Monday, November 8, 2010

Accountability

Webster’s defines accountability as: the quality or state of being accountable; especially : an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions .

When you “diet,” do you tell everyone that you are on a diet? Does it bother you when people constantly ask how you are doing and if you are losing weight, especially when you are not? And does it bother you when people say things like, “Well, you shouldn’t have that on your diet, right?!” or “shouldn’t you go to the gym more than twice a month?”

Or do you diet silently, not telling anyone, in hopes that if you fail, no one will give you any grief about it. So that no one bothers you about the fact that you’ve been paying for a gym membership for over 4 months without actually having gone inside?

I used to be a quiet dieter, keeping it to myself so no one will be let in on my latest failed venture. I was never accountable to anyone. What did my cat care if I lost 10 pounds or gained 15?

Now. Now I am accountable to my family. I am putting them first this time, because I need to get into a zone on the obesity scale that isn’t screaming red. For them. Because I want to be here on this earth, able to participate, now and in the future.

I am accountable to myself. I didn’t realize how little I thought of myself, before. I didn’t really care if I succeeded. What difference did it make? Once you weigh this much, what’s 20 pounds either way, right? Now, I jumped into this diet, this lifestyle change, with both feet and I cannot look back.

I am accountable to everyone I let in on the secret. I told people that I am going to lose a lot of weight. Whether it takes me 9 months or 2 years, I will lose a significant amount of weight.

I am accountable to everyone who reads this blog. So accountable in fact, that I put a weight ticker on the right hand column of my blog! I am aiming to update the weight loss ticker once a week for sure, or twice a week if I am super successful!

I am accountable to about 5 million people, by my last count. I put my story on my blog, on the website of a company where I work, and on the air-waves at a radio station!! Who does that?! I told millions of listeners that I was losing weight and they can too.

So now I am accountable to everyone else’s weight loss plan, too! OK, not really. But I am accountable to those who did what I did, at the place I used – the oBand Surgery Center. And I want to be! I want to be there to support anyone following my lead. Because we’re in this together.

I’ve already been responsible for gaining an extra 200 pounds. I’d like to be responsible for losing it too. And losing YOUR extra 60 pounds. And HIS extra 120 pounds. And HER 80 pounds.

How can I support YOUR weight loss plans? I’m finally ready.


 
Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/accountability


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