Welcome to part two of my “blog my goals” journey.

Reducing debt is nothing compared to this reduction. Weight reduction! I met my goal in this area a few years ago. I actually was fairly fit and trim in the scheme of things. I started that journey at 163 pounds. I joined Curves. I ate well. I drank lots of water. I looked for opportunities to be active. I ended up losing 34 pounds in about 6 months! Not only that, but I also had a significant drop in my body fat percentage! I felt better than I had in quite some time. My thighs didn’t jiggle when I sat down. I slept better and was mentally alert when I was awake.

Then I’m not sure what happened. Who am I kidding? I know exactly what happened. I got lazy. As quickly as I had lost 34 pounds, I put them back on. Plus 2. And now I don’t drink water. I make poor choices in my diet. I don’t get off my rear end unless I have to. As a result I don’t sleep as well, I feel like a slug, and the largest pair of jeans I own only zip now if I’m laying on my bed. Not good.

You’d think these things would be enough to motivate me to lose the weight….again. You’d think I’d want to look good, feel good, and generally be more healthy. But those motivators aren’t working for me this time.

Neither is my crappy family history (sorry Dad and Mom, you can’t help it!) My dad had a heart attack when he was 54. Big red flag! Both of my parents had cholesterol levels through the roof. Now those are controlled with medication. My mother had high blood pressure until she had a bout with septic shock. During that ICU stay her blood pressure bottomed out in the 50/20 range. Since then her blood pressure has been perfectly fine! Then my father started having TIA’s (mini-strokes). This is another indicator of coronary artery disease. All of these genetic precursors should be enough to make me get off my duff and DO something. But then I look at my grandmother. She just turned 90 and is doing quite well. She eats butter, drinks wine, and doesn’t exercise. Yet she still lives alone and gets around without problems. So right now I’m playing genetic history roulette and I have all my money on the fact that I’m going to be just like Grandma.

I’ve found that internet support groups aren’t so helpful. I am involved in one, but along with the threads dealing with weight loss and healthy living, there are other non-related threads that are much more interesting and fun. Guess which ones I like to hang out in. Every month though, I join the “exercise challenge” thread and set an achievable goal that I know I can handle. This month I thought I could eek out 800 minutes of exercise. It’s a short month, so that’s only an average of 28 minutes of exercise a day. It’s now February 24th and I’ve completed 180 minutes. Do the math. Ok, I’ll help you. What this means is I would have to do an average of 124 minutes of exercise each day between now and February 28th. Does laughing count for exercise? Because I just managed another 2 minutes!

Part of my motivation right now might be my debt reduction plan…..I simply cannot justify buying bigger clothes. I have a closet full of smaller clothes that are just waiting to be worn. Problem being that I don’t mind hanging out most of the day in sweatpants. Big, comfy, warm sweatpants. The kind where you feel you have room to expand. Not a good thing.

I know one of the reasons why debt reduction is so much easier than weight reduction for me. When I send in a little extra money to Toyota, I can see my principal balance go down. And it stays down. The more I send in, the farther it goes down. But yet with weight reduction, I can work my butt off (figuratively) and eat well for a month and the scale might go down one-half pound. I need faster feedback than that!

So help me here. I know, the motivation needs to come from within myself. But what has and hasn’t worked for you? What happened in your life to motivate you to lose weight, exercise, or eat healthier?

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