I am not in a good place at the moment. I’m admitting it, because the entire idea behind this blog is transparency.

I haven’t lost weight in a month, but the truth is, I haven’t been doing everything I can in order to produce a result. It’s that simple: until I’m willing to do the things I know that work, I can’t expect good results. Good intentions won’t get me there.

When I feel like this, I have to look at the triggers that made me feel this way. This time, it was seeing several photos of myself after a major event. This has happened to me, before. I get to feeling pretty good about myself, and then when I see visual evidence of how I really look, it deflates me and I want to give up.

Believe me — that’s not happening, but it’s obvious I need to work some on the disparity between what my brain sees me as, and reality.

I actually have a couple images of myself in my brain; the true me, who is not overweight at all, and has the spirit of the person I was at 19. The adventuresome me who enjoys a challenge, loves to be outside, and is fit. That’s the core of me — that person who could swim all day, drive down any random road she sees just to find out what’s there, and spend half the night dancing.

Then there’s the current me; the one I’m dealing with at the moment, that my mind refuses to see as the permanent me. I see that person as me in transition to something better. I know I’m very overweight; I know I have limitations — but I also see past this interim me to becoming someone closer to who I once was.

When I see photos, though, I feel such a self-loathing rise within me, screaming that’s not me, that can’t be me, and yet I know it is, and I’m so thoroughly disgusted. I want to tell people to please remove those pictures of me. I want to hide and not be seen, because I am not okay at all with that me.

I know a lot of us feel that way about ourselves when we see photos; it’s not just me. We’re hypercritical. We want to become hermits and scold ourselves for allowing this to happen.

But this is where I need to be careful. The last time I saw photos of myself and got discouraged was after losing 70 pounds, which was no small feat; and yet, I suppose I thought I’d look as good as I felt. Maybe to others, I did, but not to me.

I gave up. I felt like the effort I’d made wasn’t worth it. I ended up even heavier than I was before losing 70 pounds.

That’s the bad part of feeling like this. Giving up solves nothing; it only makes the situation worse. No matter how hard of a time I have accepting that this is *me* at this moment in time, I have to keep doing everything possible to move forward.

I have to make the effort. I have to do the things I know that work.