Stellar Path

This is my last blog post before my post-sickness post-Train 2 Lose weigh-in tomorrow. There will be no fanfare or fireworks; I’m quite positive I’ve gained. It’s just a matter of how big a gain, at this point. But you know what? It doesn’t matter. This isn’t a quick fix or a matter of toughing it out to goal weight. This is a lifelong battle and journey, and this is just a bump in the road. I’ll have many more along the way.

I know that I won’t make it the entire month of March with a daily post every day, but I’m going to keep riding this train for as long as I can.

Today, I have decided I’m going to write about something that I do that does, at least a little, seem to help. I collect motivational images.

Basically, my motivational images are anything that inspire me to continue working hard at my health.

Some are funny, like this one.

Some people are dead set against self-deprecating humor. I love it, and this cracks me up. And for me, it’s frequently true.

Some of my images don’t make sense to anyone but me, like this one.

Yes, that is the Power Rangers. That is a motivational image to me for a rather odd reason. Power Rangers came out when I was a teenager. I thought it was the stupidest show in the entire world. In the summer of 1995, when I was 17, I took my nephews to see the Power Rangers movie while I was babysitting them. I thought the movie was amazing. It had cool special effects, martial arts, and everybody was fit. At 17, I should point out that I was not fit, I did not know martial arts, and I had no special effects. Power Rangers represented, and I’ll be honest – it still does, a healthy lifestyle for me. I can’t explain it, but there it is.

This image is motivating for fairly obvious reasons.

I want to look like Ryan Reynolds. To make it clear, I do not want to do him; I want to look like him. Still, I can’t deny that I have a man crush on him. And the thing that’s a little amazing and I still sometimes have a bit of trouble getting my head around – with hard work, perseverance, and dedication, I could look like this. Albeit with a few stretch marks, but I’ll still take it.

This image motivates me, but it also makes me a tiny bit sad.

That’s me, about four years ago, at the thinnest I have ever been. I weighed around 270 or so in that photo. Some bad decisions led to me ballooning up to 350 recently. This picture is motivational to me because I know that I can get back down to that weight, and even lower. Granted, there is still a gut that has been cropped out of that photo, but I think I look pretty good there. I want to look that good (and better) again.

This is the last motivational picture I’ll share, and this is the one that kind of got me started in collecting motivational images.

I found this one night while stumbling around the internet. The sentiment in it really rang true for me. I hope to someday have a healthy marriage and healthy children and live in a healthy house with a healthy yard and a healthy white picket fence. The key word for me was someday. It was always “someday.” Well, how can I make that happen, if I don’t start now? Not in the morning, or on Monday, but right now?

I keep these images around to help me stay focused. I don’t deny – I frequently need the push.

I’ll probably post one of my motivational images every time that I post my weight on Fridays.

Do any of you collect motivational images? Which photos speak to you?

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