Believe

Welcome to March. For those of you who live up north, I hope this means nicer weather and no more snow. I can say the weather here in Florida has been cool and comfortable, which is nice because the warm, sticky weather will be here soon.

Last week was an emotional week for me. After weighing in before my Weight Watchers meeting and not seeing any change on the scale, I sat through a meeting where a woman who I thought looked really good complained about how her husband loses weight easily, but she is having a hard time losing 5 pounds. She then proceeded to shoot down every idea and piece of advice that was given to her by both the leader and other people in the meeting. Now I was already feeling pretty crappy and ready to give up and the last thing I wanted to hear was this woman, who did not look like she needed to lose 5 pounds, complain and be negative. By the end of the meeting, I was frustrated and upset. As I was gathering up my stuff, the meeting leader came over, said I looked upset, and asked me what was wrong. With that, I started to cry.
So, I'm crying and I'm trying to hold it in, which only makes you cry harder. I told the leader about how frustrated I was. How many years I've been carrying around all this weight and how I'm struggling to lose it. I also talked about how frustrating it is for me to watch friends and family lose weight while I just seem to stay the same. (Please don't get me wrong, I am so thrilled for the changes my friends and family members have made and I'm so happy for them.) When I finished and was trying to pull myself together, the leader looked me in the eye and said that she believed in me. She told me that I had the strength to do this and that she believed in me.

This got me thinking. I am the negative one. The first to make a joking, negative comment about myself before anyone else does. The first one to tell myself I can't do it, I'm not strong enough, I'm not good enough. Why is it that this woman who barely knows me believes in me when I have a hard time believing in myself? Having someone tell me that they believe in me sort of sent me into a tailspin. I forced myself to step back and take a good look at where I was coming from mentally and emotionally. That is not an easy thing because in order for me to start to see the real me, I had to be vulnerable and raw. So I am working on rebuilding my self-esteem, trying to view myself as the person I really am, not just someone with a weight problem and isn't good enough. I'm still feeling a little raw and am probably overly sensitive at times. The thing I have to keep in mind is that from pain comes growth. Everyday I am one step closer to where I want to be.

So to all of you out there who are working towards change or working towards something that is difficult to accomplish, I believe in you! As corny as that sounds, I do believe in each of you and I know you have the strength to accomplish any challenge you set for yourself. I hope these words will help you believe in yourselves.

I did weigh in today and I lost 3.6 pounds. I have also decided to start training to do the Disney Half-Marathon in January 2012, so I have a workout goal ahead of me and I believe this is something I can accomplish. As always, thanks for the encouragement and thanks for reading! :)