Your Worst Enemy

So you've decided to lose weight and hopefully in a couple of months to shop for some new pants. Now what? Don't worry I'm not going to launch into lifting cadences, HIIT, REPS or any of those other terms that end up relating to sweating a lot. No we are going to talk about the most important part of losing weight in my personal experience and the experience of probably every person who has ever lost weight and kept it off.

It's going to be hard. Don't let anyone lie to you and say that you can lose 20 pounds by next week or to take this magic pill and the weight will just fall off as you continue to pile drive Twinkies into your face. I've found out the hard way that it just doesn't work like that. It's sweaty, hard, long work and if you want to do it right and keep it off there is no way around it. The truth is that anything that is worthwhile is usually not easy. Don't worry though and certainly don't be discouraged because I'm going to share a secret that I've discovered after trying to lose weight over what feels like my whole life.

We are going to discuss the single most hardest thing in this whole experience and just get it out of the way. Then it'll be all downhill right? Personally as a fatty I really like going downhill. So get your boxing gloves on and put your dukes up because I hate to tell you, but you are going to have an enemy this entire time. This person is ruthless, mean, critical of everything you do and will do everything in their power to make you fail. No not your mother-in-law, that's a different blog post altogether. The one person who will make this process the hardest is the one person you can never get away from: You.

We are our greatest critics and our worst enemies when it comes to weight loss. Especially if you've tried to lose weight and failed many times before you'll be familiar with what I'm saying. You'll struggle with yourself through this whole experience; there will be times you don't want to work out and times when that super-duper,extra large, twelve pound meat stuffed pizza looks too good to pass up. When you first start out though is the point where, if your like me, you'll struggle the most.

I've failed to lose weight so many times. Now when I go to start instant doubt starts in. Knowing I've failed before I don't believe I can do it and the people around me simply roll their eyes thinking yeah right we've heard this before. Knowing I've lost so much before and am all the way back to where I started, or worse, even further. It's enough to almost make you quit before you begin. Here is what I'm telling myself and what I'm telling you. So what?

So you've failed. So people don't believe that you'll be able to do it. So what? The past is over and done with and there is nothing you can do to change it, but you can learn from it. I'm struggling with this even now though. We as a species have a built in self defense mechanism. It's near to the same one that pulls our hand away from a hot stove especially if we touched it once before. Our brains tell us no we can't do that it'll burn us. We work the same when it comes to accomplishments and failures. If we've tried and failed before every time it becomes harder to try because we know, ahead of time, we will fail. Our brain says we will burn ourselves.

Here is a comfort though; the only way you can ever fail is if you stop trying. You pig out one night? Fine start over again the next day. Forget it ever happened and move on. Really you only have two choices here; give up and get fatter or lose the weight, be happier, and for a lot of us save our lives. Not much of a choice when put that way is it? The process is 85 percent mental and only 15 percent physical. You must be prepared mentally before you ever begin. Is lifting weights and cardio hard at times? Sure, but nowhere near as hard as what you go through in your noggin.

Your the biggest obstacle in your way. Don't let yourself fail because you have before and don't give up because you make a mistake. Never quit trying and you will never fail. Give up, like the times before, and you've beaten yourself.