Hi Matt.
I'll be honest ... and this is not meant in a hurtful way or to be mean, but just to be honest based on what you wrote and because you asked for advice.
It seems to me that you have a bit of a personal accountability problem.
You wrote that your love left you because you drink too much. You said you have no
motivation to eat right or be healthy. You mentioned that you gained weight and you didn't say because YOU didn't eat right, but because "your
body decided" to get
fat.
All of those things say to me that you are blaming outside influences for what is happening to you ... and using outside influences as a reason to stop being responsible for your own health and weight. Now, you're young
and I believe that kind of thinking is normal when you're young, but at some point you have to grow up and take responsibility for yourself.
One of the things that has become my mantra over the last several years is this:
There are things that responsible adults do as part of their lives, even though they might not want to. We get up in the morning and go to work - even though we might not want to - because we have to in order to earn a living and pay the bills. We pay our taxes every year - even though it sucks to shell out all that money - because it's what a responsible adult does if he or she doesn't want to get audited and fined by the IRS. We Pay bills, brush our teeth, change the oil in our cars, do the laundry, clean the toilet ... whatever things we don't really enjoy but do anyway ... because we are responsible adults and that's what responsible adults do.
I look at being healthy and exercising as an extension of that. You know, some days I don't WANT to work out. I don't WANT to eat a nutritious dinner. Maybe I've had a crappy day at work or I lost my job or I broke up with my guy or I wrecked my car (all of which have happened to me in the last year). And I just want to come home and crack open a bottle of vodka and wallow in self pity. I want to eat an entire bag of sour cream and onion potato chips and not answer the phone and not go to work and just feel sorry for myself.
But I don't. Not because I have incredible will power. Not because I'm anyone special. But because I'm a responsible adult and as much as it f'ing SUCKS ... I gotta pay the bills. I gotta get up and go to work w/out being hungover. I gotta not make excuses for why I won't be responsible for my own health and well being.
That doesn't mean that what you're going through isn't painful and difficult. I know how hard it is ... and my heart goes out to you. But this is where the Nike ad got it right: Just Do It.
You don't have to like it. You don't have to enjoy it. You don't even have to want to. Just do it. And at some point, you'll realize that you feel better for having done it than you will for having sat on the sofa like a lump and eaten Oreos until they came out your ears.
And I promise you that getting up and DOING something feels so much better than sitting around wallowing in self-pity. I know ... I've done both.
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