Day 245 Weighing Anywhere I Want and The Most Vital Component of Weight Loss Success

Day 245

Weighing Anywhere I Want and The Most Vital Component of Weight Loss Success

I have to admit that I've not been real happy with my workouts in the last week or so. I've really got to get all “Jillian” on myself and move! An anonymous comment the other day hit the nail on the head when they mentioned how a 5K wasn't going to do much for me eventually. Very true. And not eventually, now. I want to get more active, get competitive, and really work myself! Today we had planned for a 10K, and those are wonderful, I do plan on many more of those things, but we opted instead to workout hard at the YMCA. I hit the racquetball court hard today! It was terrific! I haven't been inside that court in a while and it's so much easier now! I fly in there! After a while I went downstairs to the weight room for a complete upper body workout. I had the whole place to myself, it was nice. Then back upstairs for a little basketball. I just shot around a little, dribbled a little, chased the ball some, but I didn't stay very long because I just wasn't getting the kind of workout I wanted. So I jumped into the fitness center and onto the treadmill for a brisk walk. By the time we were ready to leave, the three of us were spent. It was a great workout. I stopped at the front desk to show the girls the difference between the photo they have on file and me now...and oh my, it is drastically different. I took that 500 pound plus photo back in March of 2004. Sometimes it's hard for me to see the dramatic difference that others do, but in looking at this Y member profile pic, oh yeah...I see a completely different face. Totally different. One way I will intensify my workout is to get in the racquetball court with someone and really play them. Had I been playing one on one today on the basketball court, it may have been a much better workout too. Getting competitive is a wonderful way I can increase the intensity, I may get my behind kicked all over the court, but at least I'll reap the rewards of a wonderful workout along the way!

One thing that hit me today was the realization that I can weigh myself on pretty much any scale now. I remember what a big problem that use to be, and now at 341, it's not a problem at all. That's nice! Here's another blog flashback to Day 2 of this journey: Believe it or not, I can't find a scale to weigh me anywhere around here. Someone once suggested that I weigh at the farmers co-op! The co-op! Where they weigh truck loads of grain and large animals!! You don't even get to go inside to weigh at the co-op. You just walk onto the platform built into the ground outside, where everyone can see you standing there getting weighed while a truck load of pigs wait their turn. No way will I ever do that. I was even told some time ago that the post-office might be able to weigh me, because “they weigh tons of mail down there”. Facing the truth on a highly precise heavy duty digital scale is a tough but absolute necessary thing for me. I need to know where I'm starting. Some people say they don't need to know, I do. I don't want to guess how much I've lost, I want to know for sure. So I made the forty minute drive to Stillwater, walked in, and quietly walked back to the scale in the hallway. People were down there. I guarantee they'll try to glance at my weight. It's a big digital readout and most people are naturally curious. I guess it really doesn't bother me, as long as they don't start placing bets before I step on. I ignored them and stepped onto the scale. I weighed 505 pounds that day, and 341 sounded like forever away. I remember thinking as I drove away from the Payne County Health Department that day, someday I'll be able to weigh anywhere! That someday is now.

I'm very proud of so many people I know that are getting busy and really making positive strides on their road to losing weight and feeling great. To hear my dear mother and aunt Kelli talk about counting calories and walking, I tell you what, it makes me smile from ear to ear. What a wonderful answer to a prayer! My mom and Kelli will tell you, they've been influenced by every “diet” out there. Almost every book ever published about losing weight, you'll find in my mom's house. She has mountains of magazines too and all of them have some kind of story about losing weight on the cover. They've put themselves in information overload from so many different opinions, that it's really hard to see that the best long term solution isn't a fad or hot new book. It doesn't cost a thing to do, because there's nothing to buy other than what you normally would buy for groceries. It's getting honest about consumption and how we've treated food for many years, it's reorganizing how we think about food and exercise. It's eating normal everyday food in a responsible way and exercising. Sounds easy right? No, no it isn't. Because the mind is a very difficult thing to change when it comes to lifelong behaviors. And since the mental part is the biggest part of this journey, well...It can really take some time to get it in the right place to see past all of the information we've tried to process. We have to let it all go and get back to the very basics. If the mental part is the biggest part, then what is the biggest component of the mental part? Honesty. When we stop lying to ourselves, when we stop using rationalizations to make ourselves feel better, to prolong and put off getting serious, when we stop allowing excuses and self-imposed roadblocks to hold us back, wow...there's just no stopping us then huh? But it certainly requires 100% honesty about our past behaviors, our addiction, our habits that sometimes can be very embarrassing to admit, even when we're only admitting them to ourselves.

Today has been a wonderful Sunday. I grilled a very nice dinner that included some beef and fish, baked potato and corn, plus salad. It was amazing and all for comfortably under 500 calories per plate! Thank you for reading and God bless you and yours. Good night and...

Good Choices,
Sean