There’s a feature on Facebook that has been a great motivator in my weight loss journey: the “See your memories” feature. This past week, the picture on the left is what popped up as a memory.

What a huge difference.

I remember feeling happy, whimsical, and really enjoying taking the picture. I wasn’t always the sad fat guy. In fact, in terms of how I felt as a person and about myself, I was pretty happy. I was able to drown out the difficulties and challenges with being fat quite successfully, and the photo on the left is the embodiment of that success. What was hiding, however, was the fact that I pushed myself to be the happy guy by ignoring or looking past those difficulties and challenges until I was unable to do so any longer.

I’ve written about my reasons for changing my lifestyle to get healthy and fit on more than a few occasions. The tl;dr version is that my body was beginning to show the detrimental effects of being morbidly obese and I was tired of feeling that way. I had to make a change, and I was fortunate that my wife was willing to make the changes with me. Together, we have been successful and have come a long way from where we began a mere fifteen months ago.

Many of you are just starting your weight loss and/or fitness journey. I recommend you take some full-body photos of yourself now. I know it’s difficult to do, and you don’t want to see them now, but trust me. When you lose the weight, they are great motivation to keep going, to keep eating right, and to keep exercising. When you see how far you’ve come, it will give you extra fuel to keep going.