What Motivates Me?

Over the past few years, I've been working on changing myself. I'm working on being more positive. More proactive. More upbeat. More healthy and nicer to myself.
I'm working on getting my body in shape and being happy with who I am. I was asked a question yesterday on Facebook, "What keeps you motivated?" To be honest, I never really considered myself to be motivated. I have a tendency to get one thing set it my mind and then I obsess about it.

For example, as I started this new work out with Jillian Michaels, I first just popped in the DVD, 30 Day Shred, and then started working out. I didn't care about her background or philosophy I just wanted a work out.
And boy did I get a workout. I've been working at the gym for the past year or so doing 45 minutes on the ellipitcal and then working with the weight machines. Last month we canceled our gym membership and I started doing the Wii Fit at home. I was doing the free run for 1/2 hour and then doing yoga. In that 1/2 hour run I completed about 4.6 miles. When I first saw this 20 minute workout I thought, bah, cake! UMM WRONG! Here's a sample




So while over at my Grandma's on Sunday, one of my aunts professed, I don't like her. I watched her on The Doctors and I just don't like her. Of course this made me very interested in Jillian. If I'm going to be preaching what a great workout, now I need to know the details. I quickly learned why. Jillian has several podcasts available on iTunes. As I began to listen to each of these I found that Jillian is very pro-organic and pro-NON-GMO. Meaning she wants you to eat healthy natural whole foods with out additives and preservatives. I thought, Hey I think like that.

On one podcast she said that she was concerned about her role on The Doctors because many of them were almost giving their patients permission to be obese by saying, "It's ok" or "I know you're doing your best"; when in all actually they aren't. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that if you eat sugary foods and drink sugary soda (which is a chemical) you are going to gain weight and be unhealthy. Yet, these parents felt the need to reward their children's good behavior with Soda Pop for example. I can completely relate to this. I don't understand the theory behind giving something as a reward that's BAD for you. How is that a reward? You're putting chemicals in your body that don't belong there, causing weight gain, issues with health and obesity and then saying congrats, you've earned it! Really?
So as I listen I begin to find that there are more and more things that I have in common with Jillian than I don't have in common. Because to be honest I really thought she was an airhead and not everyone could be thin. That she had no idea about what makes people fat or what me as a fat person felt. One comment she made was, I was responsible for my own weight. Now as silly as this sounds, I believed that it was everyone else's fault I was over weight. I blamed my genetics, I blamed the food companies, I blamed economics. I blamed everyone but myself. I couldn't possibly have any blame here. I mean I went and got a gastric bypass right? I took action to lose weight.....

These are photos of me before and after the gastric bypass. I lost down to 108lbs.

Actually, that's not action, that's inaction. That's no movement. No Exercise. No fixing what was really broken. ME. Slowly, after recovering from a surgery that nearly killed me I steadily put the weight back on until I reached a weight of I know well over 300 lbs.

Where's this going you ask?
These pictures and this life now; this is my motivation. I look back at these photos and remember what it was like to not be able to move. I couldn't sit on the floor and get up without rolling my body around to lift myself up. I couldn't walk more than short distances to the car and back. I spent hours and hours on the computer gaming. I didn't do anything outside the house. I never rode the motorcycle with hubby and I never ran. EVER. In fact I used to say, The only way I'll run is if something big is chasing me. Well there is something big chasing me. It's that old me. And I never EVER want to go back. I want to be here for years and years to come. I want to be happy and healthy and be able to be with my loved ones for a very long time.

Namaste & Blessed Be!
Sosanna
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