Flashback…or Motivation

 

You have GOT to try this!  I don’t know why I didn’t think of doing this before, and it happened quite by accident, but boy, was it an eye opener!

Continuing the saga of the ‘warning light,’ I came up with the brilliant plan of driving my car down to the repair shop while being followed by a friend who would take me to church (and rescue me if the car quit before I got to the shop.)  I planned to get a ride home from church and just be dropped off in town, so I would have a nice 3 mile run/walk home. I packed carefully, and actually just brought my backpack, leaving my purse at home.  Somehow, more and more stuff kept getting added to the backpack so that by the time I got dropped off in town and hoisted it on my back, it was pretty darn heavy.  I knew right away that there would be no running involved that day.  By the time I got to my road (halfway home) I was sure that thing weighed 20 pounds.  My knees hurt, my ankles hurt, and my right foot was going numb, something that hadn’t happened for quite a while.

All the while I was walking, I was thinking about what a difference this added weight made in how I felt.  My back started to ache, and it was even harder to breath than usual.  I finally made it home, and was most anxious to weigh the backpack.  Can you believe it only weighed 10 pounds?  So that is what losing 10 pounds can do for you.  Or vice versa, that is what gaining 10 pounds will do to you.  Use it as a reminder of what you used to feel like, or use it as motivation to move forward with your weight loss, or as motivation to NOT regain lost weight.  It really was an eye opener.  So often, we comment that we start to forget how we used to feel.  When you start out at Weight Watchers, they have a 5 pound and a 10 pound rock that they let you hold when you get to those goals.  It gives you a good idea of how much you really have lost.  But carrying the weight around on your back gives you a better feel for how much you have really lost.

For additional motivation, I ran across these pictures on my desk.  I think they are pictures that my sister sent me, and I couldn’t believe the difference in how I looked.  I really was BIG before.  I do forget sometimes.  I took pictures of the pictures so I could post them here–sorry about the bad quality.  I thought it was neat that they were both with my dogs.

 

Before

 

After