My favorite motivational poster of all time!

The end of the road is great… but not as awesome as the journey

You got it.  That’s how I feel right now.

You see, I have come upon the notion that this journey is going to be awesome, by accident during my workout this morning.  Am I excited to reach my goal weight of 145 pounds?  You betcha.  But, let’s face it 145 pounds for me, is a long ways away at this point.  If I concentrate too much on the end result, then I won’t get anything from it on the way there.

I have been here before.  I have been in this place.  Back in 2001, I weighed 235 pounds and lost 70 pounds over 4 months.  How did I do it?  Well, for one thing, back in that day, it was just me.  I had no husband (or boyfriend) or children.  At 21, I was a budding career girl, living in a one bedroom apartment wondering how to grab life by the balls and run.  I cut down my carbs (ate only high yielding foods), learned to love fruits and veggies, and ate lean meat.  I also started walking 3 miles a day.  And then, when that wasn’t challenging enough, I upped my workout to biking 14 miles 6 days a week.  My motivation back then was to build a life for myself.  My efforts paid off and here I am today happily married with three little ones and on a great career path.

Every week I would get compliments.  People would say, “Oh your face is looking thinner!” or “You are glowing!” or (my personal favorite) “You are looking so good!”.   I live off of compliments y’all.  The quickest way to my heart is to give me a compliment.  I live, eat and breathe compliments.  And back then, each compliment gave me more motivation to keep on going.  Not only that, but at the same time something else was building inside of me.  A sense of self.

I started to really look at my life and define it.  I picked what I wanted, left out what I didn’t want and redefined my needs.  Working out every day gave me a sense of accomplishment and more importantly as my feet (or bike tires) hit the pavement, my stress seemed to flow down that way too.   I was just plain happy to be me and happy to be living life out loud for once.

The end of the road was great.  I got down to 165, looked hot (not gonna lie.  I was a hottie), and felt confident.   But the journey gave me so much.  Because, had I not went through the process of defining myself, destressing and decluttering my life, then I wouldn’t have gotten to the end of the road of that particular journey.  If I would have defined my success by the number on the scale instead of by the way I felt, then I would never have lost the weight or gained a sense of self.

So yeah, I am back here again.  But this is a whole new journey.  I look around and see that my life is vastly different now than it was before.  Still, this time around, i’m coming to the table with the same basic principle as I had back then; I am going to enjoy the ride.  I am going to enjoy the mini successes.  I am going to allow the stress to pour out of me with each workout.  I am going to enjoy the energy I am gaining, the smiles I am giving, and the basic notion that I am living life once again.

Because this whole journey really is about living life out loud.  This whole journey for me boils down to getting back in touch with myself and redefining who I am.

Mini Successes Today:  I felt invigorated after my workout instead of dead-dog-tired and everyday it seems to have gotten easier.  Oh *AND* working out makes me feel thinner.

Now a question for you guys.  What has been your favorite part of your own weight loss journey thus far?

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