Motivation...

Kinda ironic I suppose. A blog about motivation which has taken me 6 days to write.

At the class on Tuesday our amazing leader had collated all the before and after photographs of members from her classes. There was hundreds of members, and the losses were unreal: 70, 80, 90, some over 100lbs off! Suddenly my measly couple of stone don't seem the mountain that they once did.

Christine asked us about motivation. She talked about the members who photographs we were shown, talked about their motivations as well as her own. Christine explained that for her she needs the motivation of instant results, to see and feel different as quickly as possible. For some of the other gold members, it was feelings, or auditory feedback from other people, it could be reading, the success stories...it was touching - books, the calculator, the tools.

When I came back from class I got my laptop out, launched the blogger and literally got writers block. What was my motivation....?

Thing is motivation is the thing I lack in weight loss. I stick it out for a while, look a bit, fit in my clothes a bit better, and then get complacent, or have a crazy week, or feel as though I can't really be bothered any more. This was not an instant blog, I needed to seriously think about what my motivation is...and I obviously needed to, because I am stagnating one again.

When I think about it... I have ever motivation under the sun. I have a beach holiday booked in ten weeks time, I have a manfriend who is a particularly healthy individual who would love nothing more than to go to the gym together, I am 6 weeks into my stop smoking journey and totally in control. I am the happiest, and most in control of my life as I have ever been, what more motivation do I actually need!!

So I thought about it, reflected on it. I am a blogger, and that is all about feelings...but its observations of feelings, reflection on them and then simply writing them down.

I started to run over my blog, reading and rereading the blogs, and I began to see a common theme, literally to SEE.

Photographs, hundreds of photographs. Some of them I hate, badly taken and fat looking, some of them I love, because I had lost the weight. Even though I talk about how I feel, how I think the same points kept coming up again and again...the way I look. I need to look good, to feel good. The days I put on my clothes, look in the mirror and like what I see, those are the days I track, plan and stay in control. The days I put on my clothes and look fat, I eat, I don't exercise, I can't be bothered.

For me the motivation is visual. And unfortunately things do not happen fast enough for me to see changes, and that is what I need to stay motivated. I need to see the difference.

So to encourage me further I have ordered THE size 12 dress which is not going to disappear in the bottom of the cupboard but hang out until the day I look good in it. I am going to redo all the photos where I look good and pin them around the house to keep my motivation levels up, instead of fat ones which bring me down. I am also going to take more measurements because in the last 5 weeks I have actually lost 4.5inches...so even though I may not be losing on the scales the difference is there.

I still need to mull this over, because I need to think about how I can keep my motivation high. Which I suppose half the battle is finding out my motivation, which thanks to Christine, and my blogs, I just did!