Beam Me Up Scotty

You might know how it is. You make some progress in an area of your life and you're feeling pretty good... for a while. Then all of a sudden this place you have tried so hard to get to isn't enough anymore. As soon as you hit that goal you make another with no time spent celebrating the accomplishment you just made. In fact I tend to belittle those accomplishments and forget how much actually has changed.

This is what it's been like for me and my recent weight loss. I have gotten myself down to my lowest weight. This is pretty much the weight I was all through high school. I have more energy, I'm out of breath less and I feel less moody and depressed. Rather than be happy with myself and excited by the changes I've made I look at myself and still see the places I would like to change. Sure, for a little while I felt fantastic about the way I looked because I was seeing the change. Now, once I've been here for a few months I start to feel like it's just not enough, like I am back where I started from. I see that even though I am the same weight as high school it's not really sitting in the same places. My stomach isn't quite as flat, my love handles are a bit easier to handle and my thighs are a little more thunderous. Rather than attribute that to the fact that I am almost double the age I was in high school (YIKES) and have had 2 kids (the second of which did a number on my previously flat stomach) I attribute the difference to my lack of effort. If I only try harder I can get better abs. If I could only control my eating more strictly maybe I could slim down those love handles. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who is so hard on myself. I've known many women who look absolutely FANTASTIC and upon complimenting them I don't think I have ever heard them say "Thank you, I feel fantastic." Most often it ends up being more along the lines of "Oh, Thanks but I still want to loose X amount of pounds." We take 2 steps forward and all of a sudden realize we've stepped into a big pile of crap. The crap of our emotional insecurity, our negative self esteem and out inability to be happy with were we are at. This is a pile of crap! I should be able to be pleased with the progress I've made and even if I want to continue to move forward I would like to be pleased with the steps already taken. Hopefully we can start to compare ourselves with the me we used to be instead of the me we would like to one day get to. I should stop expecting life to be like a Star Trek transporter. I step in, tell Scotty where I want to be and he simply beams me into the place I'm heading. Life doesn't work that way! It has to be a process and I need to accept that I am not going to make it without tripping on a few things and maybe even sliding back down a few steep hills. Yes, one day I'm going to get there but until then when someone says, "You're looking fantastic." I am trying to say, "Thanks, I feel fantastic." instead of pointing out the places that are still so problematic.