The inspiration of others

This summer, as I have documented, has not been terribly kind to my physical health, yet, here I sit a few pounds down from May. Even though it has been a bit of a roller coaster (for lack of a more original metaphor)I am still slowly moving forward. Two nights ago Martina showed me this slideshow of a girl who had lost over 100 pounds in four years. Towards the end of the slideshow there was a quote and I am going to paraphrase it because I do not have it in front of me. It was about how your physical health is a marathon not a sprint. It is no the first time I have seen this sentiment expressed, but at the end of a slideshow that showed a woman over the span of four years, it really hit me, that no matter how slowly I am losing weight, I am still losing it! The only place I really see people my size losing weight is on the Biggest Loser and I know how ridiculous that speed of weight loss is and I know that those people are in a unique situation where losing weight becomes their entire existence. That is not the reality of my life. The reality is that I need to keep chugging away slowly. I lost a tremendous amount of weight in my first year and I knew the second year would be tougher, so the idea is to just keep moving forward at whatever pace I can. I understand I will have some seriously great weeks and some not so great weeks. The wonderful thing about figuring out the rest of my life, the mental and emotional health that I worked so hard on last year, is that now when I have those bad days, I do not beat myself up. I have learned to accept who I am and who I want to be.

I want take a moment to talk about a few people who have inspired me over the last few weeks. I am sure it would not be difficult to guess who they are, but I want to talk about them anyway. First up is my awesome girlfriend. A few days after July started Martina found a month long squat challenge and instead of just starting it a few days late, she decided to catch up by doing 2 days worth of squats every day until she caught up. Every single day she would do her squats. On Wednesday she finished the entire challenge! She did 5000 squats during the month AND she bought us a bunch of healthy food, has cooked more for herself and for me and is really getting after it in terms of her own health. It is such an awesome thing to see. it is totally motivating. Last night we went on a longish walk in our new area for the first time and I am hoping it is something we can keep up when I am actually home at night. having healthier food around is always great and it is wonderful that we are now sharing in this adventure and hopefully pushing each other along. She totally killed that squat challenge, and has been eating so well that it is impossible to feel inspired by her. The list of reasons why she rocks is pretty much endless, but now that she has her mind set on a new healthy way of living, I know she is going to rock even harder because she is so strong and gives me strength. It is going to make the tough days a lot easier knowing she is going to pump me up by leading by example.

The next person is my best friend, Erik. Most of the people who read this blog are probably friends with him and know about his amazing journey. I would link to his blog, but he has yet to set one up for unknown reasons. Erik is down over 60 pounds in the last, I want to say two years. He is eating healthy, working out all of the time and is generally happier than I have ever seen him. That is all well and good, but it is his commitment that inspires me. He has already lost enough weight to make his own life way easier. he walks so much more upright, and moves much more quickly now. His breathing has been helped tremendously, I am not even sure he realizes that. Fighting through his Muscular Dystrophy, Erik has craved out such a better life for himself, but he is not content to stop there. he has set these awesome goals and he is meeting every single one of them by never wavering on his commitment. Every time we see each other I am inspired to get moving even harder and to set tough goals for myself and continue to work until I get them. Right now he has challenged himself to walk 10 miles a week. I remember like five years ago when we went to Disneyland, walking all day in that park was really hard on both of us, but I bet if we were to do that again, he would just be flying through the park. I have decided I am going to join him on his quest. I am going to walk 10 miles a week for a few weeks and then I am going to bump it up to 15 miles a week.

People are kind of awesome. I have not always felt this way. In fact, for a good majority of my life I have felt pretty much the opposite. yet, when I look around my life, I see awesomeness everywhere. I have a friend who knew exactly what she wanted to do at 12 years old, never wavered and this week she took the BAR exam. She is the single most driven awesome person I know and it is inspiring. My long lost best friend Jessica has been working her ass off in New York and on Cruise ships and everywhere else she can to work as a professional actress and she has these amazing stories, and pictures and vlogs from the last few years and all I can think about is how hard I have seen her work in her life and how amazing it is to see it paying off for her. Every where I look I am inspired by the people around me. it is time to start paying some of that back to the world. I have been in some pretty negative space a lot this summer, but I have been coming out of it over the last few weeks and I can feel myself starting to get back to where I was when 2013 started. I can see the beauty of life surrounding me and I owe a lot of it to my friends and my family and everyone who is doing something they love.

Keep rocking good readers. You can never really know who is watching you and rooting for you and who you may inspire or what may inspire someone. I never expected myself to be this person, but there is beauty and inspiration everywhere! We just have to be open to seeing it. Seriously, did I just say that? Hell with it, I am going to roll with this new positive cheery persona. Be awesome my friends, because there is a good chance you inspire me!