Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain--and most fools do!

Thanks to Dale Carnegie for this post title, even though he's dead and has no idea I'm using his quote. The reasoning behind it will become clear momentarily. So yesterday I took my monthly pictures and did measurements. The mug shot style of them is just generally unflattering, but it is cool to see a difference month to month. I just can't believe I didn't really take a starting weight pic! I mean, I have a few pics of me at my heaviest, but it would have been nice to have one in the same clothes like all the others. But that may just be me being OCD. Anyway, like I said, I can see a difference, but of course my crazy inner critic Gertrude has to horn in. Gertrude likes to point out where I still have rolls, where my arms could look better, where my face could be slimmer. Basically, Gertrude just enjoys telling me that I'm still not good enough. And it's true that I still have major weight to lose. But there is quite a difference between accepting that and using it as incentive to work hard, as opposed to completely disregarding the large amount of weight I have already lost and focusing only on what I still have to lose. I would say my general mindset is usually somewhere in between those two. As I've said before, I'm a work in progress.

Sometimes I think the fact that I have lost weight before makes things more difficult for myself. Oftentimes when I am really having a hard day working out, I'll just think, "When I was thinner before, I didn't even break a sweat doing this. Why can't I be like that now?" Or when I'm buying clothes in a new smaller size, part of me will be thinking about the fact that when I was thinner, I was a size smaller than that. I know these thoughts are mean and serve no purpose, but they just pop up in my brain sometimes. I have always had trouble giving myself credit for the good things I have done. It always ends up where I may congratulate myself for a job well done, but there is always a "but you could have done this part better." Yes, this tendency does drive me to be a high achiever, but sometimes it is enough to drive me crazy too!

Here is me attempting to congratulate myself in a healthy way. I have lost 60.6 lbs in 9 weeks, which is certainly nothing to sneeze at (why would you sneeze at something anyway?), especially since the original goal was to lose that amount in 12 weeks. Have I lost that weight by doing everything perfectly, working out every single day without fail, and eating a completely clean diet? The honest and short answer is no. I'm not perfect. I've made mistakes and will continue to do so, just hopefully fewer of them. I'm living in real life after all, and sometimes life gets in the way. But I believe that I have done a hell of a job overall transforming my life and myself. So today, I will make myself look in the mirror and not focus on how far I have left to go in my journey, but instead on how far I have already come. Corny? Yes. Necessary? Yes. Why? Because that's how I roll ;)