What motivates you?

I've had motivation on my mind for the last couple of days. I know that I have a long haul ahead when it comes to weight loss.  After all, I'd have to lose 190 - 200 pounds to be considered a healthy weight by most medical professionals.  Even to just get to my personal goal of under 200, I'll have to lose over 150 lbs. 

I generally try to avoid thinking about the total amount I have to lose because it's daunting and a bit overwhelming.  Even if lose the equivalent of an average sized woman, I'll still be considered to be overweight.  If I start to think about the magnitude of what lies ahead, my anxiety and negative self-talk starts to kick in.

I have enough experience with anxiety and negative self-talk that I try to avoid that at all costs because I know that I can work myself into a tizzy that takes days to crawl out of.  Tizzy is a technical term, of course :-)

In order to keep me (mostly) sane, I choose not to think about the magnitude of a 150 lb loss.  Instead, I try to rationalize that I just have to lose 10 lbs, 15 times.  That is MUCH more manageable.  I can do that.  I try not to think too far ahead; I concentrate on the here and now.  I worry about staying On Plan for the day or the week, but not much further out than that.

And that is well and good, but I still face the problem of how to stay motivated to stay On Plan, to make healthier choices, to lose 10 lbs 15 times. I'm still in the honeymoon stage; I'm just two weeks in and I lost an amazing 5 lbs my first week.  But, anyone will tell you that the honeymoon phase wears off soon enough and the rate of weight loss slows down.  I think that I am going into this with the right mindset -- that I just need to keep going and not let things derail me.  I know that there will be bad days and bad weeks.  But, I need to just pick up the pieces and start anew the next day.  I'm hoping that I can keep that at the forefront of my mind as I go through this journey.

But, to be honest, I haven't given a lot of thought as to how I'll keep myself motivated.  I have a few nebulous ideas that I need to put into action.

I came across this blog post a few days ago about "Motivation Marbles" and it really struck a chord with me. I LOVE the idea of having a visual reminder of my efforts.  So, I snuck out of work for a bit yesterday and took a trip to Michaels.  I picked up my glass gems and two jars and when I got home last night, I started to count out the gems and put them in the jars I had purchased.  However, the jars are much too large for what I want -- I want the "pounds to go" jar pretty full, without a lot of empty space. So, I need to head back to exchange them on Thursday.  But, I should have this all set up by Friday.  I just have to figure out where to keep them.  I have a two year old, so I need to make sure they're not somewhere where she can easily get to them.  Otherwise I will either have a giant mess on my hands, or a two year old who has swallowed vase filler. Neither is a good thing.

During my adventure at Michaels, I also came across Smash Books.  Being a scrapbooker, I knew all about them, but I had never really had a chance to flip through one before as it was just recently that they've made it to the big box stores. They are quite the hot lick in the Scrapbooking world right now; they flew off the shelves of online stores.   As I looked through them, I thought that they would be a great way to do my Beck Diet Solution exercises.  The book suggests using index cards, and at first I thought that was great, but I think it would be awesome to use the Smash Book instead.  That way I can include all kinds of stuff from the response cards that are talked about in the book, to random thoughts, quotes, articles, etc. 

Of course, having a bit of a shopping addiction, I couldn't decide between the pink folio or the orange folio, so I bought both.  Oy.

I'm sure as I continue, I'll find ways to motivate myself. I know a lot of people reward themselves with things like jewelry or manicures or books or something. Maybe I should institute that.  For every 10 lbs I lose, I get a little something-something.  Hmmm....that would pair well with my shopping addiction ;-)

How do you keep yourself motivated?