How Do You Climb Your Mountain?

As I started my latest attempt to lose weight, I found myself overwhelmed by how much weight I felt I needed to lose. I found myself thinking, if I lose 20% of my body weight, I will be where I was when I was 41 years old. Losing 20% of ones body weight is a significant amount of weight. But, my goal weight is not just 20% of my weight. Rather, I want to lost 86 pounds. To get to a weight at which I don't even remember being. A weight I flew by to reach my present weight. That is an overwhelming task. So, how do I get to that weight?

I am often reminded of a time when I was in second grade. For some reason, we were brought into a third grade room. On top of the chalk board was cursive letters. I wondered how I was ever going to be able to learn to write in cursive. Of course I wasn't going to learn cursive writing by the time I reached third grade. But, somewhere along the line I learned. It was part of the learning process. Likewise, when we begin to lose weight, we have to not look at the mountain but rather, we must focus on the process.

For the weight loss process to be successful, you have to have perseverance. I was reading on the Weight Watcher message boards about a man who lost 70 pounds in 9 months. What an awesome achievement!! But, think about it, break it down. That's less than 2 pounds per week. I'm sure along the way he had some weeks where he didn't lose any weight. He probably even gained weight a couple weeks. But, he stuck with the program and lost 70 pounds.

Think about it. If you lost 40 pounds in one year, you would be very happy with the results. But, if you lost only 1 pound a week you might be frustrated. Most people that are successful with weight loss lose the weight at 1 - 2 pounds per week. That is incremental progress. In fact, each weigh in could be affected by water retention. Thus, potentially leading to frustration with the process. It's possible that you might have bad weeks along the way. But, the key is to stick with the process, persevere, accept the let downs, rejoice in the victories.

Stick with it, the results are worth it, you are worth it.