Finding Your Motivation

First, I want to start with a little background of my journey. In 2010, I was at my heaviest weight. I was planning my wedding and my beautiful dress that I had bought would not zip up. It was around Christmas that I decided a huge change needed to be made (you can read the expanded version HERE). To make a long story short – I had decided that enough was enough. I was tired of feeling unhealthy. My blood pressure was elevated. I got out of breath easily. I was in a terrible mood 90% of the time. I felt horrible about myself which affected my relationships with others.

By the time my wedding rolled around, I had already lost almost 20 pounds. I continued on past my wedding date and ended up losing almost 45 pounds total. A few months later, I found out I was pregnant and so a new journey began! I stayed very active all during my pregnancy (I taught ZUMBA until I was a little over 6 months pregnant, ran, did yoga, and then mostly just walked toward the end of my pregnancy) which definitely helped me shed the weight (plus breastfeeding of course). So now here I am. Almost a year postpartum. I have lost all of my “baby weight” but still have a little more to go. Plus, I want to tighten up the jiggle. As I am writing this I can’t believe it has been 5 years since I made that first step toward becoming healthier. The question I get asked most often is: “how did you lose weight?” Unfortunately, there is not an easy answer. Nor is there an answer that is going to work for everyone. Each person’s journey is unique. However, I can share with you what motivated me to get started and how those motivations have changed over time.

One of my biggest motivations was that I knew I wanted to lose as much weight as I could before we started a family. I didn’t want to already be 50 pounds overweight and then add pregnancy weight on top of that. Wanting to have a healthy pregnancy was a HUGE motivator for me. Being overweight can not only affect your fertility but can also have a very negative affect on your pregnancy.

Now that my son is here, I have a whole new perspective on being healthy. Even though he is still too young to understand anything about being healthy, I am already trying to incorporate him into my exercise time. We do yoga and stretching together and if I am doing ZUMBA I have him in the room with me (he LOVES laughing at me while I dance). I also strap him in the stroller and take walks and jog. I will admit, working full-time outside of the home plus having an 11-month old leaves little time for working out. So, I try to do shorter work-outs but do them more often during the week.

The other big motivator for me is my faith. It’s not just about a faith in God but also faith in myself. I am a big believer in the notion of “mind, body, spirit.” I knew that getting healthy was not just a “body” thing. I needed to find ways to cultivate my mind and spirit. I used books, devotions, and fellowship with other women. I also changed the way I looked at exercise. Instead of viewing it as a chore, I began to view it as a form of worship. I have a difficult time carving out “quiet time” for devotions and meditation so I decided to combine it with my exercise!

I still struggle with being healthy daily. Finding my motivation was only the beginning. I am constantly reminding myself of why I started. Being able to articulate the why part of my journey helps me to stay on track. Don’t get me wrong, I still indulge. I will always love food… and Diet Coke. However, I have learned to find a balance. This journey is nothing more than a culmination of small steps. Sometimes those small steps are forward and sometimes they are backward. When they are backward, I don’t beat myself up. I just turn around.

Back in 2010, I had a big change of perspective about my health. I stopped looking at losing weight as just wanting to look good. Sure, that is a great bonus of losing weight but it isn’t my motivation. My motivation is taking care of my body. We only get one shot in this body and I want to make the most of it!

What motivates you?