Hope and Motivation, part 1

When I started blogging back in 2006 after losing 120lbs I felt like I had never in my life felt before.  What had happened, and what was happening was way bigger than a weightloss story.  I couldn't really describe it because I've not known of anyone that had, or was having the same experience...so I just started writing.  After being asked over and over again "How did you lose all that weight?" I was compelled to write about how, at the age of 41, I was feeling and looking better than I could ever imagine.  With the foundation of the "former" Tracy I felt like a new improved version of myself.  If I had to use one word, only one, to describe this new way of feeling it would be "confident". Feeling truly confident is the best feeling in the world, and covers many, many parts, if not all parts, of my life.

During those first years of blogging I dreamt about being the one that found the answers to the questions of motivation.  How does one get it, how does one keep it, how does one share it?  It is not the million dollar question...it's the million dollar answer!  I wanted other people to experience what I had, and I felt the only way I could do that was to find the answers to what inspires motivation.  But I could only share what it was, and is, that motivates me.

I've been asked many times what motivated me to lose the weight.  The answer? Lots of things.  The first motivation was the fear of dying.  I mean really dying...dead!  Another motivation was the weightloss contest (bet) I got involved with at work, a competition.  Yet another was a personal challenge, the one I made to myself to not eat out at all, and make all of my own foods and meals.

I didn't die, I won the bet, and making my own meals is no longer a challenge but a gift I give myself and my family.  How, after accomplishing those things would the motivation to keep going, keep improving, or at least keep changing in a positive way, continue?  Training kettlebells.

This may sound hokey, it may even sound like I'm trying to sell something, but you can't buy what training kettlebells can give you.  It's not the "kettlebell" alone that's magic, it's "training", and the two together has been an unbeatable match for me.  Without one I would not have the other.  There is nothing truer than the phrase that Mark came up with "The kettlebell won't swing itself"

Before I go on I'd like to share a blog post I wrote 5 years ago a couple of months after I started my original blog, here it is;

TUESDAY, JANUARY 2, 2007

Hope for the New Year

So much has happened to me in the last few weeks, in the last few days, I can only wonder what this next year holds for me.

Two years ago today I was happy. My life was good. Yes, I was fat, but I never defined myself by my weight. I always felt that I was smart, talented, and had a good life. I enjoyed eating alot of food and took responsibility for the results of that. In fact besides being phyisically uncomfortable at times I felt the biggest drawback of being so heavy was the judgement of other people about me because of my weight. I felt invisible. Not respected. And I did feel shame about my weight.

Being Mark Reifkind's wife, many times I wanted to hide. Married to a personal tainer and being so over weight I remember asking Mark when he would want to introduce me to a client or friend " Did you tell them I'm fat? You need to tell them I'm fat, because I don't want them to be surprised." I felt bad for him because I didn't want my weight to be a reflection of him. After all, should the worlds best personal trainer have such a fat wife?

I knew I had it in me to lose the weight and start exercising, I just didn't want to. Why? I don't even know the answer now. I think everyone knows how to lose weight. The question is why don't you want to? I, personally, don't think it matters why. You and I have the rest of our lives to try and figure that out, if we want to. It doesn't change the fact that 2+2=4. In otherwords, the fact is if you count your calories and start some sort of exercise, you will lose weight. You don't need me to tell you that.

What I want to offer is hope. Hope that you can recover from being overweight. Hope that you can recover from being out of shape. Hope that you can recover from being ashamed. Hope so that you can feel healthy, strong and proud. And that you can come through it looking and feeling better than you ever have before.

That's what kettlebell training has done for me. I tell everyone that my diet (food) changed the size of my body, but kettlebell training changed the composition of my body. And I wouldn't of believed it until I experienced it. Kettlebell training has given me hope. Hope that I can keep the weight off and feel and look great. Sometimes I think if I only would of known about KBs 10 years ago I might never have gained so much weight.

I hope that you find the motivation this year, if I can give you any I will. If you have already found your motivation, like me, I hope you keep it going strong.

You might have noticed that the title of this blog post, "Hope and Motivation" includes a "part 1", and that's because I have so much more to write.  Explore what I think is the answer.  The answer, my answer, is hope.