For those of you who follow my shared post regularly, or are a subscriber to my post, you are aware that I am currently writing a series on obesity and movement.  This is my second post in that series.  My goal is to help those who suffer from obesity and immobility to be able to move more, become more active and ultimately participate in and exercise program. 

I want to pick up where I left off in my last post titled "Winning The Mental Battle - Obesity and Exercise" where I had everyone with the challenge of considering a few small daily tasks/activities they would like to be able to complete. I then asked everyone to think creatively about several ways they could see themselves completing these items.

For many years of my life I battled against and lost my fight against disabling lower back pain.  It was not until I was able to change my mindset about what I was willing to accept from myself that my life began to change.   Not many people know this but at 30 years old I was practically bedridden for 10 days due to crippling low back pain.  It was during these 10 days that I found myself lying on my back, on my kitchen floor, starving with no food in my refrigerator.  It was at that point that a thought crept into my head that I will distinctively remember as a turning point in my life. My thought was:

"Many people who are not nearly as exceptional as I am have recovered from worse spinal conditions than I have.  I'm not interested in dealing with this pain, it is time to overcome it and get back to life as I know it".

It was in this moment that everything changed.  My mind and my approach had changed.  You see for several years prior to that point I had been preparing myself for life with back pain.  I could not imagine a time that I would be without pain.  It was in that moment I became someone who was no longer willing to live with any back pain.  I was going to find a healthy way to change my spinal condition.  I can tell you right now unequivocally that I know longer have back pain!  It all started with me hitting such a low point, deciding that I had had enough, and that I was no longer willing to live this way.

The challenges of obesity can also be overcome, but you first have to understand that you are exceptional, and that you do not have to settle for your current condition.  You have to look at yourself in the mirror and say to your yourself,

"This is it, I have had enough of living life this way"! 

You have to envision yourself engaging in health activities that lead to life changing results.  You have to believe in your own resolve.  You can't settle.

You have to plan and re-plan.  You have to understand that not all of your plans will work out the way you want them to.  So that when you are in a moment where you feel you have failed you recognize that it was only momentary and it was part of the process of you working toward overcoming obesity.