DOWN 40LBS SINCE 8/30
Word. Finally got my shit together. Giving myself a little room this weekend. Then back at it. Would love to get 50 by 12/31.
It's easy to see myself at 300 pounds and realize that dude is not me. The hard part is really trying to figure out where I belong. I know that I am still carrying a lot of extra weight. I would love to lose another 50 pounds. That would put me around 180, a good weight for a stockier, athletic build at my height.
The danger is that dude who is looking back at me in the mirror right now is within 15 pounds of his weight in high school, thinner than all but the first semester of his freshman year of his college version, thinner than all but the first semester of his law school version and thinner than all dates 2007-present.
Now that I've taken some of the power back in the battle over my weight, I need to find a way to re-dedicate myself to seeing this through to my goal. Complacency is well ablaze in these parts (both on my blog and with a lot that I follow). Also, I've noticed that a lot of people that I follow are either: (1) no longer actively losing weight; or (2) are runners/triathletes that are not weight loss bloggers.
I would love to follow some folks who still have their eyes on the weight loss prize. Now that Ben has Brooke and his books, and the original crew has reached their goals and ran their marathons, I've hit a bit of a lull in terms of finding great blogs to follow.
Suggestions welcome.
To Weigh In Or Not To Weigh In
It's always been a hot-button issue around here: to weigh in, or not to weigh in. A lot of people that I respect say throw out the scale, hide it, forget about it and find some other, healthier way to measure yourself. In a big picture sense, I get it. Adopting a healthier lifestyle makes you healthier, not becoming a Pavlovian weigh-in machine. The problem for me, I guess, is that the people espousing the "ditch-the-scale" mentality are those who: (1) have already lost their weight; or (2) have little weight to lose.
To be honest, I find myself weighing in every few days, after a bad meal, after a night of drinking, after I had those two spoonfuls of ice cream or a high-sodium day. I weigh in before a run, after a run, at the gym, at home, at any scale I can find, before a swim, after a swim. It's always there. I do it under the guise of a fact-gathering mission, claiming that I'm trying to learn about how food and exercise affects my weight on a day-to-day basis, but it's clear that all I'm looking for is reassurance...
Reassurance that if I'm doing the "right" things that progress will be had. Reassurance that if I slip up that all my hard work is not undone.
Long story short, I'm not sure how to find that short-term reassurance without the scale.