I've been working lately on staying grounded and motivated. I'm now 3 months before I can get approved for surgery so I still have a little bit of time. I've been changing my eating habits on my own and have lost 10 lbs in a month.

While I'm working on it with a psychologist, my biggest saboteur is not food - it's myself. I have had a history of telling myself I won't make it, so in turn I fail.

I'm now learning the art of self compassion and how shame is not a motivator of change.

Sometimes I fear the self hatred thinking patterns will creep back in but I keep reminding myself that treating myself poorly is what got me here in the first place.

So, from mental exercises to physical ones - what's something you're doing to maintain your journey and motivation (at any step, pre, post and onwards)?

What keeps you grounded and how do you make it through the day when things feel tough?

Thanks!

35 minutes ago, fourmonthspreop said:

I've been working lately on staying grounded and motivated. I'm now 3 months before I can get approved for surgery so I still have a little bit of time. I've been changing my eating habits on my own and have lost 10 lbs in a month.

While I'm working on it with a psychologist, my biggest saboteur is not food - it's myself. I have had a history of telling myself I won't make it, so in turn I fail.

I'm now learning the art of self compassion and how shame is not a motivator of change.

Sometimes I fear the self hatred thinking patterns will creep back in but I keep reminding myself that treating myself poorly is what got me here in the first place.

So, from mental exercises to physical ones - what's something you're doing to maintain your journey and motivation (at any step, pre, post and onwards)?

What keeps you grounded and how do you make it through the day when things feel tough?

Thanks!

Hey, congratulations on your Recent loss of 10 pounds. It’s not an easy thing to accomplish.

I just recently had my surgery done on August 2. Some of the big motivators for me or my friends and family. Looking forward to keeping up with my kids instead of having them run circles around me with a game changer for me.

I also learned to take a lot of pride in the small successes that I had. Instead of looking at the big picture and feeling overwhelmed I was able to take it day by day and measure my success like that. Before I knew it it was surgery time.

My doctor had me write out my list of reasons WHY I wanted WLS and what my non scale goals were and I often turn to that list when I need to regain focus.

I remind myself that I need to "make good decisions and healthy choices" each day. The choices are not always perfect but they are always progress.

I've been waiting six months to get surgery... just last week I got my surgery date, so it will be 7.5 months from when I called the surgery center to when I get surgery... assuming COVID doesn't cause them to cancel my surgery!

I have kept my motivation by continuing to work on losing weight, although at this point I can't lose anymore or I won't qualify for surgery (I've lost 45 lbs). I also have spent a LOT of time on these message boards and on YouTube and I found a good FB support group. Most of them are terrible. Fortunately, work finally got busy so I have been distracted a bit and also I went on vacation and have done more exercise (got back into swimming!).