Day 439 Easy To Be Easy and The Last Forty-Eight

Day 439

Easy To Be Easy and The Last Forty-Eight

The Friday after Thanksgiving is always strange. It almost feels like a Sunday for me. While I was packing up the leftovers, I noticed that I was leaving the pie—didn’t want it, or did I? Maybe I still don’t trust myself, I don’t know. Perhaps I should buy a half gallon of ice cream and put it in the freezer, that would be the ultimate test. I do trust the changes in me. BUT---I’m always careful, limiting my “exposure” to possible trigger foods. I guess it’s a fear of what I once was. A fear of old habits trying to creep into my routine. If you’ve read this blog, you know that I’ve allowed that to happen to a degree as far as exercise is concerned. I’ve allowed missed workouts in situations I would have never allowed in the first 250 days of this journey.

My strong suit has always been my calorie budget and strict adherence of that calorie budget, but the workouts have fallen victim to rationalizations and crafty excuses too many times.
Consistency is what has given me the success I’ve enjoyed. Inconsistency has no place on this journey. I fully understand that now is the time to suit up for battle. The easy part is over. We’re 48 pounds from goal and I imagine it will be the toughest 48 pounds I’ve ever lost. It’ll take more effort to lose this last 48 than it took to lose the last 150. So I understand where I am along this road. The casual pace of late and the intoxication of being able to do things I’ve never been able to do has given me a false sense of completeness. We are not complete. We are not at goal. And if we’re going to get there we have to work for it like never before.

It’s a tricky mental game I’m playing. It’s easy to be easy on me. I feel great, I look better than I ever have in my entire life, and I feel so in control of my eating habits. I’ve enjoyed an amusement park with my kids and rode everything and anything I wanted. I’ve enjoyed booths for several months now. I’ve driven and fit perfectly into a Corvette. I’ve enjoyed a football game in a packed stadium without worry that I would be crowding the people around me, because I wasn’t. I will be going up for a fun flight in a friend’s small Cessna plane someday soon. I can breathe now. I no longer need a C-PAP machine to sleep. I no longer have serious problems with my right leg. It still swells a little, but never to the point of skin breakage like at 505 pounds. I haven’t had to be “wrapped” in over 8 months. My blood pressure is completely normal without medication. My cholesterol is perfectly incredible. All of the other blood work is great too, except I need to raise my good cholesterol a little bit. By the way, these are not listed in order of importance. Health and well being is by far the greatest thing I’ve accomplished. I had so much to be thankful for yesterday, today, and every day forward. But you see what I mean? With all of these wonderful things…it’s so easy to relax, ease up a little and cruise to victory. I can’t do that. Wednesday’s weigh in showed me that if I don’t make some changes to my approach, it’s going to be a really long last forty-eight. Wow. “The last forty-eight” sounds so wonderful. But I know for sure---It will be a challenge that will require the consistency and no nonsense approach that has brought me this far. And as far as adding calories to poke the metabolism, yes, I plan on doing that too. It’ll be controlled, but still kind of strange to eat more to lose, but it’s a proven technique.

I hit the trail today with the spirit that we’re going to kick this into high gear, and I did. I did the quickest 5K I’ve ever completed. I didn’t keep the time, but I jogged, a light jog, but still a jog---for a good part. I was happy with the workout and look forward to pushing myself even harder in the weight room.

Leftovers are wonderful by the way! I enjoyed a turkey breast and cheese egg white omelet today that was less than 175 calories. It was fantastic! I shredded the turkey and put it in the frying pan with some zero calorie cooking spray…it gave it a slight crisp, and that was awesome. I used a regular yellow American cheese slice instead of mozzarella. It was a very tasty use of leftover turkey.

Tomorrow I’m headed over to a friend’s house to watch the OSU-OU game. I’m looking forward to this one! I’m not sure how long it’s been since OSU was favored in Norman, it’s been a while for sure. Have a great weekend and as always, Thanks for reading! Goodnight and…

Good Choices,
Sean