Getting Real About Weight Loss

So first of all, let me tell you about my run last night. I ended up running at 8:45 because - life n' stuff. I charged up my Garmin - which hasn't seen the light of day in quite some time-and set out with Lola. My plan was to go down to the car pool bus stop and back for a round trip of about two miles and see how long I could hang on at a slow jog. It was awesome. Granted I'm pretty sure I used to be able to walk faster than this jog - but my breathing felt familiar and the motions felt familiar - and for about a mile everything was amazing.

By this point, I thought it was weird that my Garmin would tell me how fast I was going, but wasn't recording distance...then I realized I didn't press the "run" button twice, so nothing was being recorded. Grrrr. Around this time, Lola decided she was about done and needed to pull me to a dead stop every 10 feet to sniff all the things. In short. It was amazing, and irritating all at once... and now my pelvis is angry. But no matter what, I did it - and that feels pretty stinkin' awesome.

In other news...

Is that asking too much?

If you've looked at the posts from the last couple of weeks, you may have noticed that I've kind of glossed over the whole weight loss thing lately. But the whole point of a blog is to be embarrassingly honest with people who don't know you, right? So here goes: it's not good, folks.

I started to get serious on July 6th and over the next couple of months lost 18 pounds. Overall, that's 18 pounds in 10 weeks. Yay, right? Yes, but the last couple of weeks I haven't made any additional progress and my weight is four pounds up from my recent lowest - which is not good. I'm okay with slow progress...as long as there is progress. To be the best and happiest version of myself, I need to know that I'm making steady progress towards my goals.

The financial stress a talked about a couple of weeks ago has really affected my mood and my motivation. I mean, if I have to literally count pennies, I don't want to have to count calories on top of that. There are only so many things I can worry about in one day and my quota of emotional energy was all used up. I had to have a bit of a "come to Jesus" discussion with myself. **Is everyone so interactive with their inner dialogue, or am I maybe a little bit crazy? Meh  - what can you do?

Aaannyway... the talk went something like this:

It takes more mental energy to be miserable than it does to count calories. This is not something I'm going to do until it's done and then stop. I am working on building life-long habits. Habits do not typically feel like work once they're established - I shower every day. It takes time, and sometimes I'd rather just hang around in my pajamas - but I do it because it needs doing. I rarely skip it and almost never complain about it. It's just a thing that I do every day. Once I've gotten used to cooking healthier foods and eating smaller portions - it will once again become a thing that I do without much thought.

I've done this (lost over 50 pounds) successfully on two separate occasions. I know what I need to do and it isn't complicated. If I walk every day and eat about 1800 calories, I will have enough of a calorie deficit to lose 2.5 pounds per week. 1800 calories is more than enough. I can still eat the things I like. As I lose weight, I will also be getting fitter (and lighter) and will be able to run further and do more allowing me to stay around the 1800 calorie mark while losing about the same amount of weight. That sounds reasonable, right? Absolutely. Is there a single reason not to do this? No.

...Oh. Defeated by logic and reason once more. I guess it's time to get real and stay honest. I've decided to start posting my weigh-ins on Monday mornings to help keep me accountable and remind me what I'm doing and why.

Stick with me folks. It's time to shed some pounds and keep them off this time.