In each week’s Breakthrough newsletter, I sign off with the phrase, “health is a journey not a goal.” I live by that phrase, and am so happy to have been able to instill the belief in many of you.

I believe that every day we take steps and make choices toward or away from being healthy. But I look at weight-loss a little differently, and it’s taken me some time to really come to terms with that.

For me, weight loss was a goal, and I know that it is for many of you. I want you to feel the same way that I do about reaching your weight loss goal and finally being at peace with your health, your body image, and your weight.

If you’ve struggled with your weight, you no doubt know the myriad of difficult and often unsuccessful “quick-fixes” in our diet culture. I’ve often struggled with my career because I didn’t want to be perceived as supporting the diet industry. For a long time, I held back when others asked what I did for a living. I understood the shift in language from “diet,” to “healthy,” and the idea that if you make simple mindset shifts towards overall health, you will inevitably come out a stronger, healthier, and happier person. I’m glad our culture has begun to adopt health rather than constantly worrying about a number on a scale, because in the long run, you have to embrace a healthy lifestyle to keep the weight off.

But despite how I feel about healthy being a journey, the hard reality is that for me and for many, weight loss is not a journey; it is a goal. If you’re anything like me, a journey is long and tiresome and all but impossible to handle. I’ve often shared that when I was trying to lose weight, anything that would take two years to lose 50 lbs was not for me and I didn’t embark on that journey. Instead, I stayed fat because I couldn’t see myself being successful at something that would take years to complete. The longest journey I’ll ever take was the nine months of pregnancy to have a baby, and that was enough.

When I first thought about Dr. Simeons’s program, I wasn’t interested in doing yet ANOTHER diet and felt guilty about even considering it. That begs the question: why did I feel that way? I wanted to do something for myself. My weight was affecting everything – my confidence in my job, in myself, and even my sex life.  I didn’t want to go to the gym because I was fat and embarrassed and it hurt too much physically. I wasn’t eating healthy foods, nor did I want to because my insatiable appetite for carbs and sugar was out of control. I was an addict, and I needed to take control in the best way for me, without the guilt. I don’t apologize for feeling that way any longer.  If it wasn’t for Dr. Simeons’s program, I would be obese and heading toward diabetes.

There is a beginning and an end to reaching the weight that’s best for you. There can also be pit stops if you have a lot of weight to lose. But I think we should all focus on the goal, and about doing something good for ourselves. It’s time to move on with the rest of our lives.

I’m ecstatic I made this choice. I needed a clean slate. I needed to see results from the choices I made, and I needed to look in the mirror and like the person looking back at me, guilt-free.