So its Tuesday. The scale reads 205.5. Yesterday it read 207.5. Ya, that same 207 I've come to hate with all my being. I was about 207 around the end of November, before the Xmas season began and all the sins came out almost daily. I was 207 when we went to Vancouver in late April. Now I'm hovering around 207 again. Just when I think I've broken away from it, it pulls me back in.
"Where do you think you're going? 205? 202? Less than 200? I don't think so. I'm a part of you. I own you. You don't have to like it but you better learn to love it."
It took me a while to burn off the sins of Xmas, then the sins of Easter, then the sins of....well you get the point. When I went back to college in my mid 30's, I hovered around 205lbs those 3 years. I had gotten down to a nice 185lbs the summer before school started, but then met a girl and lost my focus. Funny how that goes. I actually went up to 227lbs by November of that year. It was a disaster. It took a few months but I peeled off the weight and remained at 205 for the remainder of my college years. For some reason, after college I dropped to 190lbs then 180lbs. I wasn't doing anything different but I was working in a paint store full time while I waited for a job in my chosen career to emerge. I guess slogging all those 50lb pails of paint along with my gym workout gave me an extra boost. Either way, by the time I left for Ottawa in mid 2005, I was a trim 180lbs. I can't remember the last time I weighed 180lbs; I was probably 14 and in my junior year of high school.
Actually, a "trim" 180lbs wouldn't be totally accurate considering the left over skin hanging off my belly. I'm sure that without it, I'd look pretty sweet naked. But when you've still got a spare tire, albeit a deflated spare tire, hanging around your waist and a pair of man boobs, you are far from sweet. A constant reminder that no matter what I do, how hard I try, the abuse I wrought on myself over the years will always be there and that I'll never look the way I want to.
Maybe your body just settles at a certain weight, like that's the weight it wants you to be at. That no matter how hard you try, in the end you're going to settle at a certain weight unless you're willing to eat like a bird for the rest of your life. And that, to me, is a real bitter pill to swallow. I eat better nowadays than I ever have. My fridge is full of fruit and veggies and I eat plenty of them. I drink zero calorie pop, zero calorie iced tea, 1% milk, light beer (when I decide to partake), and admittedly not enough water, but I've cut out all the juices I used to love, regular pop, Kool-Aid, basically most of the staples you'd find in a normal fridge. You won't find a bag of chips or any other snacking item of its like in my cupboards nor will you find chocolate (at least chocolate that I bought). My snacks are fruit, I don't eat much bread, potato or rice, I eat "good" cereals like Corn Flakes, Special K, All Bran Flakes forsaking my old standards of Fruit Loops, Count Chocula or whatever other junkie cereal I used to love. I buy Splenda instead of sugar. I buy lean cuts of meat and when we cook them, we don't coat them in high calorie sauces. Overall, I'm proud of how I eat and have been doing so for the last 10 months.
I changed up my workout schedule to help ensure I get there. For years, like most people, I went after work. Its not a bad time I suppose, you're still in full working mode so traversing from work to gym is fairly easy providing you don't stop. You may want to go home first, get changed, maybe a bite to eat before heading off but a lot can happen during that period. Some people find it hard to get back up once they've sat down and perhaps had a bite. Your mind realizes you're home and how comfortable you are.
"Surely you don't want to get back up, its so nice here. Let's stay awhile. Maybe you can catch Judge Judy or something on the tube," it might say.
I find the best way is to just go straight away. Bring your gear to work and take off from there. No intermission, no passing GO and collecting $200, no distractions. That's what I used to do. But then my life changed somewhat. Me and Red started living together. Her schedule starts much earlier than mine meaning that she needs to go to bed much earlier. Solution? Get up around the same time and hit the gym first thing in the morning. Shower, shave and off to the salt mines for another day. By 9pm, we're both ready for bed. It takes a bit more effort to get up a couple of hours earlier than I normally would, but at least I'm going 5 days a week. Some weeks I can't make it all 5 days due to an appointment or some other item that has come up but most weeks I do. Yes, I tell myself that I'll make up for it on the weekend by dropping in for an hour on Saturday or Sunday but I know its a lie. Just another one of those lies we tell ourselves to justify the guilt.
And what is it with this guilt? Why do I hate myself for missing the gym one day? Why do I loathe myself when I decide to have that bowl of cereal in the evening instead of another piece of fruit or even a cucumber? Or when I break down and pop some corn or have a couple pieces of Red's chocolate? Is that really such a crime? Do I not deserve to have a taste once in a while? Sometimes I wonder. Seems that everytime I do, I pay a price. I can't have junk around, its an aphrodisiac. It calls to me, lures me in and leaves me feeling horrible like that girlfriend you want so desperately yet you know she'll just break your heart again. And its not like I can just have a taste, it's like a drug, I need more then more. Clearly, portion control isn't part of my lexicon. That's not the way I roll.
Sure, the weight's coming off but its soooo slow. And every indiscretion, every hiccup puts me back a step. When I started getting serious again in September 2007, I was 226lbs. My goal was to be around 190lbs by the summer. That's a loss of 36lbs over 9 months or 4lbs a month. Not a hard goal I think. When I was first dieting and exercising a few years ago and peeling off the weight, I was losing about 10lbs a month. But I was hard core then. Now I'm just soft and fuzzy. Maybe I deserve to be 207lbs.
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