Quote of the Week:

There is nothing else but your effort. If you quit, you lose.

From a post on staying motivated at fatmanwalking.com, the blog by the very large guy getting gradually smaller as he walks from Los Angeles to New York City. The editor in me can’t help but admire how he wraps up the necessities of fitness and weight loss into a single blog entry. A couple samples:

Once you realize that there is no quick fix, no short cut and no motivation to be had. Then you will find that you are the machine that operates your life, as well as you can, and that is good enough, you will see that your body craves being healthy, your mind craves being satisfied.

Precisely. Nobody can carry the weight for you and nothing can take it off except you making up your mind to follow the ironclad law of burning more calories than you consume. On snacking:

If I happen to eat something bad then I try and remember to make up for it somewhere else. … I did not get fat with one meal and I am not going to get thin with one. This is a gradual process of developing self-control over food and self indulgence.

On forgiving your own sins:

This effort will fail miserably if you start to beat yourself up over transgressions. You will have good days and bad days. Individually they do not matter. Success is a lifetime thing not a daily. If you are not accepting your weakness then you are not accepting that you are human and that is why you are struggling in the first place.

The post has tips on portion control and other fun stuff (scroll down to “03 02 06” to read the whole thing.) Note that walking across the country is purely optional.