Self Imposed Pressure?

After I had knee surgery, one of the high school coaches worked with me to build my strength back up. He was great, and I learned a lot about weight lifting from him. He's still influencing my life, in an odd way.

I remember him as being very fit and athletic.... not something you see a lot in someone his age in the area I grew up. However, his wife was full figured and not very active. Even at 16 I realized that this is not what I wanted when I grew up and was in a relationship. Yet, here I am...

When Matt and I started dating when we were 18/19 we already had been dealing with weight issues. We put on weight together. Neither were very athletic or even active (hell, Matt even smoked back then...). Matt and I got the wake up call about the same time. Doctor's visits, test results, etc (he had already quit smoking by then, but he still had an irregular heart beat). He became focused and lost weight and made exercise part of his daily life. At first by running (even tho' he hated it), then after training for a mini triathalon, he found he loved biking and he's been biking ever since... pushing himself and raising the bar year after year.

I lost at first, then I put it all back on and then some before I hit the bottom and realized that I had to do something. I thought back to my coach and his wife and I thought about me and Matt and realized that's what we had become.

I still feel that way. I feel a pressure on myself to be like Matt... which is impossible. Matt is an over achiever (this is a man that passed the CPA on the first sitting purely because he can study like no one I've ever met) while I'm a bare minimum... do just enough to get by kind of person. I never had that kind of drive and I've never had success when I do put extra effort into something, whether it's for my grades or with the weight loss. It's this mental self pressure that I need to accept and get over.

I am 30 lbs overweight, and I do want to be in a healthy weight range, but I also ask myself "why"? Is it because I want to be healthier or is it because I don't want to be the fat wife of a physically fit cycling freak?