What are the causes of your health?

I will preface this question with a thought... a lot of times there are psychological issues with weight gain. I, for instance had to face a lot of issues in my own life before I was able to tackle my physical health. The first thing I had to tackle was eating food for comfort. I always had friends and used to think that expression was silly... why would people eat to get comfort. I didn't realize it at the time, but it is so clear now... I often ate when I was bored, angry or sad. During times of high stress I would gain around 20 lbs. Once I realized this I was able to change those habits into positive ones and be productive in times of stress by substituting eating for exercising.

I also had to tackle laziness, self-doubt, self-esteem issues. I think all of these issues came from a common thread of depression. I have never felt really sad to the point of dark thoughts or anything like that, but there were times in my life where I felt like I was wasting my life... I had to make drastic changes in my life to feel like I was making a difference... a mark... a life. I read the book, "Good to Great" a book on business; something about this book struck a cord in me about life. I realized the biggest reason why people don't have great lives is because they have okay ones. I decided not to settle for an okay life and have been making changes in my life ever since.

Once I started to understand the obstacles... that there were obstacles... I started to learn how to tackle them. I'm not saying it was easy; to admit you are lazy and try to do something about it is extremely hard, but it can be done! I'm also not saying I have totally conquered it either... sometimes it is a constant struggle... the good Ken is strating to beat out the bad Ken on a regular basis now. Finally I am not saying I did it alone, the best thing I did is to start to build a great network to help me, give me strength and help guide me down the healthy path. All I am saying is that there are obstacles that got you to where you are and where you were and facing them... confronting them, is the best way to defeat them.

If you want to take some time and write down what your obstacles are or were and how you have helped manage them... or if you haven't yet and are looking for suggestions. It is hard to write them down, admit you have a problem. It is personal and private, but if you make them public and acknowledge them you won't have to live with the secret that you are struggling. I had a lot of shame associated with the guilt of being overweight and it drug me down, I knew that the person I was looking at wasn't the real me and I was trapped in my mind, just making my struggles public helped free me from some of that.

I have been overweight before. 183 lbs vs. now at 133. The reason was because I just started eating more than I needed because it sure tasted good.

I knew I needed to do something about the excess weight, but I wasn't worried, because I knew one day I would wake up and tell myself, ok, today is the day I will begin this weight loss plan I had, which was.... everyday, cut back on the amount of food I ate, hike up this mile high mountain trail and back down, and, walk around this (about 1 mile) lake trail 3 times, so total, I guess that was about 5 miles everyday. It worked. I lost the weight.

But... we moved into a new house, and we couldn't sell our other house, and I suppose there was some stress there I was feeling, and I gained all the weight back!!! Yep, I got back up to about 180 pounds. (I enjoy eating!!) I stayed that way for a couple of years, and then, one day I woke up and told myself, today is the day.....

I lost the weight again, and I am now at the weight I want to be. It's a struggle, I am not saying it's easy. But this time, I keep in my mind the hard work it took me to lose the weight, which helps a lot to motivate me to not gain the weight back.

It is so true that it is hard work to lose the weight... but isn't it so easy to maintain the weight your at and keep it off. Now if I see myself gain a couple pounds, I can nip it in the bud and make sure I won't ever have to work as hard as I had to to get the weight off. Would you agree that it is much easier to keep it off than lose it?!?

I agree that it is much easier to keep the weight off than to lose it. I've never been extremely overweight, but right now I feel like I have about 5 pounds that I can lose, and even though it is only 5 pounds, it just doesn't seem to want to come off!

At least you recognize the 5 lbs. most people don't recognize it until it's like 15 and is a lot harder to get off!