Triggers

OK, so I didn't mean to come accross so uncompassionate in my last post. As I've mentioned in a recent post I'm just writing on whims....so let me finish...try to finish, my feelings about my own weight loss and how important it is to me to extend a message of compassion and hope.

So, I think we all agree that when it comes to the physical part of losing weight, we all know how to do it....stop doing what is making us fat. Live within our calories, and move our bodies more. But a comment left from my last post brought to mind that the challenge those of us have with weight loss isn't physical...it's mental. And if you've never been fat, you really can only approach it from the physical....and that's why I'm different. I can relate to the part that's mental.

And the mental part, because we all have our own history, our own "stories", our own lives, is as different and individual as each one of us. So what is really meant when some one asks the question..."How did you lose all of that weight?"

Upon further reflection, it is my opinion that what is really meant by that is not, how did you physically do that, but what changed in your head? The question really is, "What finally motivated you to make the physical changes?" Motivation is not a physical thing it is a mental thing. Again as different and individual as each of us.

The reason why we ask the questions, the reason we read blogs and watch programs, read articles about weight loss is that we are hoping that something, what, we don't know exactly, but something, that will trigger motivation. Something that is said, something that is seen, that turns that light bulb on.

For me the exact moment was when my coworker told me about a weight loss bet, based on the TV show Biggest Loser, (I hate, I mean I dislike, the name of that show BTW), that triggered something in my head that turned on that light bulb, that somehow gave me the motivation to get up the next morning...go on a 2 mile walk, start making and eating all of my own foods. That was my trigger.

Triggers can be an example we want to duplicate, like success stories. Maybe how some one eats or what they eat can trigger desire to do better. How someone looks or performs athletically will trigger a desire to do better. Or maybe it's just a happy positive outlook on life that triggers us to want more, to do better.

Or, triggers can be examples we don't want to duplicate, like illness and depression. Again, seeing unhealthiness in others, loss of mobility, or misery. Those triggers can motivate us to want better for ourselves too.

So I conclude, that if I can say something, do something, show something that can or will potentially trigger positive change, then I feel grateful. And that's what it's about for me. And I'll talk, and I'll write and I'll continue to live by example, and I'll keep sharing what all of this means to me in the hopes of this continual forward journey in knowing and recognizing my good life.