Motivation No. 1: My Husband (To-Be)

(Missed my first post back? It's all about finding my motivation again. Read it here.)

Because saying it a thousand times already clearly isn't enough, I'm getting married next November. To this man:

Dustin is my motivation to be a healthy person. I don't want to put him through sleep apnea, hormonal conditions, breast cancer, diabetes, strokes, heart attacks, and all the other health risks that are associated with obesity. (And Dustin? I don't want you to put me through those, either.)

Dustin and I have a vision for our life together. We're both teachers (or will be; he graduates this December!), and we want to be good teachers, passionate teachers, teachers who have energy to give their students and still have some left over for each other at the end of the day. We want to travel, travel like crazy. It's heard to walk all over London and hike Machu Pichu even if we're just overweight and out of shape, but harder still if we have heart conditions or cancer or godknowswhatelse.

We want a big kitchen and a pool and a house with lots of windows. I guess we could have those things hooked up to oxygen machines and getting around with a hover-round, but why would we want to? We'd enjoy our home together much more if we have good whole foods to cook, the bodies to enjoy a summer (skinny) dip, and the peace of mind to still see hope beyond our windows.

We don't want to have children, but we want to be great aunts and uncles, who are able to spoil our brothers' kids and return them home dirty and with new toys. We want to be fit enough to take them to amusement parks and small enough to fit in the roller coaster seats.

Dustin and I want to live long enough to be perfectly senile together. We want to live long enough to drive each other absolutely crazy, but before we're able to do that, we've got to lose our weight, improve our eating and exercise habits, and combat our combined family histories of heart disease and diabetes.

When I'm making bad choices, Dustin is the person that's in my mind, shaking his finger and reminding me to do a little bit better. He's the person that makes 50 years from now a reality (in 50 years, I'll be 74, and if I don't have purple hair and a badass tattoo I'm going to be so pissed at myself). He's the reason I want to make changes now.