What's Your Wanna?

Many diabetics, of whatever type, are struggling to make some sort of health-related personal change.  It might be weight loss, it might be optimizing our meals, it might be testing regularly enough, it might be something else.  All of it's hard.  If it was easy, we wouldn't have millions of fat Americans and Dr. Oz would have to hector us about something else.

In order to make any kind of change, we need tools -- knowledge, support structure, etc.  But, we also need motivation - the want-to or "wanna" that drives us and helps us over barriers and frustrations.. 

Some kinds of change can be accomplished in a short term of high motivation.  You might suddenly notice, for example, that your dress clothes are looking kind of bedraggled.  So, you think about what you need, you get the finances in order, and you go make the purchases.  And then, for the time being, you're done.

But health-related changes tend to be different.  The wanna, or perhaps the package of wannas, needs to be able to carry us through a long period of making the change and a much longer period of maintaining that change.  It needs to be strong enough to help us up from our inevitable stumbles and to reel us in when we wander off the path for days, weeks, or months.

Some folks, bless 'em, are able to make up their minds and just do it.  My dad lost probably forty pounds in the first few months after his diagnosis as a T2 and has more or less maintained it for more than twenty years.  I love and admire these people, even when they wonder aloud why everybody can't do it (although I don't love them so much just then). 

Some folks are able to motivate themselves through fear. Some are able to motivate themselves through a desire to maintain health.  Others may be focused on the benefits of feeling better or on being around for their loved ones. I'm sure there are many important motivations that I'm missing.

When we get down to it, though, many of us simply haven't been able to put together a set of wannas that does the job.  In the words of the State Farm ads, I'm so there.

So, we all have to discover for ourselves: what do we love, or want, or believe in strongly enough to produce exercise on the hot days and forbearance at the buffet?