Happy

I have lived almost my entire life overweight. Not an uncommon story for many, but I do feel mine is a bit different. I have watched The Biggest Loser religiously since about the second or third season, I watch other's weight loss struggles on DHC, I've read countless stories. They all seem to have one common bond: the weight gain stemmed from some sort of trauma or unhappiness. And I feel as though there is a nasty stigma associated with obesiety that if you are overweight, you can't possibly be happy. I'm going to say right now that it is just not true.

I am happy.

While I, like many, went through a phase in my teens where I was miserable and the world hated me ... my life has been and continues to be great. I am 25 years old and every year continues to get better. I'm pretty sure that part of my weight problem comes from eating out of boredom. When I was young my brother and I would come home from school on the bus, and there was never much to do since we weren't able to participate in many after school activities. So, we'd watch television ... and eat, and eat, and eat. It didn't matter how many loaves of white bread he would devouer, my brother never seemed to gain a pound. I on the other hand, was not so lucky. And so out of eating this junk I grew to love some of the worst foods possible ... and honestly I still do.

My point here is, while I currently weigh 212 pounds being only 5'3" tall, I am not unhappy with myself. I would try to lose weight here and there because I know that I "should" for health reasons, but my problem and the reason I'd continually fail, is that I had no motivation whatsoever to lose the weight. Sure I could buy some cute clothes in a smaller size, maybe guys would start noticing more ... but those aren't things that I necessarily care about, and therefore not motivation for me to change.

I've given numerous programs a shot, and even seen results ... the problem is that when I begin seeing results; I STOP. I can't explain why because I don't really know. It might be a fear of being different than I've always been, a fear of becoming a different person than I've always been ... that's my only explanation. Because I've been so content lately with my life I haven't given weight loss much though at all ... until I saw an infomercial for Insanity. I already own another of Shaun T's workouts called Hip Hop Abs, which I also saw results from then gave up. I'm not sure what it was about this one, but it got my attention. It looks harder than anything I've ever tried, and that made me curious. When I work out I like a work out, I need to sweat ... a walk around the block doesn't do much for me. I know that even a walk has it's benefits, but the workouts I enjoy are the sweaty ones. The hard ones. The ones that make you push. And so Insanity sparked interest in me, and a motivation to do it. To not give up this time, and see this one through.

I actually received Insanity last Monday in the mail. However, I've been battling a cold for the past week. Since I know the program is difficult, I wanted to wait until my cold was mostly gone to begin: I didn't want to set myself up for failure. So, tomorrow is my start date. I will be taking my measurements and before pictures and posting those soon. I'm excited to see what the next 60 days has in store for me, and to see just what kind of transformation can take place.