Day 87, June 09, 2017

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Image may contain: one or more people

06/09/17
Day 87 Extreme Accountability Challenge
Starting weight 304 pounds
Destination weight 175 pounds
Total weight loss to date 56.8 pounds
72.2 pounds to go

This dieter’s lottery mentality (finding some magical diet that you eat as much and whatever you want and lose 10 pounds a day) that I have written about in several of my previous posts continues to stay on my mind. Also, losing weight just to get thin is probably not going to bring about lasting change. I know at first glance that sounds a little off, but indulge me.

If the only reason I’m losing this weight is to get thin, it’s probably just me living up to other people’s expectations regarding me. It’s the paralyzed man at the well, when Jesus asked do you want to be well. John 5:2, Jesus didn’t ask, do your friends, family, and all of the other paralyzed people waiting for a miracle here with you, want you to get well. He asked the paralyzed man if “he” wanted to be well.

This applies to so many areas of our lives, but, I believe Jesus was asking that man what his desire was. Crazy question. I don’t think so. Dig deeper.

When I look inside myself, why do I want this change, when I get what I am working so hard for, lasting weight loss, what’s going to keep me there, why, why why?

Am I buying a lottery ticket just for the money, or do I want real change? I suspect that the reason so many lottery winners end up broke and disheartened a few years after winning a lottery is that nothing held them there, the money just represented a place where they thought happiness existed. When there, the happiness was nowhere to be found.

For everyone that asks me, so what’s the secret to losing the weight. Well it’s a bunch of things. It’s having an eating plan that I know with almost certainty will result in weight loss, if I stick to my program. It’s the accountability of the Extreme Accountability Challenge that’s huge. The accountability is huge. But it’s the why, I know “the why” has become almost cliche, but it is the truth.

So really the question is, what makes me stick to my program?

It’s looking at my wife Angie and knowing how blessed I am to be called her husband, knowing that I married so far above me not just in looks, yes she is drop dead gorgeous, it’s all of the sacrifices she makes for me, every day, giving no thought for herself. It’s me thinking wow, the last 36 years with her went really fast and I’m 55 years old, I was 304 pounds, if I don’t do something about this weight, I may be ending this life prematurely.

It’s my children and knowing their potential, and wanting to see the coming achievements, the future grandchildren, the years of joy that are ahead.

It’s looking in the mirror and knowing that I have so much more potential that I haven’t yet realized, and knowing that I have so much to do and be.

Then there is you, whoever is reading this, what if you have so much more potential, and you do, and something that I say or more likely watching what I do, like sticking to my weight loss program, causes you to change, you look inside yourself and know that you have countless blessings yet to come, and you decide for yourself and “your” reasons that sticking to a program and getting to your destination weight is worth the price.

Well that gives me reason to stick to my program also. If it’s you, find the reasons, find a plan, stick to it every day, every hour, every minute, and every second and…..

Press forward.

175 pounds here I come!!!