I have been working really hard to find motivation to really make this goal happen. 50 pounds is just the start. I really want to lose 90 and be smaller than I have been since high school. I signed up for spark people and listed 3 goals to start with. they are:
1. Write in a journal at least three times per week. I’m here, considering this a “journal”.

2. Pack my lunch at least 3 times per week. Not much room to improve on this one this week since it’s Thursday and I have a lunch meeting with my boss tomorrow. But next week, I will make this happen.

3. Stretch for at least 5 minutes per day. I always have good intentions to go to the gym after work or wake up early and workout or take the dog for a walk, but none of it seems to happen.

I don’t know when I became so lazy, but I do know that I have gained 15 pounds this year. I have been reading blogs and any materials I can get my hands on about making the emotional changes I need to make in order to be successful with losing weight and transforming my life. The barriers I see in my way are: my husband is lazy, he loves to eat out, he actually encourages over eating, he loves to keep junk food in the house. These are his issues and I need to make him own them and be my own person. I don’t want to get divorced, but I don’t know how to break free from his bad habits and get back to good ones that I had before I was with him. I can track the beginning of this weight gain to the beginning of our relationship. When we started dating, I went to the gym nearly every day. I had a semi healthy diet. I remember he would tease me at restaurants because I couldn’t eat all of my food. I have gained over 50 pounds since then. We eat out several times a week. I am addicted to soda. Since I stopped smoking, I have started eating larger lunches. I used to just have a snack at lunchtime and now I eat lunch 5 days a week. I cook dinner a couple nights a week, but we go out the rest of the time. On the weekends, he insists on going out to breakfast. And most weekends, we will go out for lunch or dinner one or both days. We don’t go to the gym regularly. He loves to watch tv, so I find myself sitting right there with him. Why can’t I break out of this and leave him to be pathetic by himself and go to the gym? I don’t know what I’m scared of. Am I scared that he will once again find me attractive? Scared that I will feel attractive again and realize that he is toxic? He is never supportive of anything I do. He says he supports me (like when I quit smoking), but he doesn’t actually support me. He continued to smoke right in front of me, asked me everyday if I was going to buy cigarettes, etc. So, I know that he won’t encourage me on this journey. He will go to the gym with me, but I feel like him being there is him keeping me under his thumb. Some days, I honestly feel like he encouraged me to get fat and then he beat down all my self esteem so that he could ensure I would stick around. I guess maybe this journal writing is useful. I am currently arguing with him, so my perspective may be a bit skewed. I do love him and I love the life we have together (house, cars, jobs, pets, etc) and I enjoy spending time with him, but the negative things I said are also true. I think in this one session of brainstorming about what’s holding me back, I have discovered that I just need to do this and not even invite him to participate. Make it my own goal and something that is mine to achieve. The one way I can guarantee he is not involved is to go to the gym early in the morning. He will not get out of bed to exercise. Not that I am thrilled about the idea, but I really do want to succeed at this. I want to be down 50 pounds by the end of 2012, so at 10 pounds per month I should be able to achieve phase 1 of my overall goal. If anyone has similar issues, please feel free to chime in and let me know how you mentally got over this hump and how you removed yourself from bad habits in your relationship.