Unfuck Yourself!

I've been saying for years that losing weight is hard. That's been my mantra that I've been preaching for years and used far too long as an excuse to stay fat. It's not entirely true though and I just came to that realization recently.

Losing weight is not hard. Losing weight is moving your body more and not eating crappy food. Honestly, it's as simple as that. It’s what you’ve been hearing for years and it is true whether you want to believe it or not. There is no magic pill. What is hard work is unfucking your mind from all the bullshit lies that you've been telling yourself for years. The things going through your mind about why you're not worth it or why you don’t have time and all the other little things playing in your mind on a daily basis. It’s unfucking your mind when you work your ass off and the scale doesn’t move and you feel like quitting but you keep going anyway. It’s about breaking free from the thoughts that you have lived with for years or probably decades. It’s about confronting your bullshit once and for all and dealing head on with your issues.

Once I started thinking about my relationship with food everything changed. Once I realized what I gain by continuing to eat the way I did, it opened up a whole new mindset for me. (You can read about that here)

I believe that every single person who is fat is holding onto the weight because there is some personal gain that they get from it. You may not realize it and you may be in denial about it but there is a personal gain for each of us to stay fat, whether it be comfort, or control, or hiding behind your weight to keep other people at bay. There are 1000+ reasons that people stay fat and until you breakthrough that mindset of what's keeping you fat, you will stay fat. You'll lose the weight and then you'll gain it back and continue this cycle, over and over again. I've done it more times than I can count.

I'm not going to say that I had this crazy ah-ha moment and my mind totally shifted. Not even close. I've been on this path of self-discovery for over a year now and it wasn't until I really looked hard at my relationship with food did things start changing. It wasn't a change in one day but more of a slow change in the way I view exercise, the way I eat, the way I plan my food, in the way I think about food and more importantly, don't think about food every second of my life. It was slowly making the decision to get out and walk every day at lunch. Not because I had to but because it felt good. It makes my body and my mind feel absolutely fantastic. It was about getting together with my friend Kasey and starting a fitness challenge at work.  It’s about eating with intention to make my body feel good instead of sick from the crap I ingested. It’s about learning why I was doing what I was doing and saying enough is enough. It’s also about knowing that if I want to indulge, I do but then I don’t guilt trip the hell out of myself for doing it. I also know that what I thought was food I couldn’t live without, is food I haven’t craved or wanted for weeks now.

I remember one time when I was writing down long term goals that I put something along the lines of,  “I want exercise and eating healthy to be something I do because it makes me feel good, not because I have to.” I can honestly say that this is where my mind is right now. It could change next month, or even tomorrow but for now I am living healthy. Not because I have to but because it feels good. I'm not saying that it's going to be easy now that my thoughts have shifted but what I am saying is that the future looks a lot less daunting.