Here's the skinny...

It has recently been brought to my attention that I may have lied to you... and myself. Of course this was never intentional. I wanted to believe what I was saying, but I think it's time to accept it just wasn't really the case.

I'm speaking about my weight loss intentions. I truly thought that I meant it when I said my weight loss goals were all about getting healthy. I tried to believe appearance wasn't as much a part of it as taking care of my body. Well guess what, the more I've thought about it that's just not true at all. The truth is I want to wear smaller clothes and have more confidence. What inspires me is looking at before and after pictures, not hearing about how healthy someone ate. (Don't get me wrong I know that getting healthy is way more important, but it's just not what gets me excited about doing the hard work).  The truth is I know that no matter what people say you are judged on your outward appearance. No one judges the 130 pound female about what she eats and worries about if she is exercising or taking care of her body. Everyone assumes she's healthy. But add another 25, 50, 100 pounds to that girl and people start to care, and not always in a positive way. And reality is that girl may be working out and eating better than the 130# girl. I'm not blaming anyone here, we all do it, myself included. We all make judgement based on appearances. So I've finally accepted that in reality my main motivating factor is to be accepted based on first appearances.

I'm still talking about all of this in relation to serving God in ways I think He's called me. I'm not talking about romantic possibilities here, just general first impressions. I know that probably 99% of people I meet aren't judging, at least not long term based on my appearance. But they still form an opinion based strictly on what they see, it's just natural. I want to appear able to perform any task given to me. And I want to have the ability and the confidence that I can do any task given to me. 

I'm considering the possibility that it's just too much to try to do all at once. Maybe I have too many goals and try to accomplish them all at one time. I know how to lose weight, I know what it means to eat healthy, I know what types of exercise I love. If only it were just that easy. I think it's time I accept the challenge of tackling the mental part of weight loss. And I'm pretty convinced right now that rather than worrying about  how fast or how slow I lose the weight, whether I use weight loss aides or not shouldn't even be the focus right now. Just start losing weight. Of course in a healthy way, but I don't think there was ever a risk of me starving myself to get there. I wouldn't be here if I was capable of that. ;)  But there is no way I can try to change everything all at one time and be successful, I, personally, just don't work that way. I think once the pounds start coming off the more I'll desire doing more to continue to get results. The more it will become important to make healthier food choices. The more it will become important to find ways to tone. These things will just become natural next steps. Rather than completely overhauling my eating right now, at the holidays and then feeling like I'm failing when I don't stick to it, I'm just going to work on eating less. Eating less and praying more. I definitely do better when I get help from the best diet aid there is... Jesus.

Let the journey continue...