Your Someone

From a very young age, we've been encouraged to use the buddy system. To find someone to keep you accountable, make sure you stay safe, someone you can study with, to cross the street with, share your ups and downs, work on a group project, and most importantly, who can call you on your sh*t. Right? Right.

Photo Credit: BackPocketCoo

Before I found success in my new lifestyle starting last February, I had tried it all over the years. From Atkins, starving, bingeing, counting calories, removing carbs, going vegetarian (but still chowing down on processed foods), this, that, and the other. I failed. Miserably. Not only was I simply depriving my body of the nutrients it needed most by choosing unhealthy, unsustainable diets that were doomed to fail, but there's one other thing that was a constant...I did it alone.

But last February, when I decided to do an entire month of trying out my plant based, extremely nutrient dense, healthy, sustainable new way of life, I realized something, rather someone, was missing. A partner.

I knew that life was always full of friends & family who loved me unconditionally, and was supportive of whatever I did, but it was always hard to find someone in my shoes. To sweat, cry, and be miserable with. To rejoice in the success together, and encourage them just like I knew I needed to be. And more than anything, to call me out when I needed it most.  Which is why husband and I had decided to do our 30 Day Fatty Challenge. It was a way for us to not only compete as a way of motivation, but it was a support system. To feel the difficulty together. To push each other. Because, even though this was a "challenge" or "competition", neither wanted to see the other fail. Because failure would mean leaving the other behind. It would mean saying "you don't matter" and deciding to bask in the glory of success alone.

But because we love each other, we want to bask in that glory together. Because leaving the other behind just isn't what we do. That would mean saying "I'm okay with you being unhealthy, and I don't care if I live a longer healthier life than you. I win. You lose"  We want to live this long, healthy life together. When one fails, the other fails. We want to make sure the other knows "you matter, and if you break, I want to help you pick up the pieces."


So, I encourage you to think, who is part of your buddy system? Who is willing to watch you fail and still motivate you back to where you need to be, even when you're at your lowest? Who is willing to look you in the eyes when you want to go out for a dinner together at the pizza shop and say "No, that's not what we do. Let me make you a nice dinner of Veggie Stir Fry and a warm soup.  You'll thank me tomorrow even if you hate me now."? Who is that friend that is willing to slap your hand and say "Put. the cookie. DOWN. NOW."?

Find your support system. Whether it's a spouse, the best friend, the sister who will be brutally honest, the woman at church who has struggled just like you, the trainer at the gym, the women in your running group (yes, it doesn't have to just be a buddy system, find groups, find a club, find the people you need), your roommate.  Anyone you can trust.

In the end, we all need someone. Someone who we can b*tch to. Someone we can motivate and know that we'll get the same back. Someone who will call us our on our sh*t...

...because trust me, we all have a lot of it.

Find your someone, or your some group, and keep loving each other, praising each other, and being honest with one another. It'll the only way to true success. And if your struggling to find someone, know that the goal of S&T is to be another support system. So, please, talk to us! What are your struggles, how do you need to be motivated? We'd love to help.

To happiness, health, and our some-ones.
May you push them, encourage them, and bask in the glory of success...together.

-Lacey

To Mike, my someone, who has known my beauty, no matter what the scale reads in the morning, but for pushing me to be a healthier, happier me so we may live a long and beautiful life together. I truly would not be here, migraine-free & healthy, if it wasn't for your loving support.