Through the past few months since my mental health episode, I have been continuing to be critical of my efforts to eat healthier. I have since acknowledged that all facets of wellness are important, yet I was doubtful because of being back on my total medication regimen. However, at a wellness visit with my doctor yesterday, I learned that I indeed have been making progress over the current year.

Although I had taken drastic measures over the summer, it was not the wisest and the weight did get lower than what it is now, and it did creep up for some time after getting back on my medication regimen. But I had to make the decision for myself that I had to be the one responsible for working to counteract the appetite and weight gain with more positive activities like going to the gym and walking.

Over the last few weeks, I have been recording my personal weight and sharing it with my personal Facebook friends as a way of being accountable with those both inside and outside of my weight loss support group. It has in some ways been motivational yet made me hesitant when I struggle. However, I remind myself that I have Facebook friends that honestly care about me and will support me despite my struggles.

One of the biggest helps is being accountable for all the food that I consume and setting my food plan levels on my online food journal to line up with my activity in my FitBit. That way, I know how much I can eat depending on how active I am for a certain day. Doing so makes me think twice about consuming certain foods, especially on those days when my calorie limit is lower than being active. Eliminating caloric beverages has also helped immensely in this effort and has been able to help me retain necessary nutrients.

I will not lie, being consistently hungry like I am is not easy to bear at times. It takes being continuously engaged in something most of the time. It takes planning my day so that I know that I have something to keep me busy and my mind off rooting through food in the kitchen. While having items portioned out does help to some degree, not being able to take your mind off it does not help in fighting the food fight and wanting to stay out of the kitchen.

But then I face the reality of the situation and I know that I must work at losing weight not to look good, rather for health reasons because being the size that I am is not healthy, although I do not have any major health concerns. I know that carrying all this extra weight is taking an extra toll on me and that nothing is ever going to be better unless I choose to make a change for the better. I do not want to go on a weight loss drug because I know that I have the tools under my belt to make the change on my own.

It can be easy to make excuses as to why I cannot make healthier choices. There are many easier ways to avoid doing what is necessary to be done, but I know while they only make me feel good in the interim, they only delay the problem at hand further down the road. Not addressing the issues head on as I know I need to only makes doing what I need to do harder in the end.

Working towards a healthy lifestyle is not an easy and quick fix. It is constantly in my mind, sometimes every waking hour. But I know that I have to make healthy choices towards living the best life that I can so that I can be on this earth longer and for the people that care for me in my life.