The Resistance You May Face

This picture really hit home with me, and I'm sure it has with a lot of you too! Over the past 24 months I have been accused of being obsessed more times than I care to remember! Some have suggested that it's started to “interfere” with my life; when all I can see is that I do more with my time now than I ever have!

My question to these people, the negative influences that seem to surround us, is what was I doing before that was so right? I would spend upwards of 5 hours a day sitting at home playing Farmville and all those other games on Facebook, essentially doing nothing! Yes, I may have been at the gym for 10+ hours per week, but what else would you have me do? There are plenty of people who play computer games, go mountain biking, ride horses, baking, learn an instrument and play golf for that amount of time per week, are they obsessed?! No, they are simply pursuing a hobby! To this day I still don't see the difference.

About a year ago, at the mid-way point, when I had lost roughly 35lbs people were telling me constantly “maybe it's time you stopped losing weight” or “I think you've lost enough weight now” etc. Whilst I did appreciate the compliment, after a while it started to become a daily argument about everything I could possibly be doing “to harm myself”. I was telling a friend about this, and she suggested that I respond with “Well thanks for your input, but there was no point at which you suggested that I stopped gaining weight, why do you get to say that I need to stop losing weight?” This became a bit of a running joke! But it's true, it's nobody's business but yours!

Don't get me wrong, not every single person will be against you! Most of them will ask questions out of genuine interest, hoping to glean some information they can apply to their own lifestyle! Some will be genuinely supportive of the work you're doing to improve yourself. And even some of those who seem to resist the most, will actually be happy for you underneath it all.

There is also an element of over sensitivity on our part! With seemingly every move we make being questioned and criticised because it's not what everyone else does, it can get boring, annoying, and can make you doubt yourself. All of which is enough to make anyone a bit touchy!!

At times, it got to me, their words running through my head while I was trying to train, and yes, sometimes it defeated me. I'd leave the gym half way through a workout, devastated with myself for quitting, and angry with them for making me doubt myself. I'd come home and cry on Guy about how people were making me worry that I was going too far, and doing too much. He would reassure me that I'm fine, I'm not too thin, and I enjoy training, so why shouldn't I do it?! I am forever grateful to him for not jumping on the bandwagon, and for helping me to push through the times of doubt. I would return the next day- stronger!

So, ignore the criticism, ignore the people who think they know better than you, or more than you and trust in yourself to guide you through your journey. Try to remember that the resistance could really be coming from a place of love and genuine concern. Educate yourself about what you're doing, what you're eating, and why you're doing it to get you to your goal in a healthy and sustainable way. Then you can educate them! Answer their questions with facts, reassure them with real information that you're safe, and that you're not harming yourself,

Never lose sight of your goal, and where you're going, trust in yourself to get there! If you need reassurance, talk to like-minded people who train and will give you evidence based information and not information based on something someone told them once, or some “feeling” they've got. Make sure you have someone you trust who you can turn to, I have Guy, who will always give me his honest opinion, will tell me if he thinks it's going “too far” and will do nothing but encourage and support me in the meantime!

Work hard, stay focussed, you'll reap the rewards!

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt "Citizenship in a Republic," Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910