Mindset

I've had a bit of a rough month, mentally wise.  Over the first couple of months of this journey, I was mentally feeling FANTASTIC!  I loved the changes that I was seeing and feeling.  I truly felt as if my life was finally on the right track.  And it wasn't just weight loss wise, there have been a lot of things in my life that have been going great in the last few months.  I can honestly say that I have had some days where I've felt happier than I've been in longer than I can remember. 

Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that all of the old insecurities and doubts aren't still there.  I debated doing a blog about this.  It's hard for me to admit to people the ways that I feel.  BUT, I decided that if I want this to be an honest blog about this journey, I have to share this.  When you have as much weight to lose as I do, you can't just focus on diet and exercise.  There are some obvious mental hurdles that you have to deal with as well.

Like I said, I was feeling great.  Then I had one day where it just felt like nothing was going right.  It seemed like everything that I did and said was wrong.  Some of the things that happened that day (and no, I'm not going into specifics) threw me right back into my old mentality.  I felt like I wasn't good enough.  I have had some major issues in the past few years where I've felt like I don't like myself, so why would anyone else like me?  I've fallen into that trap of negative, self defeating thoughts.  From what I understand, that's a pretty common thing for people that are overweight.

The first two weeks of feeling like this, I just couldn't figure out how to pull myself out of it.  I just pretty much cut myself off from everyone.  Didn't feel like talking to anyone.  And I was so buried in negative thoughts that I couldn't even believe like I was ever going to get out from under it.  Somehow, I still managed to stick with my eating plan and working out.  Actually, working out was the one time I felt like I wasn't frustrated.  I would just blank my mind and not think about anything other than the workout.  But despite all of that, my weight loss pretty much stalled those two weeks as well.  I really feel like the stress and my mindset where the big difference.  And of course, not seeing the scale go down just contributed to the whole problem!!! 

I knew that I had to do something.  I just HATE feeling like this!  I know that I'm doing a great job.  I know that I should be proud of the changes that I've made.  I know that I'm saving my life doing this.  I know that I'm healthier.  But knowing all of this, and truly making myself believe it are two very different things.  I'm really trying to remind myself every single day of what I've accomplished.  I'm trying to stay focused on the positive things that are happening in my life.  It's helped a bit.  I'm nowhere near as depressed and frustrated as I was 4 weeks ago.  But I'm also certainly not back to where I was before.  The scale is going slowly down again.  That helps.  It's nice to focus on the positive things going on, rather than the negative. 

I've been attempting to change my mindset.  I'm not sure where, but one time I heard a way to combat those negative thoughts.  Every time that you have a negative, self defeating thought, you immediately change it around and thing of something great that you have accomplished.  It seems to be helping.  Hopefully soon I'll be having more positive thoughts than negative.  I can't wait to get back to how I was feeling before, happy and excited about where my life is headed.