Just some random motivation

“Your biggest challenge isn’t someone else. It’s the ache in your legs and the voice inside that yells can’t, but don’t listen. You just push harder and then you hear the voice whisper can and you discover that the person you thought you were is no match for the person you really are.”
-Unknown

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
-Mark Twain

“Nothing is more certain than the defeat of a man who gives up.”
-George Sheehan

Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.
-Lou Holtz

Ouch. Burn out.

Yep, it happens. And it sucks. You get to the point your body and mind just need some time off. Took two days off from the gym to give my body a rest, but I noticed that the second day my mood really suffered. A lot. It was like the day after stopping medication. Tired, grumpy, irritable. It wasn't pleasant. Went back yesterday and again today and noticed a huge difference in how I feal. It certainly proves, to me anyway, that working out does improve mood and certainly works better than any of the medication I ever took. I just have to work through the wanting to quit. I've always been really good at quitting, that's how I ended up almost 600 pounds. It's remarkably easy to just say "fuck it".  Too damn easy. I have to think about why I started doing this, every day I remind myself of how far I've come and don't worry about how far I have yet to go.

Some days I workout harder than others. But every day I sweat. Well, most days. I tend to take Saturday off. It's my rest day. I need one a week. But even on those days I try to do something. Get up and move. It helps. If I sit too long I can feel the depression sneaking in. It's insidious, sneaky and vile. But I've finally learned to recognize when it's trying to come out of hiding. I know it will never go away completely, I've accepted that. Depression devours motivation. Lack of motivation creates laziness and that feeds the depression. It's a nasty, self sustaining cycle. So I do something every single day to fight it.

In the last 3 months, while I have only lost about 10 pounds, I've dropped 3 inches from my waist, one from my head, my legs no longer wobble like jello when I walk and the turkey neck on my arms is almost gone. Some days I feel like I'm getting nowhere, and then I look at my old measurements or put on clothes and realize they're falling off me. I have to remind myself that it's not all about what the scale says. We're taught that it's all about that number, it's not.

When I first started this endeavor several years ago, my waist was almost 70 inches. It's now 59.75. My highest weight was 598, I'm now at 447. If I could manage to eat better I'd lose weight faster, but that's a constant challenge. Especially with kids. And a lack of money. But then I don't really want to focus on eating. Simply applying portion control seems to do wonders. I refuse to become one of those people who constantly obsess over every calorie. Though I should be a bit more conscious of them than I have been. Old habits are a bitch.