Putting In The Hard Work Brings Success

I had started a post on my phone a couple of days ago, I ended up scrapping most of it after dealing with some life altering changes today. Here's what I learned from them... one, I have to stand my ground and live my life the way I want to live it, I am not going to be pushed/pulled into something because of someone else, no one controls me but me. Two, I am more than capable of making changes when I put my mind to it... Whenever I think I can't do something, I just have to read past posts, which reminds me that if I can lose 75+ pounds in under a year and survive losing 'him' at the same time... I am more than capable of dealing with some small life altering changes.

I had lost my motivation for losing weight, or so I thought. I kept thinking I needed to be in more control and be more present in the present... Although I did not go overboard and eat the way that I used to over a year ago, I was definitely not as careful. I knew that I had gained some weight back as my clothes were fitting to a tee... where they had been loose. I reverted back to my old ways in that I didn't want to step on the scales. Tonight I finally hopped on and I found out that I had only gained a little less then 8 pounds over the past almost four months. I was so happy, so relieved and it motivated me.

I am back mapping my walks whenever possible and putting my food in to My Fitness Pal.  That last one is absolutely key for me. I am ALWAYS successful when I write down what I eat.  This is what works for me, I need to be accountable to myself... that is why Weight Watchers worked for me when I attended years ago. I was reading one of the blogs I follow awhile back (Grace Notes) and she wrote about a weight loss plan she was using. It was called IF, which stands for Intermittent Fasting. She was having great success with it and finally I Googled it last week and read up on it. I realized that this is what I had used to lose the weight without even realizing it.

When I had the best weight loss success last year, it was because I was eating all my food in an 8 hour window each day (usually between 8am to 4pm)... this works for me. So last week I started it again and I feel amazing... as well I am exercising more. I know that this is not something that works for everyone, just like Paleo works for so many people but this would not work for me as I do not eat that amount of meat and it is difficult for me to digest it.  However; this plan works so well for many people. I honestly think that we all have to figure out our way to get there, we are individuals with different needs.

As for my life altering change, I am directly in the middle of it at the moment and once I have a better idea of where I am going from here, I will be blogging about it. At the moment, there are just way too may variables and honestly I don't want to think about it today.  I am not one to put things aside until later but sometimes it is the best thing I can do.... take some time, figure out my options and than make a choice....

This reminds me that no matter how difficult life gets and how many curve balls are thrown my way, I can still eat healthy and not use that as an excuse to check out and gain all the weight back. I am not in a race to see how fast I can lose the most weight, I am in this for the long term, this is a life style change and I couldn't be more grateful for holding on to that when the past few months were quite chaotic.

Having a chaotic life is not an excuse to just eat what I want, it is about dealing with life head on and continuing to grow. I have caught a glimpse of the path in the last few months, it took making me a priority and looking for ways to get back on track. It is so funny (strange) because I learn these great a ha lessons that I write about and then I think I have it... yet I seem to forget what I have learned. I will have to remind myself daily what got me to where I am today (and that is perfectly fine with me, whatever it takes to stay on track and brings me success).

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