Relentless Forward Motion

This getting healthy journey is so hard. Over the last few weeks I've had a lot of ups and downs. The ups have definitely been more than the downs, but still having downs, which shows me I'm still not where I need to be mentally. There was a point a few weeks ago where I really let things get to me mentally. I mean, I was dwelling on my mistakes and ready to throw in the towel.

During this time I was talking to my friends Rich Kalasky and Carlos Hill. Rich has lost 160 pounds and started O2EA Coaching (Overweight to Endurance Athlete). They introduced me to a saying RELENTLESS FORWARD MOTION. I was dwelling too much on my mistakes and the past and getting really down and Rich kept telling me, "Melissa, you have to move with RELENTLESS FOWARD MOTION. No looking back, no looking at your mistakes, just keep looking forward and moving forward."

That has really hit home with me and I have adopted that as my new motto. Yes, I still have bad days. Yes, I still get down, but now I just pick myself up and keep moving forward. Some days it's a little slower than other days, but I am still moving forward and not letting little mistakes side track me for days or weeks.

When Rich first introduced me to this saying I looked up the word relentless in the dictionary. It is an adjective that means, "Something that does not relent. Unyielding, severe, strict, or harsh. Something that is Unrelenting." It's synonyms are rigid, unbending, inflexiblee and adamant. I then looked up the word relent and it means, " to soften in feeling, temper, or dtermination. To abandon or relinquish."

I really studied those two definitions and decided that no matter what happens in my life I really do want to be relentless in my journey. No matter the circumstances, no matter what people do or say, no matter what distractions are put in front of me I need to mmove with RELENTLESS FORWARD MOTION. I can't look back. I can't blame others or myself. I just need to do what I need to do.

While thinking about all of this I started to visual a horse with blinders on. When a horse has blinders on the only way it can see is forward. There is no way for the horse to see where it has just come from, it can not see to the sides too be distracted. The horse can only move forward. If the horse stumbles it just gets back up and keeps moving forward. Nothing will keep that horse from reaching his destination. People can try to tempt the horse with food, people behind the horse can call it, but with the help of the person on the horse, giving the horse direction, the horse knows to just move forward and keep moving forward to reach it's destination.



Today I am deciding once and for all to put on my blinders. No one is going to drag me into the past, no one is going to tempt me from the sidelines, and with the help of God, my personal trainer, and my counselor, I will keep heading forward with RELENTLESS FORWARD MOTION.

What are you dwelling on from your past that is keeping you from RELENTLESS FORWARD MOTION? If it is something big please see a counselor about it. I am in counseling and I am now learning that you cannot heal your future without healing your past. Does it hurt? Yes, it does. Is it worth it? Yes. I have had success with my weight loss before. I lost 106 pounds. I gained it all back and that is because I have never healed. Please heal the hurts of your past so you can have success in your future. You deserve it.

What are the distractions that keep pulling you from both sides? For me it is food, events, TV, and people. I have had to learn in the last few months of working with my personal trainer and counselor, that it is ok to be selfish during this time of getting healthy. I still care about people, but I care about myself more and getting healthy more and I cannot allow people or things to get in my way of my final destination.

Are you like me, when you fall down, you stay down? I have fallen down so many times and instead of picking myself up and brushing myself off, I stay down. I think to myself, "What's the point? I've screwed up already. I'm never going to be able to do it. I'm a failure." You get the point. As my Weight Watchers leader said to us once, "If you fell down a couple stairs, would you just say "Oh Well" and throw yourself down the rest of the staircase? No you wouldn't. You would pick yourself up, so you wouldn't get hurt anymore. How many times have you just given up and thrown yourself down the rest of the stairs? Aren't you tired of that? I know I am. I am tired of the pain.

Get your blinders on now and start moving with RELENTLESS FORWARD MOTION. I'm still at the beginning of my journey and still learning this concept, but am improving everyday and learning more and more everyday and it sure is freeing. I hope that someday you can find this freedom too. It's a lot of hard work, but well worth it.



I just want to thank Rich and Carlos for sticking by me the last couple of months when it's been tough. I want to thank Justin Killeen, my personal trainer, of Pioneer Valley Fitness. Justin, you are the best and I look forward to hitting all my goals with you. Thanks for being patient with me and realizing when I say I hate you, I really don't. James, thanks for being my couselor over the last couple of years. You have really helped me learn so much about myself and I'm excited to see where all this current hard work is going to lead.

I'm a big believer that weight loss is not just physical. It is mental, spiritual and physical and I am thankful to God for never letting go of me through all of this. He has brought all these wonderful people into my life to help me through all of this and I am grateful for each and every one of them. As my counselor always tells me God is the ultimate SOURCE and He gives us the RESOURCES we need to make it in life. So thanks Guys for being God's resources in my life.

Reflections from the last few days.

To say that I have been struggling for a little while would be an understatement. I have been struggling for sure for the past week if not longer. Last week’s weight loss shows that I have been struggling. Yes, I lost a pound, but it should have been more. Last Friday, I was just awful to my personal trainer, Justin and I have spent time recently being mad at my counselor.

Whoever said that 90% of a healthy lifestyle is mental and the other 10% was the physical change wasn’t kidding. My counselor, who I have been with for over 2 years now, thinks that I am finally strong enough to deal with some issues from my past that I have gotten good and shoving down and not talking about. I’ve liked not talking about them. I’ve liked forgetting about them and thinking that I was moving on, but now I see that the things that happened to me in my past have shaped me into who I am today as an adult.

My counselor said that if I don’t heal this old wounds I will never completely heal, which could be why I have never had full success with my weight loss journey. He knows how important it is for me to lose the weight and keep it off for good this time, so it is time to heal these old wounds. He is helping me talk about it. He is helping me face it. He is helping me remember things I have enjoyed forgetting about, which is why I get mad at him. Yes, I know when I get mad at Justin or my counselor, it is misdirected, but I get mad at them for making me face these demons.

Justin and I have had a rough few days. Not because of Justin, but all because of me. Back to Friday’s personal training session. I was AWFUL to him, just awful. I had an attitude, told him no, and took my sweet time getting to what he told me to do. I’ve lied to him since we started working out together and have even lowered the intensity on a machine when he wasn’t looking. I have hired him to help me take back my life and I am 27 pounds down since we started, so why do I get so mad at him? Why do I complain and give him an attitude? I do it not because I am truly mad at him, but mad at myself. Mad at myself for gaining back the weight, for letting myself go again, for giving in when I could have made different choices, and most importantly mad at myself for believing all the lies that I have told myself for years. What are those lies? Here are just a few:

-I don’t deserve to be happy.
-I need to take care of everyone else and make sure they are ok.
-I’ve failed once at this weight loss thing, what if I fail again?
-I’ll never be able to reach my goals
-I’m not pretty.
-I will lose friends when I lose weight.
-I’m leaving my kids too much to go workout.
-Why do I need to work on the past? I was fine with how things were when I shoved it down and didn’t talk about it.
-I’m comfortable being overweight and scared to be thin.
-I will be letting a lot of people down if I don’t do this.
-I can’t. . . . . (fill in the blank) lately it’s been “I can’t do the treadmill.” Justin literally holds me on there, so I won’t go off the back when I panic.
-I’m not good enough.
-I can’t do anything right.

This morning I got an email from Justin asking me to write something everyday. To reflect on what is going on in my head. I’ve been reflecting all day. I realized today that since I was young I have always strived to keep the peace. When people don’t get along I always try to make things right. For many years I said YES to everyone, no matter what. I try to make everyone happy and try to please everyone. I don’t ever want to disappoint anyone or let anyone down. I realized everything I do is for others. I put everyone above myself.

I sent Justin a text last night. I was telling him that I was not going to workout and told him, “Sorry.” He simply replied, “Apologize to yourself.” That little sentence really hit home with me. I was feeling bad for disappointing him, for letting him down, but realized today, that the only person I have been disappointing and letting down all these years is myself. I spend so much time making sure everyone else is happy, but inside I am dying, I am unhappy. Why do I repeatedly fall into the same traps?

I had an amazing personal trainer named Matt. He was my first personal trainer ever. I hired him in 2008. When things started getting hard, we butted heads, and I let him go because of “personality conflicts.” There were some valid points to that, but looking back now I can see that I was doing the same thing that I am doing now. Getting mad at Matt, lashing out at Matt, I remember Matt even saying that I was lying to him. Sound familiar?

I moved on to my next coach, Bob. Again, another amazing trainer. The one thing that Bob always said to me was, “Melissa, we really need to work on the emotional stuff with you cause when you have a high, you really have a high, and when you have a low, you really hit rock bottom and have a hard time getting out of it.” He would also get frustrated when I would just shut down when it got hard and I would just stop communicating. That came to mind last night and today when I was eating crappy food and wanting to just throw in the towel and say, “forget it.” Between Matt and Bob I was able to lose 106 pounds. It took two years, but I did it, but then my lows started happening, Crohn’s, a move, depression, and it all just got the better of me and now I am working with Justin.

I see some of the same patterns emerging with him. I wanted to call him last night and call it quits, tell him it is too hard, but I didn’t. Just like Matt and Bob wanted the best for me, so does Justin. I cannot keep living like this. When things get hard I want to run. I want to curl up in bed and not talk about anything, but I can’t keep doing that. As the good Doctor Phil would say to me, “How’s that workin’ for ya?” It’s not. Justin is sticking by me. Even if I wanted to run the other way I know he wouldn’t let me. My counselor knows I want to bolt, but he is just loving on me and cares and won’t let me go. Most importantly my heavenly Father is holding onto me too and has never given up on me either.

I am ready to break free from all that is holding me back. Am I scared? Heck yeah!! Will it hurt? Heck yeah!! Will it all be worth it in the end? Heck yeah!!!

Above I listed lies I have been telling myself. The only way I am going to get better is to live in the truth. My great counselor has told me to only worry about things that are true. If it’s not true than forget about it. All those lies above are untrue, so I need to forget about them and live in the truth. What is the truth?

-I deserve to be happy. Nothing I have ever done or will do will undo this truth.
-I do need to take care of others, but I need to take care of myself first. If I am not taking care of myself how can I even begin to take care of others.
-Yes, I have failed in my weight loss journey before, but there is no WHAT IF’s this time. I am going to do this because I am taking care of all the issues in my life and you know what? If I do fail again I will just pick myself up, dust myself off, and start over and there will be no shame in that.
-I will reach every goal that I make.
-I am beautiful inside and out.
-I need to work on the past because it will heal me completely, so I can move on. I was not fine when I shoved it down and am now seeing the effects of that. I will take care of the past, so I don’t have to live there.
-I am not comfortable being overweight. I can’t wait to be thin and I will look that fear in the face and do what I need to do anyway to reach my goals.
-There are so many people that love and support me. None of them will ever be let down or disappointed in me. They loved me before I lost weight and will love me after I lose weight and everywhere in between.
-I CAN, I refuse to let the I CAN’T’s back in my life. Remember, Phil. 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
-I’m good enough.
-If I can’t do it right the first time I will keep trying until I can do it right. I need to believe in myself.

So Justin, asked me to start reflecting on what’s going on inside my noggin’, so there you go. These are just some of the thouhts I've been having yesterday and today. I will keep writing, so I can sort all of these thought out and will keep posting them so you can come along on this crazy ride called life. Thanks for all your love and support while I sort this out. I couldn't do it without you all.