Monday, April 22, 2013

Total Transformation Challenge Final Blog Part 2

In this part of my essay I talk about what motivated me during the last 12 weeks





My Motivation

The one person that motivates me the most is my mom, Patti. She died obese at the young age of 53. She left behind 4 kids and a husband and a very promising life My mom did not take care of herself. I am a lot like my mom. Some traits I love sharing with her, but being overweight and unhealthy is one way that I don't want to be like my mom.

I also have two wonderful kids, Tricia and Parker, who deserve to have their mom around for a long time. They motivate me all the time and even help me eat healthy.

My personal trainer, Justin, has been a key person in my motivation before and during this challenge. He believed in me even when I didn't believe in myself. He encouraged me to join this challenge and even on the dark days he never gave up on me. I have been known to push people away and quit when things get hard. Justin is the first person who didn't let me push him away and would not let me quit. He is a great personal trainer and knows just how to help me and keep me motivated and help me see what the final outcome will be.

Another person that motivates me is my friend, Rich Kalasky. He has lost 160 pounds and is now an endurance athlete and coach. During the 12 week challenge he was there for me every step of the way. I could call or text at anytime and he would talk me through the hard stuff. It was great because he has been exactly where I am, so he understood.

Rich introduced me to the most wonderful saying RELENTLESS FORWARD MOTION. I was having a hard time with how I had gained all my weight back and just felt like a failure. Rich kept encouraging me to keep moving with RELENTLESS FORWARD MOTION. He told me that no matter what happened in my past and whatever will happen in the future I need to just keep moving forward. Keep my eye on where I want to go and not on where I have been. Rich, also encouraged me to always be positive. No matter what you are going through you can always have a positive outlook. I have adapted these two concepts into my journey. RELENTLESS FORWARD MOTION is now my daily, hourly, and sometimes even minutely (I know it's not a word) mantra. This has been great motivation for me.

Another person that motivates me is Jesus Christ without Him I am nothing. My favorite Bible verse that has helped me through this journey is, "I can do ALL things through Christ who gives me strength."-Philippians 4:13.

There were times during this challenge that things got really hard for me. There were weeks that I gained weight. There were weeks that I had hard personal things come up and I didn't think that I would be able to make it. The last thing I wanted to do was workout and there were times that I gave in to my old habits and ate things I shouldn't. I had to learn how to deal with the emotional problems without turning to food or self sabotaging myself.

This is when my motivation was the lowest. I found that I wanted to quit and could care less. I worked with my counselor, James, worked hard, and realized that I couldn't keep doing this cycle. I would have a few good weeks and then hit a low, so low I had hard digging myself out of the pit. He gave me tools to use, we worked on hard things from my childhood and during this 12 week challenge I really had a huge turn around in my mental health, which then turned into 6 weeks in a row of me losing weight.

My motivation came back and I knew that I would never go back to those dark days. This has been some of the hardest things I have had to work through, but am so thankful that I did. My counselor and personal trainer really stuck by me during these times and I'm so thankful they did. If they didn't I don't know where I would be today.

I think it is great that I have so many people in my life that motivate me, but really the most important person that I need to have motivate me is me. If I cannot motivate myself I will not get to the gym, workout, or eat right.

I did not lose all the weight I wanted during this challenge because of these dark days I had, but I'm ok with that because the mental transformation that took place over the last 12 weeks was amazing and something that I'm so thankful for. I'm a completely new person and there is no stopping me now. I'm so motivated to now keep going and finally hit my goals. I have dreamt for a long time to be able to release a lot of pain in my life and during this transformation challenge that has finally happened. Thank you so much for your part in my physical transformation, but more importantly my mental transformation.

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