Tough Love
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While blog surfing last weekend, I came across a quote that I traced back to the Facebook page Strong is the New Skinny. After cleaning it up (i.e. removing the profanity), I wanted to share it with you because, profanity aside, it’s harsh, but the quote contains a great deal of truth and some people need tough love.
Ready?
“You’re right. It is easier to eat pizza than to run on the treadmill.
It is easier to turn to ice cream rather than people for support.
It is easier to say “I give up” than to say “I can do this”.
So you know what? I am not going to sit here and tell you day after day that you can do this.
If you don’t believe that you can do this, then you can’t.That is the honest truth. You need to do this for you.
And if you don’t want it bad enough then you won’t achieve it.
So take the easy way out and remain unhealthy and continue to gain weight because you can’t realize you are the only one hurting yourself.
I didn’t say it would be easy. I said it would be worth it.”
Losing a significant amount of weight is hard. It takes a great deal of determination and commitment.
I get a lot of people asking me how I’ve done it and I can tell that many of them are just looking for a magic pill. They want me to tell them the name of a program they haven’t tried or a supplement they haven’t taken.
They don’t really like it when I say, “I changed my eating habits and began exercising regularly” because that requires a complete lifestyle change. And, that’s hard.
But, please believe me when I say, it’s not easy, but it is worth it.
I want this for you. Yes, you. I may not even know your name. You may be lurking and may never have commented, but I know you’re out there and I want it for you because I know what losing the weight and changing my lifestyle has meant to me. It has changed my life.
I will do everything I can to support you. I will encourage you through my posts and through comments. I will talk to you via email. I will pray for you.
I want you to succeed.
But, you have to want it, too.
You have to want it bad enough to completely change your life.
I’m not saying it will be easy. I am saying, it will be worth it.
Do or do not. There is no try.
Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.
Wonderful post, Kris. It is really true. It's not easy at all. It's so much easier to go for that "quick fix" – the food that we stuff in our mouths to try to relieve the stress, not counting the calories because we're tired of it, sleeping just a little later and planning to start exercising "tomorrow". But while it's harder to do it this way, it feels so much more worth it because it is hard. We know that we've put in the effort. We've become stronger for it, inside and out. Just got off of 25 minutes on our new elliptical trainer (!!!) and, boy am I beat! But it was fun (did I just say that?!) and it was worth it. Logged it into MFP (a bit giddily, I must say) along with my glass of water. Ready to face the day! Thanks for the supportive, tough love reminder this morning! I'll have to check out that blog…
Exactly, Christine! I always feel so much better for having exercised, if not physically (though that, too, 99% of the time), then mentally for having done it. And it absolutely, most definitely, beyond a shadow of a doubt feels MUCH better being the size I am now than it felt being morbidly obese.
Kris, I swear, I must think the way you do. I posted a motivational quote this morning that has pretty much the same message.
YES, people do want an easy fix! And it takes going after it instead of sitting back and waiting for it to happen. BECAUSE IT ISN'T GOING TO. Sitting around being miserable and wishing doesn't work. I can tell you that from experience.
You're exactly right.
I completely agree! I tell this to my daughter all the time. While I'm on my weight loss journey my daughter is on a fitness journey. She's just shy of overweight and very out of shape. She's currently training for a child's triathlon and is discovering how much hard work it'll be. This morning she was running around the block (1/2 of her running distance for the triathlon) and I was timing her. She kept wanting to beat her time but wasn't. I told her – I can make you run. I can tell you what distance to do. But only YOU can push yourself harder to beat your time.
It's a very important message as my sister just found out. She recently put down over $500 for a weight loss program. It's one where you have to pay for their herbal supplements every week *insert me rolling my eyes* In 4 mths she lost 11lbs. With just diet and exercise and without handing over my hard earned money to anyone, I've lost 18lbs. Lesson learned.
Ouch! That was an expensive 11 lbs. for your sister.
Well sheesh kabobs. I wanted you to tell me it is easier to eat pizza. 🙂 I feel like the children of Isreal circling the desert and peeking longingly into the promised land but seeing giants everywhere. I don't want to wait 40 years. I want to take the land. I need to stick to the fact that it is mathmatically possible for me to lose weight…I just need to do the math and stick to the plan, man. 🙂 Thank you again for your encouragement and example!Â
I just realized that pizza sentence made no sense. I meant I wanted you to tell me to eat the pizza! Because today, I ate the pizza. I turned to the ice cream. I wasted another chance to lose and not gain. But we still have dinner to go and maybe we can just turn this day around. 😉
That's a good analogy. Lisa Terkeurst makes reference to the Israelites in her book, Made to Crave. Very fitting.
I understood what you meant. 🙂
Don't even worry about the splurge! Just dust off and move on. I live in the Chicago 'burbs. There's a pizza joint on every corner, and we have pizza about twice a week. And I have ice cream just about every night. It is my weakness. If it's what you WANT, it's all about working it into your calorie allotment! 🙂
Thank you for the encouragement! 🙂 I just signed up at My Fitness Pal last night and my numbers looked…bleak…to be kind to myself, ha ha! But when I logged on this morning, there it was…my fresh new screen with new green numbers to spend! 🙂 I think I can…I think I can…
Be sure to get some exercise in so you can make the pretty green numbers go up! 😉
I'm determined to add those in today…we have an elliptical in the living room…I have NO excuse here! 🙂
Go for it!