Spinning my wheels

It’s been a tough couple of months on the weight loss front for me. I’ve been overtaken by life again and haven’t done a very good job lately. The tides have slowly turned to eating more and moving less which, of course, is the opposite of my goal.

I think I can trace it back to the beginning of June when I overdid it a bit during the Relay for Life. I found out about a week later that I have plantar fasciitis. I’ve battled sore feet for a while but this was different. This pain wouldn’t go away. That took me out of my new rhythm of walking every day to burn some extra calories. In the meantime, I started eating a little more and slipped back into more of an “all or nothing” mentality for a while.

Since then, I’ve had good days and bad days. Commonly, I find that I can be good all day and then blow it at night. Or, I start off on the wrong foot by giving in to some workplace treats that my coworkers bring in. My latest excuse was today, for my birthday. Talk about a tough day to get back on track! My son’s birthday is coming up later this week too. I’ve got to start planning for Murphy’s Law as I commonly advise others to do.

The good news is that I’ve been doing enough to maintain my weight. My weight has fluctuated between 221 and 226 (back and forth a couple of times) over the last two months since choosing Jason as the newest recipient of the traveling shirt. It’s a far cry from the 270 lbs. I started at but every pound closer to my old weight is unacceptable at this point. I think the magic in the shirt was really the accountability to Schulte and Swann in the morning. The shirt reminded me that I was accountable and would be back in the studio for an update every month or so. I’ve been trying to spark something similar with other personal goals but obviously haven’t been able to find something that really works yet. The way I’ve been living should be perfect to maintain a healthy weight but I’m far from that point. I still have a lot of work to do.

It stinks that I have a few pounds to lose just to get back to the point when I turned over the shirt. Sure, it's weight I can easily lose in a week or two by redirecting byself. But, even if I had just lost a pound a week in June and July, I should be down to 213 by now. I can’t dwell on this either though. That kind of thinking just makes me want to get a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and say “oh well, I’ll start tomorrow. -or- As long as I’m up a few pounds, what’s one more?” I’ve been in and out of that mindset for the last two months, so much that I’ve been too embarrassed to write a new blog entry. Each time I thought about writing something like this, I would stop and tell myself that I can quickly catch up and write something more positive later. Today I decided that it’s more important to publicly admit my detour than pretending like nothing happened. Sure, I could bust my butt and drop some pounds quickly. Most people probably wouldn’t notice either way. I know I’m not alone in this and that it’s nothing to be embarrassed about even though it does feel quite embarrassing to admit.

I’m going to try to chalk this up as a “summer vacation” from my weight loss track and start right now as yet another new beginning. Hopefully my next post will be a more positive one to report some good progress!