One of the biggest de-motivators for those on a massive weight loss journey or those who are significantly overweight isn’t the exercise or the eating its just knowing your journey is going to be unbelievably long. 

Its not going to be a 30-day-to fit and skinny thing, Its a 2-3 years of daily regimented eating, changing a lifetime of bad habits, habits that other people do not understand or care to empathise with. Its the probability of excess skin that you cant afford to remove. 

2-3 years of self sabotage, hormones and mood swings, sabotage by those in your life who think its funny to see you fail. Its not one dress size down, its 5-10 dress sizes down. Its expensive, its exhausting, its physically painful doing thing at your biggest that appears easy to other people. You get waves of support, jealousy, suspicion, judgement…. for 2-3 years

So yeah, “just eat healthy and everything will be fine!”….. yes it will be, but please don’t forget the length of our journey ahead can be massively overwhelming. 

And even when we do get to ‘goal weight’, that’s not the end, it’s really just the beginning.   For people who are significantly overweight, this is a life-long endeavor. It has to be a complete change of lifestyle FOR LIFE.  It can be really overwhelming. Try to just take it one day at a time, one step at a time, and just keep going. 

Things they never told me about losing weight.

1. Buy some better cold weather clothing. You are going to get cold.  2. Buy some decent skin lotion and use it frequently. Your skin is going to retract a bit, and a bit of lotion does wonders for helping it firm up smoother, and stops it drying out. 3. You may have excess skin. This is normal, and not something to panic about/beat yourself up about. 4. Weight loss will start fast but slow rapidly. When you are very over weight, you will find that the weight falls off you initially, but it’s a curve, and it WILL slow down as your body isn’t using up as many calories just existing. This is good. This is healthy. You have not done anything wrong. 5. It won’t be easy. Those people who tell you it’s easy ? They are liars. It’s hard. It’s worth it … but it’s hard.   6. You are amazing and beautiful at every point of your journey. Some people will try to convince you that you are more important or more approachable because you are slimmer. Fuck that noise. You are the same person you always have been, and your value was never determined by a number.

Things may never get better, but YOU will get better and that is everything

Ijeoma Umebinyuo (via studentsoup)