"Love is a Battlefield"

So I hear language bandied about where fitness and weight loss are concerned and I am afraid that I am going to have to use some of it.

These past two weeks I have experienced my first struggle with my whole new lifestyle.

I am not really struggling too badly, but I definitely feel off my game and can totally see where it could all go awry.

We get to that place I like to call the "safe" zone. For me, it is a place where I begin to feel comfortable in my own skin again. People tell me how great I look and I forget that it is just comparatively speaking.

While I am sure that I have achieved a significant amount of weight loss (I have not yet gotten on the scale), I sometimes forget that I have not reached my goal of achieving wellness by only putting healthful things into my body and keeping active. I almost forgot that I am still, well, fat. I am not "well" yet. I am only better.

I hear so many people say phrases like "always a struggle" or "battling my weight" or other negative, self-defeating language. Up until now, it has not really been much of a struggle for me. I have been consistently able to eat right and keep moving and motivate myself and lose weight. When people say "what diet are you following?" I say I am not on a diet. I just changed everything.

And I did. But I forgot about the traps that have been preset by my sub-conscious to sabotage me along the way. I forgot about complacency, the power of positive reinforcement, the wicked, wicked appeal of a nightly cocktail.

My "struggles" have not really been all that difficult but I used them to ensnare myself in a net of negativity. It's strange how people telling me that they notice that I've lost weight or that I look "great" can be considered a negative in my world but it leads me down a dark path of wrong-thinking: thinking that I look "great" can lead me to think that I can slack off a little. But this is not something to slack off on. I am trying to reverse years of damage and trauma that I have put my body through by carrying all that excess weight.

I came to this realization a few days ago when I heard someone say that it is a never-ending battle to lose weight and be healthy.  It doesn't have to be. I don't want to fight anymore.

I don't want to be too big to fit into chairs with arms anymore. I don't want to have to shop only at "plus size" specialty stores anymore. I don't want to have to worry if the step ladder will hold me when I clean my station at work. That's the real hard stuff. Holding up three hundred pounds every day is the battle. The changing? That's the easy part. But I forgot that for a few days and I let it get to me.

I did not binge eat or suddenly start eating McDonald's and Taco Bell again. I did, however, over-indulge in some of my go-to healthier snacks and get a little lazy in my routine. I did not exercise for nearly two whole weeks.I was not cooking for myself every day. I was not keeping track of little snacks here and there. And I could feel the pull taking hold of me. So I didn't fight it.

I called it what it was-a temporary lapse-and I am moving on.

I don't want to ever look at this life I am choosing to live as a fight or a battle. I only want to stay on my course and do what is best for me.

I could blame the heat for my lack of motivation. But I'd be kidding myself. I fell into a slight depression and now I am climbing out of it.

My sister is doing something similar with her life and she has begun inspiring me. I am going to try to use some visualization techniques to get me over this rough spot. I am envisioning my healthier, happier me and it has seemed to light a bit of a fire under me. Don't get me wrong, I still procrastinated much of my day away and am writing this at almost two in the morning. But I definitely feel the wheels turning again.

I am not waging war on food and fat. I am not fighting the battle of the bulge. I am simply going back to the beginning when it was going right and I am moving on from here.

Who's with me?