That was a question that I needed to ask myself months before I got started. You see, I have always been a fit person; but because of trials within my childhood; I developed an emotional eating crutch that I would use whenever things got too hard or stressful. Because of that, I 'seesawed' with my weight in my early twenties through all my college degrees and many hard moments of 'single-parentude'.
I knew that it was unhealthy; but like so many who attempt to lose weight, I was doing it all for the wrong reasons. You see, many (MANY) people lose weight because they want to be smaller, or fit into their old clothes or they want to be seen as more attractive to their significant others et cetera. The truth is, that all of these things are BENEFITS to losing weight; but should never be the reasons behind why you've decided to choose health.
When you focus on only these benefits, what happens is that your success is never truly attainable and often times, you quickly lose what you worked so hard to gain. Enter that question I asked myself a couple months before I started Insanity Max 30. It was a difficult one for me to answer in the very beginning and I had a lot of the same reasons in my mind that I listed above. I knew that I wanted to look nice and fit into my smaller clothes and also had the hopes of meeting my forever partner weighing in my mind.
What I realized is that I all of those things that I thought were so important, wasn't enough for me to TRULY commit to fitness. What I wanted more than anything was to be VICTORIOUS over this weight and all that it had stopped me from! I didn’t want to be an emotional eater anymore because all that meant was I didn’t have a safe place for my problems, my stresses and my life. I wanted to commit to HEALTH from that point forward and I didn’t want my victory to stop at losing the 50lbs that I had gained. Enough was Enough in my book!
So, what did that mean? Where was I going to start?
I did a bunch of research and found Shaun’s Max 30 last year before it was officially released, through all of his modified Facebook videos. I watched every single one of them and by the end of the last video I knew that I could commit to do the modified version. I saved and really thought about my nutrition commitment moving forward and after the program arrived I set goal after goal after goal.
That, in my opinion, is one of the keep secrets to continually pushing play. I didn’t stop at monthly weight goals. I gave myself clothes/size goals, body fat, body mass and even performance goals, so that every time I succeeded in one area, I had a new star to reach. Understand that in the beginning I had ridiculous ideas on what I wanted to reach at first (i.e. losing 30lbs in my first round) that I had to reassess in my second week and say “Okay Princess, that’s just stupid.” I had to see that what I was committing to was a LIFE OF HEALTH and not just a “bikini mindset”.
When I understood that, it propelled me into changing my entire mindset about myself, what I was capable of and what I truly wanted out of my life. I am in my second week of round 2 of Insanity Max 30 and after being 23lbs lighter (as of today) and with over 16.4 inches released from my life and body, I am SOOOOO glad that I asked myself that simple question.