Reminder of Why I Want to Do This...

I’m mentally prepping myself to get rolling on the Weight Watchers program. I wrote this blog after briefly returning to Medifast a month ago. But it applies just the same to WW.

I had a few epiphanies while taking a break from my weight loss efforts to train for a marathon. Many of them came immediately after I went off program; some came to me WHILE I was out on that marathon course (I was out there for a really, really long time).

• This shouldn’t have been that difficult for me. The food isn’t going to be what I’m accustomed to eating—but eating what I’m accustomed to eating is what got me here in the first place.
• I’ll never feel truly ready. But I can gut it out.
• I let myself off the hook too easily. I really struggled with staying on the Medifast program and as a result, wasn't as successful as I could have been. Having to cook for my family presented me with a lot of temptation. I felt deprived. I felt sorry for myself. I chose to let myself slip up. However, there were SO many times during training when I realized how much easier my race would be if I was just a bit lighter, if I had just been a little stronger—I chose what to put in my mouth and I have control over it. It does not control me.
• I am a lot stronger than I think. When I started the marathon, I wasn’t confident I could finish. They were predicting that the temperatures were going to climb into the mid eighties, and I dropped out last year midway through when I got heat sick (the temperatures climbed into the mid nineties). Your history is not your destiny.
• Taking it one meal at a time actually DOES make sense. I never really got that before. This year, instead of focusing on how long it was going to take me to cross the finish line. I focused on getting from one mile to the next. By the time I hit mile twenty, I knew I was going to make it. Focus on the journey, not the destination. Take it one day at a time.
• OF COURSE I can do this.