You know those days you wake up, stand on the scale, look at the number, and just groan? Not because you see a bad number beaming back at you, but because you know how long it took you to get where you are, and yet you're only a portion of the way there... Those days you sit around, day dreaming about the future, wishing it were today. Wishing you met all your goals.

Lately, I've been day dreaming and stressing a lot about the future. About leaving community college, and heading to the university. I'm terrified of failing, but I'm also excited to move on. I hope to reach my goal weight mid 2011, which is around the time I'd start going to the university. I'm nervous, but I also want to fast forward the clock. As great as today is, I want it to be tomorrow!

Truth is, I know I should be appreciating today. But I want to acquire my goals so bad. I want to go out and buy myself a whole new fashionable wardrobe for my smaller body. I want to SEE what the heck I'll look like another 10, 20, and 30lbs from where I'm at now. I want my hair to hurry up and grow longer. I want to already know how to dance and jive and instantaneously become charismatic, outgoing, and confident. I want to get my puppy and start raising it. I want to buy my own house so I can get my puppy. I want to finish school and get my degree so I can have a career and have my own money to spend for once.

Surely I'm not the only one who has these feelings every now and then

No you're not the only one. I can only say that just stick with it and it will be here before you know it. Try to put so much pressure on yourself. You're doing a great job and if you stick to it you will get there. I know it feels like a long ways to go, but in the grand scheme of things its just not. My biggest suggestion would be to make a plan for the university now. Things will be q lot different and there will be a lot of new things to deal with, I speak from experience on this one. Once I transferred to a university the lbs just started packing on. But I did not have the tools or knowledge you have now, so use them. Good luck!

I am so excited for your journey. It has already begun and you will get there eventually, but the journey itself is important. It won't mean anything if you don't work to get there! (sorry if this sounds like a platitude). I longed to get to where I am, and somedays I am looking for new challenges because its old hat.
Its just part of the human spirit to improve.

Yep, we're in very similar positions. These last pounds getting me to "normal" are just about impossible, aren't they? I hear you on the wardrobe front! I am ready! My friend said go ahead and do it now, but I am not made of money. I can't afford to do that. So I am living in very few clothes.

But, it will come and when it does I know we'll look back and realize it didn't take that long. And I'm trying to just enjoy where I am right now. I'd enjoy a lot more if I had a few nice clothes!

I SOOOOO can relate!

It is often hard to live in the present, but I try. I am a huge daydreamer though and with lots of things in my life, I too wish they were already here. I too wish I already was at my goal weight, I wish I already met my future husband, wish I was already in my career making money so I'd have the freedom and financial means to travel and do what I want. Sooo many other things I think of constantly.

Atleast with weightloss and certain things, you can actually see yourself getting there daily and are somewhat in control of how it happens, while other things you just have to wait until it decides to arrive. Nothing is wrong with daydreaming though, it gives motivation! So I keep dreaming and working towards it and try to be appreciative of what I have now, knowing I will definitely achieve the other stuff one day.

I do remember after celebrating being half way through my weightloss - 2 halfways, an overall halfway and the interim halfway - that the next day I was sunk in gloom, because there were still so very many lbs still to go.

I agree with Madeleine about the importance of the journey. Just quite recently, (4lbs to interim goal, 28lbs to overall goal [though probably more to follow]), I've begun to enjoy the journey. Almost every day I notice an improvement in the mirror. Yesterday I caught sight of myself and literally said out loud, "Dmn, I look good!" and I thought then how much I'm looking forward to what else is to follow; not in the sense of wanting the end to be here but looking forward to what the journey will throw up.

I do know that some people my height, when they get to my weight on the way up, freak out: OMG, I'm a House! I know I'm not thin or slim but compared to where I was, I'm very happy.

I think maybe 'happy' is one key ~ as in enjoying the journey ~ together with 'plodding' - the only answer for all of us is just to keep plodding, plugging away at our dreams.

I'm with you right down to the puppy... except I'm older than you by 10 years or so. I really can't wait to get to my goal/s and start enjoying my hard work. I can't wait to shed the next 20/30/40/50lbs... I have faith that if I keep this up, I'll get there someday, somehow...

Good luck to us!

I am plodding along very slowly on my weightloss journey.

Each week I go to the local thrift shop and buy 5 pieces of clothing...for $5..That is only $1 each!
Half of what I buy is new with the tags still attached. The others look new.

So I am slowly accumulating very nice new wardrobes in the 4 smaller sizes I have to go through to get to my goal.
And I am slowly giving away the baggy clothes.

I am losing almost 1 pound a week. I'll be on a calorie counting diet for at least the next year or two, and I'll have a lot of very nice clothes to shrink into along the way.

I wish frequently that I'll find a genie lamp and make a wish to be slim again and forever.

I think everyone can relate to this. Patience is not something that I'm very skilled at. The only thing you can do is celebrate each little mini-goal along the way and try not to think about what else needs to be done, but how far you've already come.

You've lost almost 30 pounds already and you are half way to your goal! That is awesome!

I know people say live in the present and do what you want to do NOW, and usually I'd say that's good advice. But sometimes I do wish the present was the future that I'm looking forward to at the moment, you know?

I've never been thin. I have serious subconscious doubts that I can ever be thin - I think I secretly believe my fat is fused with my body and cannot come off. Only it has been coming off. Lol! But I'm convinced these last 30 lbs won't go away. Only they are going away. It's nice, but confusing for me.

I think the journey is important, too. For me, I am trying to enjoy getting there so that I'll keep going and so that when I do finally arrive at the place I want to be, I'll think it was all worth it.

So, I guess live in the present, but definitely don't stop dreaming about the future.

I don't have days like that where I wish I were at my goal size of 12. I do have days, though, where I wish my body was healthier again-- the movement, the running/jumping that I can't do, the out-of-shape-ness that I am, stuff like that. That is the real stuff I want more than anything, and what I truly can't wait for. I used to have all of that and I don't anymore.