What was different before.

It was eight years ago that I was on my first part of my first weight loss journey. I had struggled for years with my weight, but for the first time I started actually seeing results. I had just come off 10 months of my back being out and barely able to walk, and I knew with me being point where I could move with limited pain, that it was time to start being serious. My first 30 days I lost 30 LBS, my body was feeling much better. Over the course of 10 months I continued dropping weight until I had gotten down to 197 LBS. But I was in my twenties then, things were different.

So that brings us to now. Over the past couple of years, I have tried to restart my weight loss journey, but keep hitting roadblocks. The first road block came when my uncle had passed away. I had to come off of my workout schedule to attend the funeral and slowly started losing motivation. When I was able to start back up, my back went out again, causing me unbearable pain for months. After that got resolved, I moved. When I moved I thought that everything was going to change, that I was going to work out all the time and get back to where I was. But workouts were few and far between, and then my back went out again.

So I have been thinking recently why am I hitting so many hiccups in this weight loss journey? What is different now than back the first time? I know I'm older, and with age weight loss becomes for difficult, but I should still be losing some. Sure, my back is still bothering me, but that isn't stopping me much from doing light cardio and workouts. I've even been in the apartment fitness center a couple of times a week. But my halt in weight loss and motivation, I believe is from one thing. Distractions.

When I first embarked on initial weight loss in 2010, I had zero distractions. Sure, I had to have a job and work, but that job was a part time job and I had a ton of time to workout and prepare food every day. I also wasn't dating or trying to date, and I stopped hanging out with friends. I had zero distractions in my life. I was selfish, I did everything for myself. My food was for me, my choices were for me, I worked out every single day. Now my life seems full of distractions. While I am single, I have been trying to date more, I am trying to be more social, I work a full time job that has a much higher stress level, and when I come home from work I turn on the TV and get lost in YouTube.

Distractions are part of life, but I need to work on minimizing them as much as possible. I am getting older, and while some will say 36 isn't old, my body doesn't agree. I need to make choices for food for me. I need to not binge when there is food that I really want. I need to make healthy habits into permanent habits. It's time to put the distractions that I can control out of the my sight, and focus one me. Only with this focus, can I truly change.