Incentive - the scary, the immediately gratuitous, and the fun kinds.

Here is a small post about incentive to live by your healthy values (note to self: do a post at some point about what mine are).
For me I find there are 3 kinds:
I'll start with the scary kind. Well, I realised the other day that I'm pretty much a lifestyle disease or type 2 diabetes waiting to happen. Both my BMI and waist measurements are above the safe threshold, I have a family history of premature heart disease - my grandpa died of a heart attack in his 40s - and I have a genetic tendency to carry my weight around my stomach. Plus I eat a lot of sugar (in foods). So that kind of freaks me out, and I'm not getting any younger so those things need to be important to me - that is, my wanting to lose weight isn't just about looks or how I feel it's also about health; serious health issues.

Now onto the immediately gratuitous. By this I mean the changes you notice straight away from being active and listening to your body. For me, these are that I don't feel bloated, I feel lighter and more energetic, and I don't get the sluggish feeling after eating certain foods such as biscuits. It's pretty much an immediate feeling in my stomach and just inside me that things are more calm and relaxed, more lightweight. That's a very nice feeling. This weekend I've pretty much been eating out a lot and went to a dinner party last night, basically not eating with awareness. It is really amazing the difference I can feel inside from doing that (not a good difference).

I'll end with the nicest type of incentive - the fun stuff! This is the kind of stuff I fantasise about, like being able to wear all my old favourite dresses again, actually enjoying going shopping and being able to be more creative with what I wear, wearing a bikini, feeling more confident... And also with increased fitness I hope that I won't get puffed out or sweaty as easily from everyday things like walking from the station to the office, cleaning my room or getting ready to go out in summer. That just really annoys me and brings me down. It's just embarrassing when I get to the office in the morning and I'm all sweaty and red, and everyone else is perfectly fine. Especially when people comment on it! ><