Day #8 – Just Another Monday

I promised myself I would post everyday even if I didn’t feel like it; today is one of those days.  Not a bad day in terms of being healthy, but not a stellar one either.  I forgot that we had corporate folks at the facility today and tomorrow.  This means working lunches and no time to go walk.  I managed to get all my water intake in and I ate reasonably at the lunch.  The problem is that today is supposed to be a low carb day.  Hard to do when the lunch is sandwiches and chips.  I guess I could have just picked the meat off and skipped the chips, but I didn’t.  I probably could have skipped the oatmeal cookie as well, but I didn’t.  Afterward I told myself that not every choice has to be perfect and then I let it go.  In the afternoon I skipped most of my snack due to high calorie content at lunch and instead just ate my vegetables.

My mood is greatly improved from last week.  Whatever funk I was in has passed and I take great pride in recognizing how I felt last week.  More importantly I told myself that it would pass (and it did) and I didn’t let it become an excuse to avoid being healthy.  Now I feel better and I didn’t waste a week feeling sorry for myself.

Day is in the books; on to Day #9

Stay Strong!

Day #7 - Those Magical Moments

My generation was the first to grow up with regular doses of TV.  As a teen in the 80’s I was quite accustomed to magical moments.  You know what I’m talking about right?  Your typical 80’s movie involved things going totally bad.  Then, just when it seemed hopeless something magical would happen, something that no one expected, and then everything was instantly better.  I’m sure some of you are nodding your heads as you think back while others have no idea what I’m talking about.

I brought that up because I believe that TV has really altered many people’s perception of reality.  Life doesn’t have anywhere near the amount or intensity of highs and lows as TV does and quite often everything doesn’t just work out in the end. 

Media is around us everywhere now and not just TV but social media as well.  Again with all this media, I think people get distorted views of what reality is.  Even so-called “Reality TV” is incredibly distorted; it has to be.  Why in the world would anyone watch normal life, they can just do that at home for free.

I believe that I’m one of those people with an altered perception.  I always feel like there should be more to my life; like I’m never doing enough.  I’m also waiting for those “magical” moments where things can’t possibly get any worse and then instantly everything gets better. 

This is something that I’ve discovered about myself and it’s important because happiness and excitement come from within and take perception into account.  Quite often we feel unhappy because our current state doesn’t match what we perceive it should.  Ever see someone who appears to have it all but seems unhappy?  Why?  It’s because in our reality they have it all but in their reality they are missing something.

Mind you, this is not a “be thankful for what you have” type of thing, but rather, “Be mindful about how you perceive yourself and your surroundings”.  You might just be making yourself unhappy without realizing it.

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All in all, not a bad week.  I’m beginning to come out of the funk I’ve been in and I’ beginning to take stock in my progress over the week:

On the positive side:

• 12 pounds lost
• No smoking
• Stayed mindful of how I was feeling
• More walking than I’ve done in a long time
• Maintained my commitment to my health despite being in a lousy mood

Areas for more growth and opportunity

• Had a few drinks Saturday night
• Another wasted weekend with very little accomplished
• Still could be doing more in the evening after work

7 Days in the books, on to day 8 and the start of another week.

-Stay Strong!

Healthy Living...From Truth to Myth

 

When I turned 40 I made a commitment to myself that my personal health (both physical & mental) would become a priority in my life.  It took me almost 2 full years of false starts to figure out that I had to start with the mental part first. 

Once I started to focus on my mental state and I began to realize how it was affecting me, it was as if the floodgates had opened up and all these thoughts just started rolling in.  As I read more and more about how the brain works, positive psychology, and even exploring a little into the Buddhist philosophy, I started to realize something.  I realized that not only were a lot of my beliefs and perceptions about myself and the world around me completely wrong, but those actual beliefs and perceptions were what was keeping me from being happy and achieving my goal of becoming healthy. 

 

Below are just a few of the more important "myths" that I used to hold as truths…

Myth #1 - In order for me to be happy I need to... 

This is one that I’ve thought of before, but never truly believed it until recently.  Maybe you feel this way too; in order to be happy you need to “fix” yourself.  I’ve commented on other blogs about this before and I also wrote a blog post about it some time ago.  You think "Once I lose weight or quit smoking or {fill in the blank}, I will then be happy!"  You don’t need to "fix" yourself in order to be happy, you can choose to be happy right now just as you are (and it will probably help you to fix those things you want to work on).  The problem with needing to fix yourself first is that even if you manage to fix something, there will just be something else that you need to fix before you allow yourself to be happy.  If we all couldn’t be happy until we were perfect then the world would be chock full of unhappy people because I haven’t met anyone yet who was perfect.

Myth #2 - Making health and fitness a priority requires sacrifice in other areas of my life

This belief was something that I needed a little proof before I truly embraced it.  The thought process was this… There is only a finite amount of time in the day, so if I make health and fitness a priority something else will suffer like my career, my home life, my hobbies, etc.  The problem with that belief is that it only looks at time and not quality.  So I guess it is true that I spend a little bit less time at the office or "networking" over beers with the big shots.  However, I’m more productive at work than ever.  I’m generally happy at work, my mood swings are gone, and my stress levels are down.  Is that a sacrifice?  Or how about my home life… I trade 30 minutes of lying on the couch watching TV for 30 minutes of working out.  I help my wife with the food and the cooking now (still a work in progress) instead of sitting around waiting to be served.  We go on hikes with the kids on Sundays instead of binge drinking on Saturday night and then spending Sunday hung over and irritated.  Is that the sacrifice we are talking about?  When you think of sacrifice, don’t make the mistake of just looking at time.  Healthy living can and should mean better quality of life all around.

Myth #3 - I can only learn from those who know more than me about a particular topic

Here’s the problem with this belief… If you think you can only learn from people that know more about something than you do, then as you learn more and more, the field of people you are willing to learn from and listen to shrinks until there is no one left!  Eventually you just stop learning and once that happens life just passes you by.  Coaching youth sports over the last few years has taught me that you can learn from anyone at any time, regardless of their knowledge about a subject.  You just have to be willing to hear them.

Myth #4 - I don’t “deserve” to be healthy because I haven’t earned it yet

I think there’s a lot of people that carry this belief… “You gotta pay your dues!”  While this is true of a lot of things, it simply isn’t true when it comes to living a happy, healthy,  or fulfilling life.  What's worse is that often we view "earning it" in terms of suffering.  When you tell yourself you haven’t earned it yet or you aren’t deserving, you are really just putting up your own roadblocks toward achieving it.

What's ironic about this myth is that we don't ever seem to have a hard time telling ourselves we "deserve" to be unhealthy.  Ever tell yourself you deserved the whole chocolate cake because you were so healthy all week long?

Myth #5 - My Life Has No Purpose

I saved the hardest one (for me) for last.  For the longest time I’ve wandered aimlessly feeling like my life has no purpose.  I’ve read books and blog articles and any literature I can find about finding my life’s purpose; my mission in life.  All this searching has left me with the belief that my life simply has no purpose.  The true reality is this…My life has purpose, I just don’t know what it is.  Maybe even more important, I don’t really need to know what my purpose is in order to lead a happy, fulfilling life.

You ever lose something and become obsessed with finding it even though you don’t really need it right away?  You search high and low in the same places over and over again.  You know you should just stop, but the act of finding it actually becomes more important than the item.  After a while you get so frustrated and eventually you give up.  A week later you find it while doing something totally unrelated.  At that point finding it was easy.  A week before finding it was a miserable experience.  This is my new view on having a purpose; I don’t really need to know what it is right away, so I’m going to stop making myself miserable trying to find it.  It will likely reveal itself when I least expect it.

Change Comes From Within

If you really want to change and become a healthy individual, it has to start from within.  Once you figure out how to question your own beliefs and perceptions, you start to become aware of how much of what you think you knew was actually wrong.  It’s when you hit this sweet spot, true change can begin to take shape. 

 

[Photo: Flickr / BK]

Weight Loss Fear - Success??

I’m preparing myself for a huge transformation that will begin when I return from vacation on September 1. Unlike past experiences, I’m not just starting right out with the goal to lose as much weight as fast as possible. This time it’s different. This time I want to prepare myself. When you move to a new city, you don’t just show up one day, you prepare. You get your things in order, you make lists of things you need to do, you tell your friends, you get yourself mentally ready. That’s why I wrote myself a letter when I restarted my blog, I needed to acknowledge to myself that although I have failed, I have, indeed changed, and I needed to give myself permission to try again. It was my first signal to begin getting myself mentally ready for what will be an incredibly tough challenge.

Today is another step in my preparation; admitting to one of my biggest (and probably seen as craziest) fears.

Another well-known blogger asked me recently if I was excited to get started. I told him that it wasn’t excitement, but rather fear I’m feeling right now. To be honest I’m scared as hell about this. I stared into a mirror the other morning, and I couldn’t recognize the person I was seeing. I’ve been going through the motions for so long now that I don’t really feel anything anymore. I just get up, do the same thing everyday, and then go to bed. No excitement, no enthusiasm, nothing. While this might seems sad, keep in mind that it can also be quite comfortable; nothing really changes.

My fear isn’t about failing… that just means more of the same, familiar life. Besides, I’ve failed millions of times; it’s not like I don’t know how to handle it. No, my fear is around succeeding. It’s amazing when you spend a little time just thinking about “stuff”. Since high school I’ve been overweight. Throughout my entire life my “vision” of myself as a thin person was simply… me, but thinner. At the age of 42 I find myself astounded that I’ve never seriously considered that fact that I would also change as a person! Seriously, I’ve never even had a mental picture myself as happier person, or a more confident person, it was always just a one dimensional image, same person, just with less body. Laugh if you want, but it just never really dawned on me. Now don’t get me wrong I pictured myself mountain biking and going kayaking with friends. I had all those visions of doing things that fat people can’t really do, but I never really thought about who I would be as a person.

It’s this realization that really has hit me hard. Most people assume that losing weight will only change them in positive way. While it is true there are positive aspects of losing weight. What’s not a given is how you will change as a person. How will my relationships with my family change? My friends? What personality traits will disappear? What new personality traits will show up? What new habits will I pick up? What will I think about my career? There’s a lot that can change when you go through these transformations, and there’s no guarantee that they will all be positive.

Don’t get me wrong, when I say I’m scared it’s not a “run for the hills – I can’t do this” type of scared, it’s that fear of the unknown. It’s like walking into a pitch dark cave with your hands out in front of you. You don’t necessarily stop, but you are scared as hell about what your about to run into!

This is just something that I’ve never really thought about before; it’s not just your appearance that will change, it’s everything about you! I don’t know how I will change, I don’t know the answers to all those questions I listed above, I don’t even know if I will like the new me or not. However, I do know this: The one thing that would be worse would be to never find out! Wish me luck, I’m going into the cave.

Letter To Myself - It's Time!

Dear FogDog-

Wow! Has it really been almost a year and a half since your last failed attempt at weight loss? So much has happened since then that I’m surprised you want to try again. Do you realize that the last time you posted on this blog…

• You lived in a different city
• You had a different job
• You drove a different car
• You still smoked
• You didn’t know you had severe sleep apnea
• You had just turned 40
• You were committed to starting another (failed) journey to lose 100 pounds

I went back and read your post called “starting over” that you made after your first failed attempt at weight loss. You talked about those couple of years as “dark times”. Things haven’t really gotten much better have they? In fact I think it’s safe to say things are worse now than they’ve been in quite a while. Sure, you managed to quit smoking 3 months ago, but at what cost? At the moment you are pretty darn close to 350lbs, you are miserable, and completely exhausted with life. Your job is stressful and not particularly fulfilling so your weekends are spent “unwinding” with a bottle of rum. Your kids don’t understand why you never play with them, and you seem depressed almost all the time. Can things get much worse? I’m amazed that you would even want to try again; you know that you are bound to fail!

But wait a minute; I also see that you are not the same person as before. Something about you is different but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe it’s all those books you started reading about positive psychology. Maybe now you are starting to see that you need to focus within yourself instead of always looking for external fixes. I think those books have helped but I don’t think that’s it.

Maybe it’s all the reading you’ve been doing about being healthy. I know the book you read by Chris Powell seemed to really get you motivated. I’m sure it had something to do with his mental approach to losing weight. No, I think that book was helpful, but I’m not sure that has made you a different person either.

I guess it could be all the health problems you have now. I bet you hate wearing a CPAP at night. My guess is that taking medication for high blood pressure isn’t much fun nor is the constant aching in your knees and feet. I’m sure those things would be enough to motivate you to get healthy.

Or maybe it’s just all of the above; I don’t know for sure, but whatever it is that has changed in you, I can see it very clearly. I saw it 3 months ago when you simply “decided” to quit smoking. You just stopped and even when your best friend gave up and started smoking again, you kept going. No tricks, no gimmicks, you simply decided it was time to quit. You didn’t let anyone influence you and your determination was unwavering. I can see you are now ready to do that again, only this time with losing weight. I think after almost 16 months, you are finally ready to pick yourself back up, dust yourself off, and start again. Actually, I don’t think it, I know it!

Since I can clearly see you are sincerely ready to give it another shot, I wanted to take some time to give you some advice:

• Face your fears! I know you very well; I know that one thing you are afraid of is that if you succeed at losing the weight your excuse for being unhappy will be gone, and then you will have to deal with whatever else might be out there. That might happen; losing weight is no guarantee to make you happy. You are going to have to face this fear and all those other ones that you aren’t quite ready to share yet.

• You need support! From a very early age you taught yourself that you shouldn’t need to rely on anyone to get by. I think you did that so that you wouldn’t have to deal with the feeling of being rejected when you need help. While it might have helped you to become highly independent, it has also made you closed off and incapable of asking for help from anyone. That needs to change. Reach out to your family and friends. Reach out to the blogosphere and find new friends that share your goals. You won’t succeed if you think you can do this one on your own.

• Help Others! You’re a smart guy, you’ve read a lot about being healthy and you’ve fought obesity your whole life. Something happened when you started volunteering in youth sports; you discovered that you actually like to help others! Share your story (good and bad) with anyone who will listen. Keep blogging and stay engaged with the community; it will keep you engaged with your battle.

• You need to keep your word! You’ve promised this before; you’ve said you would change your ways. Every time you promise and then fail to live up to it, it eats away at your soul. No crazy commitments this time, only promise to yourself the things you can realistically achieve.

• Get ready to fail! It’s going to happen and you know it. This journey will not be in a straight line so you need to be able to forgive yourself when you fail. This isn’t a “free pass” to be used when things get tough. You need to hold yourself accountable, but when you fail, you need to figure out what happened, forgive yourself, and then pick yourself back up as quickly as possible.

• Give yourself permission to succeed! Yes, you will fail from time to time, but you also need to allow yourself to succeed. I still don’t know why you don’t feel like you deserve complete success in life, but you do. You deserve happiness and success as much as anyone else.

• Lastly, and most importantly, you need to BELIEVE! Even with all the change I see in you, I’m still not convinced that you truly believe in yourself. I think there have been so many failures, that it’s almost impossible for you to see yourself at a healthy weight. This won’t work if you don’t believe in yourself. YOU CAN DO IT!

That’s all I’ve got for you. I know you are planning on starting your journey on September 1, so you have 2 weeks to get ready. I wish you the best of luck and I’ll do my best to help you stay on the path.

Sincerely,
Mark (A.K.A Fogdog)

Lose Weight, Be Happy... or is it Be Happy, Lose Weight?

When you picture yourself as a thin person, what do you see?  If you’re like me you are probably doing something cool like kayaking down a river or barreling down a mountain on a bike.  Regardless of what you see yourself doing, I’ll bet you anything that vision of the new, thin you includes being happier than you are now.  I often wonder if that’s true; will becoming thin actually make you happier?  To be honest I wonder if we have it backwards.  Maybe becoming happier will actually make you thin!

Think about it for a moment; how many times have you told yourself you would be so much happier if you could just lose the weight.  If that’s true, if you truly believe that in your heart, then why don’t you just do it?  We all want to be as happy as can be so why wouldn’t we just eat right and exercise and watch the weight fall off?  There are only 2 possible reasons: We either don’t know how to or we don’t really want to!  I’ll leave it up to each person to decide which answer fits them, but I’m pretty sure I know how to lose weight and my guess is that you do too.

Body, Mind, and Mouth: Life's Eating Connection

By this point you may have already dismissed this article as craziness, but if not, let’s keep going.  Let’s assume for a second that I’m right and you don’t lose weight because you really don’t want to.  My next questions would be… “Why don’t you want to lose the weight”?  Maybe, just maybe the real reason is because deep down inside you know that the original source of your unhappiness still exists and if you lose the weight you will be left to deal with it?  In other words, you think you want to lose weight, but your subconscious doesn’t want to deal with the real problem so you actually sabotage yourself.  Crazy, isn’t it?

Think about it, the formula for losing weight isn’t really that hard… but life is.  Like alcohol and tobacco, maybe eating has become a coping mechanism for other issues in your life.  It becomes a comfortable and convenient excuse; you’re not happy because you’re overweight, but you will never lose the weight because you’re so unhappy.  It becomes a vicious circle from which you can’t escape.    

Now I’m not suggesting that if you somehow found a way to be happier now, that the weight would just magically fall from your body.  It’s still going to take hard work and determination, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt to be happier while you do it.  I can’t speak for anyone else, but I know that I get more accomplished when I’m in a good mood.  What if that good mood stuck around longer?  Wouldn’t it be easier to lose weight?

I’m sure not everyone follows this pattern, but I bet you that there are quite a few people out there that do.  Spend a little time thinking about it; is there something in your life that’s making you unhappy?  Maybe you could work on that while you try to lose weight.  What do you have to lose; if I’m wrong but you try anyway, the worst that happens is that you are a little happier while still struggling to lose weight.  However, if you don’t try and I’m right you could very well end up right where you started, still unhappy and overweight!

What Went Wrong?

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" - George Santayana

OK, so I have no intention of dwelling on the past, what’s done is done and I can’t go back. However, there is something to be said about understanding what went wrong and then learning from it. That is the point of this post; to evaluate my most recent failure and determine what adjustments I can make to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

Failure #1 – Un-sustainable Path

Have you ever been in a triathlon? If you are reading my blog regularly, then probably not :) but I’m sure you’ll still follow the analogy. Triathlons are one of the most grueling endurance races out there. Many entrants never even finish; occasionally you will see highlights of people who literally just collapse… their bodies are done and they can’t move one more step forward. These people failed because they were on an unsustainable path, the pace they set for themselves was too much for their body to handle.

When I look back at my past posts, I see that I started at 297 in November 2009 and ended up at 270 by the end of March 2010. 27 Pounds in in 5 months doesn’t seem unsustainable, but if you look closer, I was at 288 at the start of March 2010. I lost 9 pounds in the first 4 months and then 18 in the last month.

When I did the 30 day challenge, my diet and exercise regimen became unsustainable. It became more important for me to win than it did to be healthy. By the time I was done with that challenge I was completely burned out emotionally. What you don’t see in the blog is that Big D. and I started a second challenge in April. We didn’t even finish because we were so burned out; we just both agreed to stop about 2 weeks in.

Failure #2 – Loss of Accountability

Why did I start blogging in the first place? I started blogging for several reasons, but one of them was to add some more accountability. I truly know quite a bit about losing weight (just not keeping it off), but you can’t write about weight loss if you’re not losing weight. Somewhere along the line I convinced myself (in the midst of being burned out from the 30 Day Challenge) that I was spending too much time blogging and not enough time focusing on losing weight. What a crock! Once I stopped writing it became easier and easier to cheat. In fact, after about a month, I stopped weighing in altogether. Not only did I lose the accountability from the blog, but then I started losing accountability to my family and friends, and eventually to myself.

Failure #3 – Failure to Stop the Backslide

If the unsustainable path was the first domino in my failure, then failing to stop the backslide was the last. The road to weight loss is never a straight line. Think about how many times you’ve said to yourself “If I can lose 2 pounds every week for a year I will have lost over 100 pounds!” Ever know anyone to do it that way? Plenty of people have lost 100 pounds in a year, but I can guarantee you no one did it by losing exactly 2 pounds per week. Weight loss has its ups and downs.

After I was burned out and after I stopped blogging, there was a time when I could see myself backsliding into the bad habits. Instead of choosing to get back on the wagon, I used my small failure as an excuse to keep on failing. Have you ever said to yourself “well I already cheated today and blew the entire week (on Tuesday), I might as well enjoy it and start fresh next week.”? That’s what I did, but weeks actually turned into months and eventually 2 years had passed.

Failure #4 – Forgetting Your Priorities

I ‘ve mentioned it a few times before, but my heaviest weight ever was 349. When I hit 349 it was still just me and Mrs. FogDog; the little tikes hadn’t shown up yet. At that time I vowed that I would make my health a high priority in my life. Then all this other stuff starts to happen to you; kids, career changes, moving, etc. Just a few months after I stopped blogging, I actually received a big promotion. It was a completely different kind of job than I had in the past and it involved managing others. I’ve been successful my entire career because when I get into something, I tend to bulldog it until I do it near perfectly. This job was no exception and the next thing you know I was working 60+ hour weeks and pretty much ignoring everything else around me except for my new job. That lasted for just about a year. With all this going on, I still had other commitments as well, so my health became the casualty. The results show, not only did my weight take off, but now I’m on blood pressure medication from all the stress at work.

Learning From Your Mistakes

As I said, I’m not going to dwell on the past, but I do intend to learn from it:

1. No more challenges, contests, or visions or “Biggest Loser” type weight loss numbers. Just stick to a sustainable plan that I can live with

2. Keep Blogging (Even if no one is reading) and keep holding myself accountable

3. Prepare for failure! Eventually I will have a backslide so I need to be prepared now. Once it happens, accept it, get back on track, and move on.

4. Don’t forget your priorities. Every morning when I take that BP pill I remind myself why my heath needs stay near the top of my priorities.

Will You be Happy After Losing Weight?

“I will truly be happy once I lose all this weight!” Have you ever said that to yourself? I have, and I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who have as well. The question is, is it really true? If you are unhappy right now what makes you think that will change just because your weight is different? The answer has to do with how our minds visualize our new, thinner selves.

When you think of being thin, what do you see? Do you see the same you now only in smaller clothes? Hell no! I bet there isn’t a soul on this planet that thinks that way when they visualize themselves being thin. What you see is a better you. You see yourself being successful at work, at love, and at life. You see a confident person taking charge of their life. You see an adventurer scaling mountains and kayaking through rapids. You see the perfect you.

The problem is this; losing weight does not turn you into the perfect person. Now granted it does improve your self esteem and your confidence, but if you are not happy right now, you may not be any happier when you are thin. In fact, I believe this is one big reason why some people lose a LOT of weight only to gain it back shortly after. Have you ever met someone who lost more than 50 pounds and then gained it all back? Have you ever wondered how in the hell they could do that? Did you think they must be nuts for allowing it to happen? Have you ever vowed that if you ever lose the weight, you will NEVER let it come back? Do you think they ever really intended for that to happen?  My guess is no, they did not intend to gain all the weight back.  Something else must have contributed to it, and that something else must have had a really strong influence in that person's life.

Well maybe the underlying issue wasn’t the weight; maybe they were just unhappy to begin with. I believe many of these people were overweight because they were unhappy, not unhappy because they were overweight. When the weight came off the unhappiness remained. That perfect self they envisioned didn’t appear, and as a result, they ended up gaining it right back because they didn't get to the root of the problem.

In fact, losing the weight could even be the source of additional unhappiness in your life:

• Do you have friends or relatives that share the same habits as you? What if they don’t lose weight too? Will they harbor resentment toward you? Will you harbor resentment toward them? What if it’s your spouse? Will you still feel the same way about them if you change and they don’t?
• How about your job? It’s cool to get all those compliments, but what else comes with it? Will other co-workers start to see you as a threat? Will the relationships at work change just because you weigh less? Will your boss expect more of you now that you’ve accomplished something tough?
• How about maintaining your weight; do you think that might stress you out? Chances are if you were once severely overweight, you will most likely never be able to eat like someone that was born with a higher metabolism. Is it fair that some of your healthy friends can eat like pigs once in a while and not gain anything, but you can’t because it would instantly add 5 pounds to your weight? What will happen if you do gain 5 pounds; how will that make you feel?

Now let me say, I am not trying to argue that you shouldn’t lose weight because it might make you unhappy.  The point I'm trying to make is that the same issues you had before may still be there and new issues may also arise (it's called LIFE!)

You need to take a look at yourself and determine if  you are unhappy right now because you are overweight, or is being overweight one of the results of you being unhappy. Take some time to really think about it, the answer might not be as obvious as you think.

If you discover that you are unhappy, then take steps to fix the unhappiness while you lose the weight. Don’t put off one in favor of the other, you can work on improving your happiness and work on losing weight at the same time. Use you success in one to build confidence in the other.

Think about what your new life really will be like when you lose the weight. Think about you current relationships; how will they change? Think about what you really will look like; will your style change or just your shirt size? What new activities do you think you might try? What old habits will remain no matter what you do? Try to get a true picture of what you will be like instead of a mythical vision of the perfect you.

Losing a lot of weight is a big change and can have a huge impact on your quality of life. With that in mind, however, don’t just assume that a positive change in one part of your life will automatically bleed into other parts of your life and make you perfect. Accomplishing your goal of losing weight is great way to start becoming a better you, but it is only one part of the equation. Think about those other parts and deal with the problems now. If you don’t, you might not like the new, thinner you.

Will you be happy after you lose the weight?