Well!! All I can say is what a year this has been!! This year has literally been a rollercoaster and I will be very happy to get off! Last New Year I decided to sit down and write a list of New Year's Resolutions. After looking back at my list, I haven't done everything that I wanted to do but I can cross off at least half of them and I am still working on some of them. I do know that if I hadn't made that list, then I would probably not have achieved any of the things I wanted to achieve this year and so I am so incredibly happy that I did it and I will do it again this next year coming. Tomorrow afternoon (after I have recovered from New Year!!) I will sit down and write my list for next year, including the things that I am still working on.
By far the biggest goal that I set for myself this year was to lose 60kg (132lbs). A massive number I know, but I had almost double that amount to lose to reach my ultimate goal weight and I didn't want to take more than 2 years to do it. I am already 36 years old and I really haven't lived my life the way that I want to thus far. I want to really start living and I have already wasted so much of my life. I also knew that if I didn't see good results regularly, then I would most probably lose the motivation to keep going.
So........I had my final weigh in for the year this morning and I broke the 110kg (242.5lb) barrier. I am now under that and I haven't been under that for a very very long time. As of this morning I have lost a total of 61.5kg (135.5lbs) and this year alone I lost 51kg (112.5lbs) of that total. I didn't make my goal for the year but I am absolutely ecstatic that I made the 50kg (110 lbs)for the year. I really don't think that I would have done half as well if I hadn't set my sights so high. I know everyone is different and it might do some people's heads in to have such a big goal to achieve, but I found for me that it gave me that extra push to keep going and work extra hard to try and get there. I still have a long way to go but I am now half way and I am so incredibly proud of myself. I have to admit that when I walked out of my weigh in this morning I cried, I was sooooo happy!!
I have worked so incredibly hard this year and I even postponed my Christmas dinner because I was still 13kg (28.5lbs) away from my goal. I knew that I wouldn't make it but I wanted to get as close as possible and I think 9kg (20lbs) off isn't bad considering the year that I have had and the number of setbacks I have had that have affected my efforts. So for the next 9 days at least I am having a very well earned break. My body and my mind definitely need it and from Monday week I will be ready to start working towards my final goal weight by the end of next year.
I am going to post some pictures of my progress if I can figure out how to do that lol!! I can definitely say that I have always hated pictures of any kind and when you see the beginning ones you will understand why. I had to be forced to have my picture taken before but I can definitely say now that I am starting to volunteer for pictures because I am starting to like the way that I look in them. That in itself is amazing to me!! My beginning photo is from January this year and I had already lost 10kg (22lbs) the year before, so I wasn't even at my biggest in that photo if you can believe that!! Hopefully the photos will inspire other people reading this.
Losing weight, no matter how much you have to lose, is such a hard thing to do. I have learnt a lot over the last year and it is not that I haven't tried to do this before. I have tried and failed so many times in the past and I guess I just wasn't ready to do it subconsiously. No matter what anyone says, the biggest hurdle that we have to get over is our mind. Your head has to be in the right place, otherwise no matter how hard we try, we won't be able to achieve what we want to. Only we can do it. Nobody else can do it for us. People can try to encourage us, but at the end of the day, we need to find the strength within ourselves to do this. And don't think that I haven't had days where I didn't eat everything in sight, or when I couldn't make myself get up and exercise. There were plenty of those days. There were some weeks when I put on between 2 - 6kg (4.5 - 13lbs), because I fell well and truly off the wagon. But then I would tell myself that the most important thing was to pick myself back up and work that little bit harder to fix what I had done and keep going. We are all human and this is not an easy thing to do. It is ok to have a bad day, or 2 or 3 or to go away on a holiday for a week and enjoy ourselves. We just have to pick ourselves back up at some point and get stuck back into it. We are here to enjoy our lives, and there are times when we deserve to let our hair down. We just have to enjoy it and then get back to work to to speak. It will definitely be worth it in the end.
I hope you all have a fabulous New Year!! I know I will! I am going to definitely let my hair down and eat and drink and be merry. I am looking forward to saying goodbye to this year that except for my weight loss achievements has really been pretty crappy, and welcome in a New Year that I hope will be absolutely amazing and will end with me achieving my goal weight. I would be ecstatic if anyone else would join me next year. I have some friends (both workmates and personal friends) that are going to embark on their own journeys next year alongside me which I think is absolutely awesome and the more the merrier I reckon!! Hopefully we will all inspire and motivate each other.
If we don't aim for the stars, how are we ever going to get there?!!
Happy New Year everyone!!
Shari
