I read something today that made me think…

So many times I’ve read about that defining moment. That day that someone looked in the mirror and said. “I don’t want to be that person any more”. Today I saw another one at Moe’s Site and that’s what started me thinking.

You see, I’ve never had that “ah ha” moment. Not really. I was a skinny little thing (maybe 10 or ll) and saw a picture of myself in a bikini. I was bent at the waist and the skin there had ‘rolled’. Imagine the skin of a Sharpe puppy. My first thought. “I’m fat!” It wasn’t until High School that I started to diet though. I was 5’5” and 120 (ish) pounds. Today when I look back I have no idea why I felt so fat. Maybe it was the fact that I wore a size bigger pants then my mom (who is 5’1”) or that I constantly wore big baggy shirts because I was embarrassed of my DD sized boobs. Whatever the reason I stared dieting. You know, the way you were supposed to back then, eating bullion, saltines and salads and making sure to keep your calories between 700 and 900 calories. I never succeeded on any of those diets of course and by the time I graduated I had the beginning of a ‘real’ weight problem as I was now 165lbs. Eight months later I had my first child and I have never been lower then 175 since then. And never at 175 for more then a week. My highest weight (other then pregnancy) was between 230 and 250… Yeah, I fight my weight – I fight to eat right – I fight to exercise. But can I point out a time and say “There, that’s when I decided to change my life.” No.

That being said It makes me wonder. Would this whole thing be any easier if I had had an ‘ah ha’ moment? Would it be easier to pass on the cookies if I had this crystal clear vision of where I didn’t want to be? Goal setters say it doesn’t work that way. That you can’t run away from a vision only toward one because by focusing on what you Don’t want you only force yourself to move in that direction. But still I wonder. People who can point to ‘that moment’ seem to be the successful ones. Whereas me? Well my ‘baby’ is 18 years old. Isn’t that too long to be ‘trying’ to do something?