So, I posted a "success story" in MFP yesterday, sharing my 101 pound loss. And my MFP account exploded with friend requests.
Which is fine. I get it. I didn't request very many of my friends on MFP… but the ones that I did request are ones that I saw in the forums as having lost a significant amount of weight. I wanted to follow people that had been where I am… and are now living where I hope to be! I wanted to know what kind of calorie goal they were on. I wanted to know what they ate and how they exercised. I wanted to know what kind of struggles they still had and what successes they had that I could look forward to. So, I can understand all the friend requests although it's still a little weird to me to think that perhaps people want to follow me for the same reason I wanted to follow those few that I requested. Who would have guessed that someday I would be a success story? Who would have guessed that someday people would look to me for inspiration and motivation? Especially when it comes to weight loss!?
Maybe it's the curse of having been overweight my entire life… but things like this are surreal to me. Like it's some dream I'll wake up from. This can't be real. This can't actually be happening to me. Maybe someday my brain will catch up to reality. Maybe then I will be able to look in the mirror and see what others see instead of what I'm used to seeing. Maybe then it won't seem so strange to me that people look to me for inspiration and motivation.
So… for anybody from MFP reading this for the first time… welcome. I started my attempt to lose weight before I joined MFP and that's when I started this blog. So, I choose to use this rather than creating one at MFP. Plus it seems more user friendly to me. I'm not getting any benefit (financial or otherwise) from this blog, so I hope posting links to this blog on occasion on my news feed won't freak out the tender sensibilities of the mods over there. I hope you will come back often and check in. I post on here fairly regularly… which to me means, once a month or more. Some months will be busier than others in terms of number of posts. And for heavens sake… if you have questions or there is something you wish I would talk about… drop me a comment in any of my posts or message me at MFP. I'm sure I can respond to them within 72 hours… usually more quickly if it's during the week.
I'm not here to "toot my own horn" so to speak. It's not that I think I have answers or that there is something special about me. But I love hearing about what others have gone through. I've looked for weight loss blogs to follow myself. The first trouble I have is finding ones that are still active. It seems they go for a while and then dwindle off to nothing. The next trouble I have is finding ones that are just real people talking about their journey. It seems like the ones I find are usually professional ones… which comes with a ton of ads… and a ton of sponsored posts for various products… most of which don't have anything to do with weight loss. So, that's part of what I'm aiming for in this blog is to create the blog I wish I could find! Thus, I repeat the invitation… if there is something you would like to know or want me to write about … drop me a line.
I created this blog for two main reasons… One: For me. My weight is something I don't talk about. I never have. I've never been happy with it… but I just learned over the years that I don't let something like that determine… well, anything. I've never felt "held back" because of my weight. I've never felt depressed or unworthy or anything because of my weight. I knew I was fat. I didn't like it. But it was part of who I was. So, I didn't talk about it. And because of all the misconceptions that abound about overweight people and weight loss… I didn't care to go public (meaning open) about it to my friends on FB or even in real life. I am open with my sisters. They all know what I'm doing. I am extremely tight with my sisters. They are my everything… my world. The very earth I stand on. My extended family (nieces and nephews) knows what I'm doing to the point that it's kinda hard to hide the fact you are losing weight when you've lost 100 pounds. And to the point that my siblings may share it with them. My co-workers know what I'm doing in the same way my extended family does… that it's kinda hard to hide it. My co-workers and I form a pretty tight knit little team. And they will ask on occasion how I'm doing or what I'm doing. And especially since they are among the few I hoped to prove wrong… I'll be open with them when they ask. Other than that, I have two old friends (dating back to my high school days) that are even semi-aware of what I'm doing. But because I don't care to share my journey with most people, I created this blog as a space for me to write and to talk about what I'm going through. Both the successes and the struggles.
But the second reason I created this blog was in case my experience could help someone else. I decided a long time ago that I wasn't that unique. Meaning… if there was something I struggled with… there was probably someone else who struggled with the same thing. If there was something that I found helpful… there is probably someone who will find the same thing helpful.
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