Fake it 'til you make it

The team I'm on for my weight-loss challenge says this. It's for days (weeks) you lose motivation and Little Debbie snack cakes make you believe that the world will be a better place if you eat them. It's when your treadmill starts talking to you, telling you how hard on it you've been and how mean you are to keep walking/running on it every day. It's for when you can't think about doing another pushup or another plank without throwing up in your mouth a little.

It's for when you're starting this for the first (seventh) time and you're scared. Scared you'll fail, scared you won't be able to do it, and at the same time scared you'll succeed and then what will you do if you're not the fat person? Who will you be?

This is when you fake it. This is when you do an extra set of push-ups just to say you can, put more miles on your treadmill, throw the snack cakes in the trash and you start putting more vegetables on your plate and fewer chips. You don't have to be happy about it, you don't have to like it, but you still do it. This is when you take that first step onto the gazelle or elliptical or out the door. You do it.

It is not a choice. You do not have a choice to not work out, to not become healthier. You fake this healthier lifestyle until it's a part of you and you don't know what you would do without it. You fake it until that snack cake tastes like wax and not like clouds and sunshine. You fake it until you find yourself reaching for a strawberry over a ho-ho because it makes you feel so much better than the processed sugar ever will. You fake it because the exercise makes you a happier and well-balanced person and not going on the run causes you more sadness than stepping out the door that first time, scared out of your mind, ever did.

You fake it because you know the person who you see in the mirror is not who you're meant to be. You are not made up of fat and fat alone, you're brilliant and wonderful and you want to world to see on the outside what you've always seen on the inside. That you believe in yourself, that you love yourself and that you respect yourself. If you're 300 lbs. or 125 lbs., you are that person. You are such an amazing person and you deserve this. You deserve the life you want, the happiness you reach for and the love that surrounds you.

Fake  it. Fake it 'til you make it. Until it makes you so happy that you could burst. Until health oozes from you and onto the people around you and suddenly they change their lives because they can't help themselves. Oh yes. Fake it.