Have you ever eaten just one chip?

Have you ever eaten just one chip?  How about just one nugget?  Or one fry?  Well if you have….BRAVO.  If you haven’t, which I fully believe is most of the population, then we are all in the same boat.  The 'I’m overweight and can’t help it' boat.   If you are reading this and arguing with me then I’m afraid you’re not going to like the rest of my post.  I truly believe that at some point you will finally say enough is enough and gain enough willpower to overcome fatty foods, but I also believe that until you’re ready mentally, you’re not going to get through one day.  We also have those times where we start a diet and last anywhere from 1 day to 1 month or longer and then slowly we resort to our old ways.  During the diet we feel soooo good and sooo accomplished that we can’t understand why we never did it before.  How this is a change that’s going to stick with us and become our new and improved lifestyle.  Nothing can make us go back to our old selves.

Until……….

We decide to go ahead and get that huge piece of banana walnut loaf from Starbuck’s to reward our good decision-making.  After that we decide to have an extra helping at dinner, or just 1 candy bar.  You keep checking the scales after that just to make sure that you’re not destroying your hard work and at first you see no change.  Hmmmm, you think, if those things didn’t hurt me then I might as well enjoy them more often.  I think subconsciously you start eating more just to see at what point the scale starts to climb.  Finally you’re so far gone from your original goals that you slowly descend back into your protective shell that you’ve known for so long, in my case my entire life.

Well ladies and gents, I am slowly going to start my uphill climb to a better life.  I’m so afraid of failure that even writing this is making me nervous.  I guess the part that’s scary is knowing that I have tried and failed so many times that it’s quite possible I’m going to fail again.  I don’t want to fail.  It’s not easy to be a bubbly wife, mother, and friend, with a ton of personality, and feel like I do on the inside.  I wish I could sit here and tell you that I have great self-esteem and I feel comfortable in my own skin but the truth of the matter is that when I look in the mirror or see myself in a picture, I don’t recognize the person staring back at me.  I am fortunate enough to have a wonderful husband and a great family who love me for me.

I am not promising that I’ll post everyday with my progress but I will promise that I will make a concentrated effort to keep everyone informed of my “new” lifestyle.  This will be a slow journey but I’m hoping that it will be the journey of a lifetime.

P.S. If you’d like to send me encouraging words or something positive, I will look forward to it.  If you are going to be a Debbie Downer then please remember the old saying, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

Thanks!!!