Staying Focused

Sometimes I find it difficult to stay focused on what is important, and to keep my mindset where it should be.  The most common example for me is in my weight loss process.  I have a tendency to focus on where I want to be, and how far I have to go to get there, instead of on how far I've come.  I spent 3 years in college eating crap and sitting on my butt and put on 60 pounds.  Yikes!  And I knew better.  I had worked hard in high school to drop some of my extra weight.  I was a little on the heavy side ever since middle school.  My parents are both overweight.  So I know that I am going to have to work extra hard to get rid of this.

One of my goals since I really faced up to what I had let myself become was to get back to my weight when I finished high school.  It's so funny now, because at that time I was JUST at the very top of the "healthy" weight range for my height.  I still felt like I was too big for my size and refused to wear tank tops or a two piece swimsuit.  Of course now I would give anything to be at 150 again :-)  And that's part of my problem - I keep focusing on that 150.

What I should focus on is where I am now.  When I started being serious about losing weight I was at my heaviest, at 210.  I'm now down to 180 as of yesterday morning.  180!  If I look at it from the 150 side I think gosh, I still have to lose 30 pounds.  But then I realized I'm halfway there!!  I already HAVE lost 30 pounds.  Sure, it's taken me 3 years and a lot of ups and downs and hard work.  But dang.  30 pounds.  That's something to be proud of!

Now I'm trying to change my attitude.  Instead of focusing on the 30 pounds to go I want to focus on getting in shape.  I love the active lifestyle everyone has here and I just can't keep up.  Like last weekend, a group of my friends invited me to go on a hiking weekend in the Alps in Italy.  And I didn't go simply because I know I can't keep up.  I hate that.  I'm missing out on fantastic things.

So I'm trying to have a positive outlook.  Dwell on where I've come from (being out of breath after walking up two flights of stairs) instead of how far away the finish is.  Not easy for sure...


Oh, and by the way, I chopped off my hair, and I love it :-)  Here is the result: