NEED to Want

Apathy = A passive force that lulls you to sleep. It can be an aggressive force that works to prevent you from keeping what is most meaningful and important. Apathy causes you to lose what you want most.

The fire within dies as the actions without die.

Sometimes our GREATEST weakness is our success. We get comfortable and settled. We rely on our success to pull us through our future goals. We rest on our laurels.

Comfort over sacrifice. I’m healthy so let’s just stop working it. We stop working it because our surgery has been doing the work. How long will that work propel us to success in the future?

As the success slows down and slowly dies we must refocus. We must stoke the actions to reignite the fire. What actions am I talking about?
Exercise
Healthy eating
Wise food choices
64 oz of water
Proper amounts of protein
Proper amounts of carbs
Proper amounts of calories
Proper portion sizes
Pouch rules

Stoke those actions and the fire to success in order to meet the goals will be flamed and ablaze once again.

I NEED to have a WANT. I need to want to succeed. I need to want to work it. I need to want to be honest with myself. I need to want to reach new goals. I need to want all these more than I want what I think I need. I need to figure out what is a need for my body and what is a want for my mind. I have started emotional eating more as time passes. It is so easy to get lax in my success and think it will continue without the effort it took to get there.

Live the new lifestyle. Embrace it as a way of life and not another diet I must follow in order to succeed. Allow food to become a means to life, but not as a life of it own. I have become so consumed with food thoughts I have forgotten to live. I worry about what I should eat, what I have eaten, what I need to eat, when I will eat next, should I eat next and so much more. I feel like I am back to square one before surgery. I hate the counting and measuring, but I have to realize this is just the process of life for anyone. Once you become proficient with it you don’t have to count and measure, but you look and know. Getting to that point is frustrating, but I have to remember it is part of the process.

I have struggled for many months now. When I had surgery and for the 1st nine months it was easy to be motivated, inspired and enthusiastic. As time goes by and the comfortableness of success settles in the laxness and laziness of life creeps back in as well. The old habits become comfortable again. The alertness fades and the mindfulness is taken over by the mindless. My actions are often performed before I realize they have been. So for another week my goal is to become more mindful of what I think, feel and do. I will focus on the goals at hand and remember it took me months to get here and it won’t be overnight I will get back to where I want to be.

First I have to figure out what my need is and make it my want. I know where I need to be headed. Now to figure out how to make that need more of a want than the want of the moment.

I apologize to you who have looked to me for inspiration. The last few months haven’t been inspiring to you or me. I am struggling just to remain above water-to remain afloat. I have watched my weight decrease and increase within the same 3-5 pounds for months. I have been frustrated with my progress or lack thereof. I have been frustrated with not being able to get a grip on my cravings, my actions, me choices, my wants. I have felt like a failure. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I was supposed to continue to reign on the top and fly with the eagles. Instead I am walking the walk of the ordinary and I must face the choices I have to make and make them for the best I can be. Hang with me and I pray I will figure out what the want needs to be and make it a need I want to achieve. I pray it becomes more of a desire than the desire to eat the wrong thing, not exercise hard enough, make the wrong choices, and become apathetic to the goals. I will try to stoke the fire and bring the desires ablaze and work for success to become more important than the instant gratification of the moment. I will work towards “eating to live and not living to eat.”

“Youth may be admired for vigor, but gray hair gives prestige to old age.” Proverbs 20:29