Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Inspiration or Despair That is the Question


This post was inspired by a group writing project hosted by Vivien over at Inspirationbit.com. She is always great at making me think and this project was no different in that respect. I hope that by sharing this part of my life it will inspire others while helping me stay the course.

When I think of the word inspiration it conjures up thoughts of desire and purpose. When something inspires me there is a desire to participate or work toward completing a task. This feeling is quickly followed by a sense of purpose and direction. It’s at this point that I begin to take action. In the case of losing weight I was inspired by several factors and along the journey became inspired by family, friends and coworkers.

The word despair reminds me of hopelessness or depression. At times battling my weight problem has seemed an exercise in despair or hopelessness. Luckily the forces of inspiration far outweigh the feelings of despair.

Most of my life I have been overweight. Much of the time I was not really bothered by it, so I did not do anything about it. I have dieted along the way with some success. I had lost as much as 55 pounds and kept it off for a couple of years. In the last couple of years I had reached the highest weight of my life. Just before the first of the year I decided I needed to do something about it.

Just because you know you are overweight doesn’t mean you will be inspired to lose weight. Something more personal needs to push you to make changes. In my case these manifested themselves in different ways and at different times. I understood the health implications of being overweight but it did not inspire me to action. At this point you may be asking what did inspire me.

How about something as simple as putting your socks on in the morning? Sound inspiring? Not really, but in my case every morning when it was time to put my socks on I would become winded with this simple task. I finally decided that was ridiculous and it was time for change.

I normally would go out for lunch everyday at work. Just about every day without fail I would eat to the point of being so full all I could think about the rest of the day was how miserable I was. I didn’t want to feel that way any more.

Some people may see a commercial or TV show and become inspired to look like the person they saw and go out and buy some new clothes. I on the other hand hate to shop for clothes. It wasn’t so much that I had to shop in the Big section it was that I couldn’t ever find clothes that fit very well. The pants were too long or the shirt sleeves were too long. The pants were too baggy in the butt and too long in the leg but the waist fit just fine. I am inspired to be able to find pants off the rack that fit and shirts that fit everywhere.

Once the pounds began to drop and the clothes began to sag I found Inspiration from others. From my wife who constantly told me how proud she was to my coworkers that complimented me on my success. All of these combined with my improved physical condition have helped me to continue. I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes I get tired of counting calories or planning ahead so that I am not rushed into a bad food choice. But, then I will get a comment on my blog or a friend will have something encouraging to say and I’ll keep going.

If you are on the journey with me, battling your weight, I hope you can find some nugget of Inspiration in the letters and words above. Even if you are in the pit of despair look around and within, your Inspiration may be closer than you think.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for sharing your experience and inspiration with us.
I myself still have a few more pounds to lose to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. So I have my battles to win and I wish you all the best with yours.