Hi! How are you? Me, I’m great. It’s been pretty hot the last few days here. I wasn’t expecting that. Makes for some hot 😓 running.

It’s no secret to anyone who has been around Vanessa Goes from FtoF for a while that I’ve been having a mental struggle around my weight loss for the last year. There are many factors around this including when I started my new job last year and at the same time performing in two musicals, then the fires, then the marathon, then the switch to the new WW program. My mind has been distracted, and my body has paid for it to the tune of some extra pounds.

I know deep down though that I’m not ever giving up. Things are always going to have their challenges. I know that this is the time for me to persist and work hard until I align my head. As long as I keep trying, I’m better than if I quit.

Things have finally made a turn for the better. I’ve realigned my head and my focus and the pressure.

I only could get to this point if I let myself struggle for the last year. Forcing myself to come to terms with the things that sabotage me have been painful, but in the long term will pay off.

The few days before the Eugene Marathon I hadn’t weighed myself. I was traveling with no home scale. I tracked what I ate but indulged a little. I felt free from the chains of the scale because for once my focus was on something else. That race was great, but the photos after were greater. I saw a photo of myself from the Eugene Marathon finish line this week (previously shared on my Facebook and Instagram) and it was a turning point for me. It was a photo where I finally saw myself experiencing raw emotion of success. Often when I see photos of myself now, I see my double chin or my chubby belly, but this photo I saw nothing but a moment in time where I felt proud of my accomplishment.

Upon seeing that photo it reminded me that though I have had failed attempts at losing weight, I haven’t failed. I’ve PUSH-ed through. Persisted until something happened. And something did happen. I felt strong and I felt proud and I for just a few minutes, stopped thinking about the scale.

In the weeks after that race I’ve found a spark that I’ve been waiting for. It was a moment of so much success after what felt like so much failure on my weight.

I finally feel ready to make strides on my weight loss journey. Not because of anything other than the fact that I had a moment where I felt proud of my body again, and realized I have struggled for a while but those moments were all opportunities to learn.

My point in all this is that when things get tough, embrace the suck. Take the opportunity to learn from all the things that don’t work for you in order to find what eventually will.

As for me, I’ve found a lot of things that didn’t work and have finally found a routine that does. That’s because I persisted until something happened!

Cheers to persisting!

-Vanessa