Weight: 151.2
I'm going to keep on blogging.
It was easy to know what to blog about during my 12 week challenge; mostly, I blogged about the challenge of staying true to my challenge.
It was easy to blog throughout 2012, as I was struggling to lose 74 pounds and get fit. That is a struggle many people identify with and the day-in-day-out challenge of staying on program was significant. Blogging kept me close to course.
Like so many of us, I find it incredibly difficult to maintain a healthy weight. I have identified 150 pounds as my healthy weight. When I started this blog several years ago I carried 224 pounds on my 5'6" frame. I was depressed and frustrated. I knew I needed to lose a lot of weight and I knew how hard it would be to stay the course. I decided to see if blogging about it would help. As it turns out, blogging was a game changer. The desire to report good news was highly motivating to me. I wanted to put up a post each day that said yesterday I ate right and exercised and today I weigh less because of it. It was not uncommon for my fear of having to post a higher weight the next day to keep me from eating something off program.
July 29th, 2016, was the last day of my 12 Week Challenge which I designed to demonstrate to myself how much difference exercise makes. My commitment was to exercise 6 days a week and eat on-program every day for 12 weeks, with the goal of trying to lose 13 pounds, bringing me back to 150 pounds (which would become my permanent weight), and to get back in shape. I decided to take photos every week so I would have photographic proof of the difference exercise makes.
I now have that proof and it is astonishing. I still stare at the photos in awe. I inspire myself! I inspire myself so much that when I can't get out of bed in the morning to exercise I visualize those photos and I think to myself, "I want to be like that woman!" It gets me out of bed and to my weight room!
I quit blogging not too long after I reached my goal weight of 150 pounds in 2013. I didn't know what to talk about anymore. I felt like my posts were boring and repetitive. To me, they no longer served a purpose. Earlier this year, when I knew I needed to kick myself in the rear and get back in gear, I started to think about blogging again. It helped so much during 2012, would it help again? The answer is a resounding yes! Since I have started blogging again I have had several people ask me to keep it up. They find it inspiring. One of the common comments I get is that it inspires them to read about the struggles of a regular woman with a high pressure job and a family and all of the other distractions of every day life and see that she can maintain the consistency needed to get fit. They see themselves in my real life day-to-day struggles.
One of my challenges with blogging once the weight is gone is that it is not quite as much fun to put up blog posts that don't show progress towards a goal. My intention is to weigh 150 for life. I intend to start every blog post with my weight. That seems boring, doesn't it? Who cares if I weigh 150.4 or 151.2 or 149.8 (wouldn't that be cool?)? Probably no one. I care. But even I know that a pound or two above or below 150 is insignificant. What is significant about my weight, now that I am no longer overweight? I guess that is the significance, I am no longer overweight. Over the years, if I do manage to keep blogging, this blog is going to naturally drift to other topics. By posting my weight first every single day, I will remind myself and anyone that reads this blog, that this is, first and foremost, a blog that started as a tool to help me get healthy and fit, so that I could enjoy this second half of my life. I need to use this blog as a tool stay healthy, fit and trim; just as I used it as a tool to get to this point. I am going to keep on blogging.
The title of this blog is, "It's Not Downhill From Here." As a reminder, that title is a reference to the fact that I started this blog when I was 49 years old, 74 pounds overweight, and determined to get healthy so that I could enjoy the second half of my life. On my 50th birthday it was clear to me that I had lived through the hardest half of my life and that the second half of my life was full of potential. I looked forward and could see all of the hills out there that I had not yet climbed and they beckoned me. Come and get it, they said. We're here, what are you waiting for? I knew, that day, on May 3, 2012, that I wasn't done. I was nowhere near ready to sit on my ass and start sliding downhill. I had a lot of umph left in me and I wanted to see the view from the next hilltop. I'm not much of a fan of the view from the valley, I much prefer the view from a hilltop, or even the flat prairie. There is so much more to see.
It's not downhill from here. There is so much to do, so much to see, so many people to meet, so much to experience, so much love to give. I am excited about today and tomorrow. I'm not going to say I have no regrets. Of course I do. But, in spite of my regrets, in spite of the mistakes I've made, I am going to keep on truckin' and I am going to keep on blogging. Yes, I am looking forward to tomorrow. Why the hell not? Tomorrow is coming, ready or not. I'm going to do my damnedest to be ready for it!!
Have a good one out there! I hope wherever you are, it's a beautiful day!
No comments:
Post a Comment