Day 7 (AG): Focus & Effort
🖤 Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤
It's day 7 AG (after goal) and day 939 of Nutrisystem. A whole week has gone by ! I suspect part of my self-doubt is really all about the fact that I never expected to reach my goal weight. I didn't have that expectation on day 1 and all along the way it was mind boggling to see the numbers on the scale drop. Even then I never really believed I would get here. I might have said I did .. but deep down inside I was full of doubt. Now that I'm here the big question is how do you adjust to being a healthy weight after being obese most of your life ? It's like "ok, what do I do now ?". I still marvel at the fact that my thighs don't rub together. I can sit in a chair and have room on both sides. I can cross my legs. I can put my shoes on without straining my back and cutting off my oxygen. I can look down and actually see my feet. Moving 146 pounds from place to place is a whole lot easier than moving 304 pounds was. It's a heck of a lot easier to get in and out of the car. When your weight gradually creeps up you make subtle changes to compensate and until you lose the weight you don't realize just how many changes you had made in your life to accommodate your increasing size. As those limitations fell away the adjustments were just as subtle. As a result there was no big "ta da" when I hit my goal weight. No fanfare. No fireworks. No marching band. Just a number on a scale staring back at me. I have to be honest .. I expected to be jumping up and down for joy. Instead I felt nothing but relief. I was relieved to finally be there. I was able to put aside that huge burden that had been dogging me for months. That elusive number. The big 1-5-0. Did I feel any different going from 152 to 146 ? Nope. Physically I felt the same. Mentally was a whole different ball game. The only physical difference I saw was a belly that was a touch flatter. Mentally I flashed through years and years of crushing unhappiness. Was it all worth it ? Yes. It absolutely was. I set out to do something and for once in my life I didn't give up. I kept working at it. I changed when I needed to change. I tried different things. I suffered. I cried. Happy tears. Sad tears. I consoled myself with food on occasion. I wanted to give up but I couldn't. I wandered off track and I wandered back on. Sometimes I had to drag myself back on. I've experienced every emotion you can possibly think of during this journey but I never actually gave up. Focus and effort. I 100% agree that we control both. I can't say I was always focused, because I wasn't. Did I always put in 100% effort ? Nope. I sure didn't. What I did do was keep trying. I kept working at being focused and putting in more effort. I worked on consistency. Some days I was successful, some days I was not. Arriving at the point where I have to maintain my weight .. well, that's a huge responsibility. It was easy to sail along losing the weight. As long as the scale stayed the same or the number went down I was good to go. I was making progress ! Now it's just about keeping that number from increasing. Now I have to find a balance between what I eat and how much I exercise to keep my weight where it is. I don't want to lose more and I don't want to gain, so I have to figure out how to make that work. There is no magic formula - we are all different so what works for me might not work for anyone else. So it's nothing you can Google. People ask me what my secret is. I don't have one. I make this up day by day .. sometimes hour by hour. I said the other day that I was tired. I am. I'm tired of having to think about every single thing that I eat. I'm tired of worrying about that number on the scale. I wish I didn't have to live my life this way. How do you cope with that ? Well, I go look in the mirror. I ask myself if I like what I see. Then I look at my before pictures and ask the same question. I'm sure you can guess the answers. I could stop worrying about what I eat and I could stop worrying about that number on the scale .. but I know the consequences. I've been there before. Back in 1997 I had gotten down to about 180 pounds but I went right back to my old eating habits and stopped exercising and the next thing I knew I was over 300 pounds. I'm not going back there - not ever. I didn't spend all this time, money and effort only to throw it all away and go right back to my old habits. I've seen a lot of quotes about choosing your hard. Losing weight is hard. Being fat is hard. I guess you know what my choice is here. I will gratefully shoulder the burden of maintaining all that I have worked for and I will be grateful every single day that I have this burden to care for. All 146 pounds of it.
Breakfast was buttermilk waffles with sugar free syrup and a toasted coconut vanilla yogurt. Morning snack was a vanilla shake with peanut butter powder. Lunch was a pepperoni pizza melt and a chef salad. Afternoon snack was 1/2 cup cottage cheese and 2 Alyssa's oatmeal cookies. Dinner was a chicken enchilada with roasted veggies. Evening snack was a lemon zest cake. My breakfast, lunch, dinner and evening snack were all Nutrisystem products. Since it's Friday (good excuse!) I also had a glass of wine.
My workout day started in Oslo, Norway with iFIT Guide Andrew Hutter. Next up was Portland, Oregon with iFit trainer Knox Robinson. Last for the day was the South of France with iFit trainer Alex Gregory. I logged 70 minutes, 3.9 miles and 476 calories. It got late and I got tired and I ended up not using the Total Gym. Fitbit says I did over 12,000 steps.
It was cold and damp this morning so I worked inside until about 11 am. I actually had the heat on for a couple hours to take the dampness out of the house ! Who expected that on July 30th ! By lunchtime skies had cleared and the sun appeared but it was only 64 degrees and pretty breezy. With the windows closed and the sun out, the front porch was quite comfortable so that's where I spent the rest of my day. Work was pretty productive and with my current training done I will be hitting the ground running on some new responsibilities on Monday. I have to be honest, I'm a little intimidated ! Change is good but when it's all new to you it's a tad bit scary ! On that note it's about time for a shower and bed.
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