Sometimes, it only takes someone who believes in you

Sometimes, it only takes someone who believes in you; someone who loves you and will stand for your greatness.

17 days ago, I started a “before and after” weight loss program. The challenge is 16 weeks long. It’s a good friend of mine living completely on the other side of the country who took me on. I call it the “Amazing project“.

After the death of both my parents, my father in december 2013 and my mother in april 2014, I stopped taking care of what I was eating. In the past years, I was a bit over weight, but I was doing a lot of sports and I thought it was hormonally normal at my age to be a bit “thicker”. I used to be thin with muscles. Last year I gained 40 to 50 pounds and somehow I didn’t care. Or I just didn’t want to see it.

Of course, we can say a lot of things about how it doesn’t matter, you should love yourself and your body the way it is. I love myself or I should say I learned (and still learning) to love myself. But I don’t feel good being inside my body. I don’t feel healthy.

17 days ago, I took my before pictures. It was right there in my face and I had to look at myself. Be real about my laziness. Be real about the feeling of shame… And I started the program with enthusiasm, because it’s a new thing; like a new toy that you want to try, sleep with and bring everywhere with you.

After 14 days, I hit my first wall. It was the day I had to take the measurements again and go back on the scale to measure my progress. I didn’t want to do it, because I didn’t feel I made progress. It was not going fast enough (this is lazy-me talking). Somehow I couldn’t believe that I could stick with the program for 16 weeks.

There is 14 and a half week to go and I lost 9 pounds on my goal of 60. Actually my “I don’t want to get my hopes up” goal is loosing 45 pounds. Since, I’m tall, I will look great anyway for a woman of 40 something. (You can see how lazy-me sets me up for failure…). I fled the gym for the first 2 weeks. What shame will make me do… or not do.

One of the conditions for success is definitely the support system. Of course, my kids are there and they just love me. They wouldn’t say anything, because in their mind “I know”. But I know they are happy that I’m taking this on.

I’m sure you don’t want to see the before picture, so I’m showing it anyway. It’s the last step for me to be free of the shame and be real about how I look now.

I took the pictures myself… I didn’t want anyone witnessing, you know!

I’ll keep you updated on how it goes, once in a while. I can tell you that I’m already feeling great. I have plenty of energy and the products I use through the program are amazing. They even thought about the snacks!

Thank you to my beautiful friend “Amazing” (that’s how I call her). Since I’ve known her, she has always been this amazing human being that would just go on and believe in the greatness of people and making them feel great about themselves.

Sometimes, it only takes someone who believes in you!

With great respect!

A.