I’ve been meaning to write another post for ages, but somehow I just seemed to ‘forget’.   Last week, or maybe it was the week before, I was really excited about something, and thought to myself “ooh, I must write a post about that”. For the life of me, I can’t even remember what it was that I was so desperate to write about.

 

I started this blog as a way of helping myself to do better, to be accountable and make a difference to my health and well-being.  My intentions were genuine and urgent, and fuelled by a wish to really make the change that my life has been craving for years.  So what happened?  Apathy? Laziness? Well, I guess probably both.  I’ve had a pretty quiet day today, which has been nice, and it has allowed me time to think.  Why is it that when I have a ton of reasons to do something, and absolutely no viable reason not to do something, I still decide to take the latter approach?  I’ve done a lot of things in my life which require effort, dedication and the will to keep going when it gets hard, and I’ve relished the challenge, and more often than not succeeded.  However, when it comes to my weight, I can barely haul myself onto the starting blocks, far less spring out of them .

 

How do you turn motivation and intention into action?  I’ve been thinking about this a lot too recently.  I am overwhelmed by good intentions, and the desire to change, but utterly underwhelmed by turning those desires into actions.  I keep asking myself why.  Fear of failure?  Yes, but I’ve failed at stuff before and then tried again and succeeded.  Fear of success?  Well, yes, to be honest.  What if I lose loads of weight and nothing really changes?  But you know, I’ve succeeded at many other things in life, and that hasn’t put me off.  What about ingrained habits?  Definitely.  You’ll find me shovelling all manner of crap food into my mouth just because I’m bored, tired, happy, celebrating, not thinking, the day has a ‘Y’ in it…..

 

So, I’m rambling on, which is easy enough to do, I’m good at rambling.  What I need to be good at, however, is taking action.  Making changes.  Banishing excuses.  Working hard.  Succeeding.  So my biggest question is: where do I find the motivation to try a little harder, do a little better?  Well, to be honest, I’ve been surrounded by a lot of motivation recently.  If you can’t find what you need within, then look outside, right?  I had the pleasure of attending the first day of the Diamond League athletics Anniversary Games in the Olympic Stadium a few weeks ago; watching Usain Bolt do his thing certainly makes you want to do better.  Or how about my friend Carmen who swam the English Channel last week?  I still can’t process that one to be honest; how on earth does someone actually manage that?!  I can’t think of a bigger or more terrifying challenge, and one I can safely say I could never, ever do.  Or another friend David who succeeded in winning his age group at Ironman UK, and won a place in the World Championships in Hawaii later this year?  Boom!! Or indeed all my friends who completed the Outlaw this year, or ran ultra-marathons, or just faced personal challenges and met them face on, and dealt with them.  You could look at these achievements and say “well, there is no way I could do that” or, more helpfully you could look at them and say “wow, those people have followed their dreams, so maybe I can too….?”.

 

Again though, I’m back to ‘how?’.  Well, another thing I’ve realised I’m really good at is analysing everything to the nth degree.  I read books, contemplate stuff, talk about it (“yeah, endlessly” I hear you cry…), mull it over, think about it some more, then decide to sleep on it, and put off doing anything until tomorrow.  Okay, so thinking about stuff has it upsides, but it isn’t working for me, not in isolation.  Let’s face it, if I could think myself thin, I’d be pushing Kate Moss out the way for a job.  So, i’ve been thinking of ways to motivate myself, and help myself succeed.

For starters I looked at the photos taken of me running at the Outlaw. What a fucking sight (excuse the language).  If ever I needed motivation, those hideous photos have done it.  I’d put one on here, but I’m not paying £17.99 for the privilege, and I don’t want to incur the wrath of copyright lawyers by copying the picture here.  Suffice to say if you dressed my swiss ball (see title pic ) in a wig and some yellow & black lycra, then you’ve got a good idea of what I looked like on the day.  Not good.  So I’m going to print a couple of them out and hang them round the flat just to remind myself why I need to act.  Also, I figured a good way to make myself accountable, and to help motivate me try harder is to post my weight on here.  It is utterly mortifying, but you know what?, I don’t look like a twig, so i’m sure it isn’t a shock for people who know me to know that I’m currently topping out at 16st 13lbs.  Yep, it really is that bad.  Nearly SEVENTEEN EFFING STONE!!!!! :O  So every week I’ll post my weight on here, and use this blog as a tracker, rather than my diary.  I’ve set myself some goals, and I’ll track them on here too:

Weight loss targets:
18 lbs by 30th October (in time for my holiday to Florida holiday, hurrah!)
30 lbs by end of the year
43 lbs by end February 2014
54 lbs by end of April 2014 (when I’m scheduled to run the Big Sur Marathon)

To be honest I need to lose more than 54lbs, but I’m happy with those targets to start with, and I can revise, update and add to them as I go.

I’ll be perfectly honest – I think the next couple of weeks will be HELLISH.  I’m tired of planning and thinking though, so I’m moving into ‘doing’.  I figure that trying to meticulously plan out the right way to do things isn’t working, so in the immediate future I’m just going to stop eating crap, reduce the amount I’m eating to adequate portions, drink lots of water and get back to regular exercise.  I know myself that I will need a plan for the future, but I reckon that no matter what, the first few weeks will be hellish, so I might as well just suck it up and get them over with.  Once I’ve started to lose a couple of pounds, i’ll respond better to a bit of structure.

I’m officially, and publicly, giving myself a kick up the arse.

I’ll be back next week to report on my weight loss.

Toodle-pip folks, and have a great weekend 🙂