The Part That Sux

I am cruising along in this renewed effort at getting back in shape, eating better, etc. But the part of it that sux is not fighting myself from eating, binging, whatever. What I really really hate is when I am legitimately hungry. I don't have a real formula per se, but I try to do like a 300-400 calorie breakfast, maybe 600 between morning snack and lunch, and then try to save a 1000 for the mid afternoon snack, supper and if it is there, a night snack. But I really hate when I get that "groooooowwwwwllll" around 3, and I am already at a net of 1000 calories. I used to try to move calories around and say no snack since I am eating now. but that never really seems to work for me. I do the too early eating and then still have an evening snack. I usually try to get myself in the mode of thinking that I am hungry because I have done a good job not eating too many calories and that it means I am in a calorie deficit right now. do any of you have the same issue?

Habit Forming Can Go Either Way For Me

Have you ever had a trait that was both a blessing and a curse? I have one that helped get me going on the road to weight loss and also helped knock me off of it. I form habits very easily. It doesn't take much. For example, today, I went out before first light and ran a mile. I hadn't been running outside of a morning because it wasn't light yet, but now that I did it once, I will way more than likely keep doing it. That is all it takes is a small breach into something to get me to do it regularly. Sounds great when that breach means I will now go out and run even if it isn't light yet. But it goes both ways. Say for example that on my long drive home next week, when I have ran that morning and had my now truncated calorie intake for the day. If I am starving when I head out for the hour drive home, and I say look this starving thing is ridiculous, I will just pull off the interstate, hit the McDonalds in Greenland real quick for some nuggets, and that will take care of that. Well like i said, if I do something once, it is likely to become a habit. So tomorrow, even if I am not one little bit of hungry, since I stopped yesterday to get nuggets, I am way more likely to just do it again. So as you can see, with great power comes great responsibility..... haha. I just know this. Now that I am back and tracking along real good, the road blocks I was setting up to make me fail are not so hard to run now. It is not hard for me to walk through the kitchen and never open the refrigerator door anymore, it is not hard for me to make the choice to whip out my phone and check calorie values on food when we are out and about, and it is not hard for me to go ahead, get my shoes on, and head out the door for a walk or a run. Next up, regular gym visits!

Take Them As They Come

One of the hardest things about setting a long term goal is that it most often becomes hard to keep sight of, and when we aren't at that end goal fast enough for us, we lose our focus on the goal and our efforts to get there lose their momentum. For me, the key is to not only focus on getting to that goal, but to recognize the mile markers along the way. As I said before, my first big goal is to hit 249 on the scale. I am not there yet obviously, but over the past two days, I have recognized two wonderful mile markers along the way that make me realize that while I am not too very close to that destination, I am seeing some cool points of interest along the way! For example, yesterday, when I put on my XL fleece jacket to go out, it wasn't as tight around my mid-section as it has been being. Or today, when I put on my 36 waist jeans that were on the verge of fitting snugly a week or so ago, I had to go back and find my belt to keep them from falling off me. And back to my sternum obsession, my hand most definitely took a downward slope when I did my sternum check before getting out of bed this morning. So am I at goal? No. But I am most definitely seeing some progress!! UnderArmour hoodie, you are mine and just don't know it yet.

Being Presumptuous

I am one of those people that may have been born a little too late. I still believe in polite society where everyone is more worried about the person next to them than they are themselves. I am a very generous person, and if you ask me for anything ever, if it is within my power to give it to you, it is yours. But my pet peeve in life is presumptuous people. People that just think that they have things coming to them. For example, people that I let out of a parking lot or side street when traffic is just crazy backed up. I make it a point to wave at least once when someone lets me out, and usually I do it twice; once before I pull out, and then I do another wave after I get going in front of them. So it really burns my butt when I let someone out who I saw waiting for sometime while others did not, and then I get no acknowledgement at all from them. They apparently thought, no it isn't like that guy gave me a break, took it upon himself to let me out when others had not, I just had that coming to me. So anyway, back to topic. As you can see, I do not like presumptuous folks. But there is a time for being presumptuous, like when you think you are going to be faced with a challenge that you will not be able to meet. For example, say you and your family are out Black Friday shopping, and you just know that before you can do anything about it, there will be a food stop before you can ever get home to known calorie values. Now, it is easy to assume that you will probably fail the test of eating healthy, and give up the idea that you can leave some food on the tray or plate or whatever. Ooooooor, you can become presumptuous as all get out, and trust and believe that no, in fact the above described scenario is not a foregone conclusion, but rather the foregone conclusion is that you will make a great food choice, you will track the calories, and you will make it a point to leave half the waffle fries on the tray (all this being purely hypothetical of course). Yes sir, if you were to be one of them presumptuous people, I believe that would just about the best time to do it.

Rewards

I am a little retarded, but I am ok with it. I weighed in at 266.6 when I set off to get back on the path. I wrote that on a dry erase board that hangs in the entry way to my bedroom. That number is at the top, my first big goal of 249 is at the bottom. Written next to the 249 is two words. UnderArmour Hoodie. That is my reward for getting to 249 lbs. Guess what. I am obsessed with it. I think about the hoodie multiple times a day. I envision me wearing it while I am walking. It is my life right now. I live to wear that hoodie. Guess what I don't obsess about now? Food.

How did I ever forget how great this feeling is?

So today I am full of energy! I have been quickly getting my hyperness back online and it feels great! I remember when I was at my thinnest always being in go mode. one of the lamentations I have had over the past few months is how willing I am to come home, find my recliner, and wear it out! I woke up this morning and was not exactly all smiles, but after I got my first cup of coffee in me, I was suddenly a ball of energy that couldn't sit down for anything!! That is awesome because I have that energy, but not so awesome in that I needed to do homework today. Not looking too good for that right now... haha. So after I finished cup #2, I sprang into action. I got all the trash out, got the recycle loaded in my truck and ready to be taken to the drop off. I made a to do list of stuff I needed to for sure get done today and stuff that Kathy had asked me to do for sure today. So while I was waiting for the bank to open, since it was a pivot point of my morning plans not at the house, I decided to go ahead and get the leaves for the table down and inserted for tomorrow. After that, it was late enough for me to go do my banking through the drive through. I finished that, took the cans to sell, the recycle to drop off, and then headed home. I have a plan for Turkey day break. I am doing a 5k walk a day for three days in a row. The day before, the day of, and the day after. I got home and figured out my day and realized I had better go ahead and do the day before 5k ASAP so that I didn't get caught up and not do it. So off I headed. I forgot how great it is to just get out and move and think for a whole hour!! So when I finished that up, I hit a quick fruit and lunchmeat snack to help me recover from a 3 mile walk, and then decided it was time to fix the chairs. Now a week ago I would have been wiped out and channel surfing would have been the order for the remainder of the day. I actually spent two hours working on my chairs getting them fixed right this time. all that to say this. Why did I ever let my determination and vigor go to the way side and get my stupid self overweight and underexercised yet again? How could I have ever forgotten how crappy that felt and how great the energetic Shane felt? Falling back to my hindsight post, never again will I ever lose that sight!! I will keep moving and eating better for the remainder of my life!!

The Sternum

I am a dork and I will freely admit it. I have lots of quirks. One of which is my obsession with my sternum. When I was working at getting to the mountaintop, I had a couple of "progress tests" I did all the time. First was when I woke up, I would place my hand on my sternum, and then move my hand down to my belly, checking for the "slope". In the beginning the "slope" was up from the sternum. However as I progressed, the hand started going "downhill". It was exciting when the sternum drop off became a cliff!! I also remember many family members expressing concern about the lump that was my sternum when I would hug them. They had gotten so used to my belly being the point of contact that the lump bothered them I guess! I even could feel it plainly and easily standing up just by quick touch. ONe of the thing I used to do while climbing back up the scales was to feel my sternum. I had rationalized myself into believing as long as it was still where could touch it, I was not putting on too much weight, right? Wrong. so added to the goal list, make friends with my sternum once again. get him out of that hidey hole and poking my relatives once again!!

I require goals

A great deal of soul searching and deep thought have gone into my analysis of how I fell from what I considered the mountain top. I think it is seriously as simple as I met all my goals without setting up concrete and solid new goals. I require goals for me to stay focused and centered. Often times when I was working out or running or tracking calories, I had an end goal in mind. For example, each weigh in, I would set my sights on the next number I wanted to see come up on the scale. Each run, I would set a new goal for time or distance to reach by X date. Each time I logged calories, I set my sights on keeping that number under X amount for the day. One of my big grand picture goals was to get below 200 pounds. I can recall the day I did that and the pride and joy that I felt. I beamed for days after that! But after that goal was met, I never set a new one. In fact, that may have actually been the unraveling point for me. I had put a lot of energy and effort into getting there, and quite frankly, I was a little tired from all the effort. So that was when I made the conscious effort to be "intuitive" about my eating and exercising. Worst. Choice. Ever. So in hindsight and in forward sight I have decided that goals goals goals is what I require to get to where I want AND to stay there. So here is my first list of goals to get me going. I write them down to make them real rather than abstract: 1. I love running. I want to run, whatever distance or speed, every day or at minimum 5 days a week. right now I am limited to 1/2 a mile which is the distance around my block if I am on the road, or I can run a mile straight on a no incline treadmill. I want the numbers to increase each week, as in better time, speed and distance than I ran last Friday. 2. Daily calorie goal is set at 2000, but actually aiming for more in the 1700-1800 area. 3. My first weight goal is to get out of the 260's ASAP. I have a dry erase board that has my 266.4 lbs written at the top right now and my actual big picture first goal of 249 lbs. written at the bottom. I intend to weigh on Fridays and Mondays. I hope to be down at least 1 pound by Friday.

Hindsight is 20/20

We all have done it. Taken a course of action, and after all was said and done, we wish we had known X while we were doing it, wish we had done X instead of Y, etc etc. Take for example, oh I don't know, my recent weight loss success followed by my following weight gain failure. I am no statistician, but I would bet money that the rate of recidivism in weight loss success is pretty big. Hindsight, while usually a bane of our existence, in these instances is an integral tool in picking yourself up and dusting yourself off, taking the gained knowledge, and moving forward. I now know that I can't just stop counting calories, and slack off on my exercise. It is not the formula for successful weight loss and maintenance. I am required to remain vigilant, if not hyper-vigilant, for the rest of my born days. I have no stop sign. It is s wide open road that requires me to keep my eyes open and look for bumps in the road, oncoming traffic, and other highway dangers. I didn't know that before, but now I do. Hindsight, I may not like where I am now, but with your help, I can get the "recalculating" prompt on my GPS, and not miss my turns anymore.

Amnesia

When I played sports, one of the things I was taught is that while playing, you have to develop selective amnesia. Missed tackle? Forget it, don't let it affect you, run the next play. I think that lesson applies to this journey as well. Every running back, even Emmitt Smith has fumbled the ball, every great QB, like Joe Montana, has thrown an interception. Nobody has ever performed flawlessly throughout their whole life or career. What makes the great ones great is that selective amnesia. They shook it off, they ran the next play. Where I stand right now is that i am extremely frustrated with myself and what I have become. A little over a year ago, I walked out my door, turned on my iPod, and took off jogging down the road, generally for 3 miles or more. I just finished a WALK of a mile, and I feel it in my legs and back and abs. However, in my mind, I can still run. So going out and not being able to run gets to me. I have to shake it off. I have to run the next play. I will not be throwing a Hail Mary pass today. This series, this set of plays is about the short run to get the first down, so that I can get the next set of downs that will let me get a little bit closer to the endzone. I need to come to grips with where I am, and stop letting it get to me. Because when I don't, I get the "what is the point in playing" attitude. That is when my guard gets let down, and that is when I do not give my all the next play.

Once an addict, always and addict

the AA folks have always said it, and now I know it to be true. You can never think ou have an addiction beat. Ever. Once you are an addict, you are always and addict. I am not an alcoholic, but I am a foodaholic. Food is my answer to everything. I have an monkey on my back for life obviously. I really thought I could let down my guard a little after i got sub 200. At first I didn't do anything outlandish, I just didn't eat lose weight portions, I ate normal portions. I didn't avoid snacks like the plague, but had them every other day or so. I should have gotten wise when even though I wasn't eating excessively, I was putting on a pound here and there, I was not fitting the same in my new shirts, etc. But I didn't. Why? probably because I was so happy to have my old friend back. Bad days, stressed out, good days, happy as can be= hey it is a small snack, it won't do any harm. I also have a tendency to get lazy after doing so well exercise wise. Would that be an addiction to sedentary lifestyle? I dunno. I honestly don't know that i am lazy per se, I think I lose my energy when I gain weight. I drove everyone crazy when I was thinner, I was always wanting to do something physical. I was just so energetic!!! That may be the thing I miss most. i was always hyper. I liked it! so knowing all this, I know my mission. I have to accept the monkey is there and I will for my whole life have to be vigilant against his attacks.

He does it again

If you go back to my very first post, you will see that one person's story, his courage and his determination was the reason I undertook the huge challenge of losing weight and getting fit. if you have my blog in your feed and follow it, you also know that after my success, I had failure as well. I did not stick to my guns, I did not fight the good fight and I did not win the race...... yet. The guy that encouraged me to choose the change has recently announced that he too has suffered a set back. And after an extended leave of absence in blogging, he has chosen to return to that tool that was so instrumental in his journey, his blog. I welcome his return with more excitement and zeal than is probably proper. I feel as though my rut that seems so hopeless, and has left me forlorn for so many months, may be in its last throws, that I may soon find the courage and strength and determination to get my self headed back down to sub 200 pounds again! I lament my friend's predicament, but at the same time, I look forward to encouraging him as he climbs the hill back to the top. Likewise, I look forward to making the climb myself. at 60-65 lbs. gained back, I am not particularly happy with myself. I continue to make poor choices and let food control my reactions when it is present. No more. Today, that ends. I will return to my dedication to blogging, to tracking and to exercising. I will do it for me and for my friend, so that the guy that helped me so much has a partner to help him back to the promised land.