Last week, an Instagram page I follow had me thinking about why we do the things we do.

Why do I run, for example?

I love being reminded of this now and then because motivation is fickle. A friend recently commented on another friend’s Strava feed that motivation has no loyalty. It is with you one day and gone the next.

And that is true for all of us. Me included.

Not long after that, another Instagram post had me in tears. A woman was questioning whether the years-long health journey she had been on was worth it at all. She was considering a gastric sleeve and asked the people who had followed her journey from the beginning whether they could actually see a difference between then and now.

I cried because I understood exactly what she meant.

At the start of next year, it will be ten years since I rejoined Weigh-Less.

In those ten years, I have lost 80 kilograms, worked through emotional eating in therapy, started running, written two books, completed five marathons, and stopped weighing myself.

And yet, many days, I still find this hard.

In my first book, I wrote about a saying often heard in weight-loss circles:

“Being overweight is hard. Losing weight is hard. Choose your hard.”

Sometimes it feels as though I live with both hards.

I am still not at a “perfect” weight and probably never will be. I still live with a great deal of discipline. True, I no longer weigh my food or myself, but I still pay attention to what I eat. I still train hard. I still run about 50 kilometres a week on average.

It is still hard.

There have been many moments when I have wondered whether I should consider something like a gastric bypass. Maybe maintenance would be easier then. Maybe the constant effort would ease up a little.

But then I think about what I would be trading. I currently have a healthy digestive system and have had no trouble from hernias for years now. Surgery carries risks. Am I really willing to do that to myself?

And medications such as Ozempic and other GLP-1 treatments are simply beyond what I can justify financially right now, especially while my children are still at home.

So what does that leave me with?

It leaves me with this: The other reasons.

If I run because I love it, because I enjoy the quiet time alone with my thoughts, because I like challenging myself, because I enjoy being fit, and because I can now do things I once thought impossible — then does it really matter if I don’t run to lose weight?

If I cook from scratch because it makes me feel good, because processed food leaves me feeling bloated and sluggish, because I want my children to see what balanced eating looks like, and because it is honestly more affordable than the alternatives — what other reason do I need?

When the original reasons start losing their grip, find others.

Find the reasons that will remain when motivation leaves.

Find the reasons that continue making the effort worthwhile.

Because if you ever find yourself wanting to shout, “What is even the point of all this?” then perhaps the answer is not to quit the game, but perhaps to find a different reason to keep playing.

But there is a catch.

The other reasons may help us stay in the game, but they do not necessarily solve the problem that got us playing in the first place.

And perhaps that is the part I still wrestle with.

Because while I genuinely love running, and writing, and feeling strong, and living a healthier life than I once did, there is still a part of me that would very much like the next decade to feel a little less hard than the decade that has been.