There are so many people today that are overweight and want to get into shape. We all need motivation to reach our goals, including losing weight. My motivation and inspiration was crossing the finish line of a marathon.

When I was 25, over ten years ago, I was walking four miles a day for four days a week. With this walking and a half-sensible diet, and I was able to be at the weight that I wanted to be, 175 pounds. However, in studying for the LSAT to get into law school, I got out of that routine. It only got worse in law school. Have you heard of the freshman fifteen? Well there was the first-year fifteen, the second year fifteen and the third year fifteen. When I got back home, I had become a fat blob. I wanted to lose the weight, but I could not motivate myself to do what was necessary to lose it. I got to the point where I had resigned myself to the fact that I was going to be fat for the rest of my life since I could not figure out the motivation or inspiration to lose all this weight.

Eventually, someone reaches “rock bottom” when they have had enough, whether it is an addiction or being fat in my case. You have had enough and you are ready to change your ways for the better. This was my motivation and came on a day was last July when I had to weigh in for a physical for life insurance. I checked in at 231, 56 over my desired weight of 175. I finally said that is enough. I was motivated, but would I do to lose the weight? How would I go about it?

Around that time, I came across two websites and that day changed everything for me and gave my inspiration to match my motivation. The first site was walking.about.com. Wendy Burgamer posts articles there for people who walk for fitness. In this, she includes a training program on how to prepare to walk a marathon. The other site was Kiawah Island’s resort, near to where I live, which talked about their marathon and half-marathon in December. The timing was good. I would walk the half-marathon, 13.1 miles. The “full” was unrealistic and unnecessary at the time. I could still say I “did” a (half)marathon and achieve the main goal of losing weight.