What Are You Missing Out On?

If you’re having trouble finding inspiration or getting any traction on this weight-loss misadventure, there’s one question you should really be asking yourself…

“What am I missing out on right now?”

I mean, you know all the good, sound reasons and rationale on why you should be doing this. Your health. Your kids. Your longevity, for Heaven's sake.

But really… what are you… missing out on… right now?

In what ways would your life be enriched were you at your goal weight today? Do you even know? Have you really given it any thought?

You’ve been on the sidelines for so long that you may believe you actually belong there.

You don’t.

It’s a point that bears repeating: you don’t belong there.

I’ve spent my life yo-yoing up and down the scale, just so you know. In my mid-20’s, I went in to one of my very first job interviews while I weighed my heaviest. I got extremely nervous and self-conscious and proceeded to sweat like Jabba the Hut in a sauna. It was horrible.

The embarrassment of that moment did get me off my butt, however. I lost a bunch of weight over a nine-month stretch and later found myself interviewing for a job with a small firm owned by an honest-to-God former Miss America contestant.

I wound up landing the job, but later had the sick realization that I would never have been considered nine months earlier. The interview would have effectively been over as soon as I plopped my fat ass down in the seat across from her desk (even before the sweat started flowing).

At my heaviest, I suffered a heavy-duty flop sweat interviewing for a job I didn’t even want.

At my goal weight, I went into that beauty queen interview with poise, with good humor, with the utmost confidence.

There have been countless instances in my past where I sat back and watched others participate in activities I just didn’t feel capable or comfortable doing.

I want you… me… all of us… to do the right thing by our bodies for all the right reasons, because we’ll all look better and feel better, live longer and live better.

But I also want us to finish our time on this mudball having run and jumped and danced and played, not standing around on the sidelines watching others run and jump and dance and play. I want us to feel good about ourselves and the time we spent here.

We wasted some days, to be sure, and we can’t go back and make a new beginning.

However, nobody but ourselves can stop us from making a new ending.