weeks or months)....if its a journey and you are achieving the small victories, then know the big ones will come.