I have been overweight my whole life. Seriously. I was born 13 pounds 12 oz and it just went up from there, so I have been trying to drop some of my weight for a long long time. Since High school there has been a lot of working on exercise more, or eating better working to just drop the excess. A lot of that had to do with timetables, and calculations. If I can keep a steady pace of loosing X pounds a week for X weeks I will hit my goal at such and such a time in the future. This often turned into weird math where I would figure at a constant rate of change, by such and such a date I should be at X weight which would coincide with a particular holiday or festival or something.
Therein lied the problem. Any rate, no matter how much we want it to be stays the same. This week may be a drop of 5 pounds, next week 1. Over time it is easy to start out ahead, then when the curve hits and I am now 5 pounds behind my goal rate, it is easy to get frustrated, discouraged, and "take a break". Unfortunately the breaks last longer than I wanted, so 2 days becomes 3 then a week. Next thing I know, clothes are fitting tighter and I am upset because I let myself slide.
This week everything changed for me. All it took was a new perspective. What if, it was not about a timetable, what if it was about making healthy choices. What did it matter if I reached my goal in 52 weeks or 104 if I got there? What if I gave myself enough room for it all to be OK, as long as I was working on it with some diligence? The answer I found was that all of it was OK. For years, when I was on it, I pushed hard, VERY hard. Instead of walking a mile a day to get started I pushed it to 5 a day. Instead of slowing down what I was eating, I dropped off a lot, really really quick. What it meant was that I got burned out quickly.
This week it became OK to be where I was, and to be working where I was to get where I wanted to be. Do I have to loose 10 pounds in 2 weeks? No, especially if it does not stay off. Is it OK if I keep on it, loose nothing this week, stay on my plan, next week only loose 1 but am staying consistent on exercise and eating right? You betcha. The key is the long game. Not what can I loose this week, but where is the overall trend? Not what can I lift today, but am I working towards my goals to my own satisfaction? Can I push harder? Yes, Am I likely to get warn out? You betcha. The key is little steps for an end game, not huge ones now, only to back track, and fall further behind.
I have been at my current weight before. 5 years ago, on my 28th birthday, I weighed what I thought was a lot. In truth, it was 5 pounds under where I am now. For years, I had a picture of me from my 28th birthday, on things to motivate me into a perspective of "never again". In September of last year, I was up to 30 pounds over that "Never Again weight". This time it is different.
Since June I am down almost 15 pounds. Using my FitBit I started with a goal of 10,000 steps a day which turned into 12,000 then 14,300, then 15,000 really quickly. I am finding that it is harder to hit 15 consistently, so instead of just calling it a day, I am working to hit it when I am behind. It is not every day, but a few times a week. What dictates it is how much I get at work, or on the way home. Instead of saying hey, I hit it 3 times last week lets move the bar, I am looking at saying lets hit the bar a few weeks in a row, then move it up. Again, consistent will get me there a lot better than pushing hard, getting burned out, falling backwards, then trying again in a few weeks or months.
The big takeaway here is that the adjustment, the one thing that changed in the last week is the need to be X by X. In the past a lot of my goals were set around the calendar. If by Christmas I am X then I get such and such for Christmas. If I am such and such by the state fair, then I get a new belt. Instead of: This year, at the fair I am buying a new belt from the good belt guy at the fair. Instead of: By August X I will have lost X weight so will get new work pants, it becomes When I can't cinch my pants anymore and need new ones, I will get new ones. What it means is the rewards can be bigger but they are not tied to a particular week, or month but instead, when I hit it, I do, and at that point I get such and such reward. if it is in 3 weeks, awesome, if it is in 3 months, that is OK too. What matters is keeping with it, not turning back before I reach the goal, and knowing that it is OK to go slow, if it means reaching it instead of running hard, and then not having anything left to keep up the long game. What matters is the destination, not how quickly I get there.
