Funny you brought this up. Last night, laying in bed, I was thinking EXACTLY the same thing. Here we are a week away from leaving and my diet and exercise has complete gone out the window.

It may sound odd, but I think people like me who have 30 or 40 pounds to loose have a tougher time than people with more. We can loose the weight relatively quickly but are more likely to put it back on because we haven't learned to adjust our life style. Don, when you made the commitment to REALLY do it, you knew that you had to be in it for the long haul. I don't know about anybody else, but it's easier for me to focus and succeed at a goal that takes a long time as opposed to something that only takes 2 or 3 months.

Not to say you've had it easy Don, I know several people who have gone through what your are. Some have succeeded but most have failed. I truly admire you and I draw inspiration from you. I keep looking at you and trying to extract some key that I can use to help me see the long term goals that have motivated you.

So I need to stop thinking about my goal being to loose XX number of pounds, but something else. Something further down the road. Therein lies my problem. What is that something else. I'm an engineer, so I have to have tangible goals that can be monitored and measured. "Getting in shape" does not fall under these guidelines.

We're all slow learners when it comes to changing the mind and body. Unfortunately we all need to reinvent the wheel for ourselves. We have to find our own motivation. Something deep enough to truly want to change. We have to find something that deeply motivates us. I think that's why there are so many success stories from people who've had heart attacks or other life threating conditions. That's motivation! You'd think people like that would be enough motivation for us, but for some reason, it's not. It's easy to say "I don't want to be in that position", but it's hard to follow through.

Enough rambling for me. Thanks for listening.

Dave