It’s amazing.  I recently turned 47 and I feel like life is now beginning for me.  For the last year and a half I’ve been going thru a sort of re-birth.  I know that everyone can see the transformation on the outside but there has been one amazing transformation on the inside and I’m not sure if I’m more proud of one over the other.  What you see when you see me in person or in my pictures is all my hard work at boot camp, running, eating right, and I see that to.  But what you might not be able to see is all the work I have done on the inside.  The last few years, as painful as they were, resulted in a rebuilding of myself from the inside out. 

I’ve shared about being in a state of hopelessness and depression a few years ago.  I’ve also shared about having a lifelong food/sugar addiction.  These two combined created the perfect storm in my life for about 5 years.  They fed each other and I would go round and round like a nauseating carnival ride….feeling depressed, I would eat which made me more depressed so I would eat more and so on and so on.  The next thing I know I’m almost 300 pounds and depressed and hopeless doesn’t even begin to describe how I’m feeling.  I had never been that big or let things get that out of control.  But I was also in a place in my life that I had never been before…going through a divorce and raising a very angsty teenager on my own.  All I wanted to do was eat to deal with all of this which of course would just make me feel worse.  It’s a cycle that anyone with a food addiction can understand.  And, I had been successful with losing weight before but never successful at keeping it off.  So any thoughts I had of trying to lose weight again were fleeting because I would think….what’s the point, I’ll just gain it back again.  Sooo, lets just eat some more to deal with those hopeless feelings.  Vicious.Vicious.Cycle. 

If I was EVER going get off this ride, I had to deal with all the mental stuff.  I wasn’t interested in seeing a therapist or doctor.  Been there done that.  I didn’t want talk about it anymore. I was sick of talking about it.  I’m not a doctor but I knew what I had to overcome so they weren’t going to tell me anything I didn’t already know.  I knew I was at the point of “shit or get off the pot” (sorry Mom!!)  And it’s when you to come to points like this in your life that you see what you’re made of.     I would never have long term success with losing weight and keeping it off if all I did was eat right and work out.  If I was going to have any chance that this would be the time I finally got it right, I had to get my head in the game…literally.  So while I changed my diet and started moving, my main focus was getting my mind in a healthy place.   Doing that looks different for everyone.  For me, it was giving myself a clean slate and a daily mantra that forward was the only direction I wanted to move.  It was admitting the addiction and recognizing that a binge eating disorder was also part of my genetic makeup and these things would always be there but I could learn what triggers them and how to control them.  It was convincing myself I had purpose and so much to live for and that I wanted to live, not just exist as I had been doing for so long.  It was purging all negativity, shame and chaos in my head that caused constant cloud cover so the sun could shine in there.  It was releasing the control food had on me, control it held over me for so long I didn’t really know how to live without it.  And it was forgiveness for past failures and understanding that they were stepping stones on the path that got me to this very place.  And it’s many more things and because I have 47 years of life in my mind, I’m not going to be able to get all that fixed and cleared out overnight so it’s every day I have to work on my mind to clean out all the crap that could keep me from getting what I want or where I want to be.  If you don’t, you’re going to get in your own way and block any chance of getting what you’re working towards.  You have to get out of your own way. 

So you can understand why I feel like I’ve gone through a bigger transformation on the inside and continue to put in the mental work each day.  It’s recommitting to it every 24 hours and having internal conversations that run down a list (I love my lists!) of reminders that weightloss – or anything you are trying to give up or overcome – is hard work but the hard work is worth it.  It’s reminding myself that no food tastes as good as I feel.  What you see in my pictures is a reflection of the power and strength that comes from working on your mind every day.  Another year older, yes, but also stronger, fitter, wiser and most of all, happier.  This happiness I worked very hard for and continue to work hard for every day.  This new life is worth the hard work. 

~Regina