Mile Marker 7

Pressure. It can make you or break you. At the beginning of this journey (exactly 7 months ago) I was using the pressure as a constant motivator. I knew people had high expectations of me, the Biggest Loser had higher expectations, and most importantly I had the highest expectations of myself. Just having come off the contest, knowing how many people were rallying for me to do well at this journey made it unbelievably easy for me to change my habits completely. If you look back at my earliest blog posts, you can see the determination in my writing. I quit eating sugar altogether, focused on my water intake, put more fruits and veggies into my daily diet, and spent lots of time preparing my weekly meals. I woke up at 5am before work every day to get my exercise in early. I made sure and had dinner before 6pm every night and did an evening exercise to keep my metabolism going throughout the night. With dedication like that, it’s no wonder I lost 55 pounds! I was riding high and feeling fantastic.

I miss that.

At some point along the way, the pressure changed. I started to feel guilty for not updating my blog or facebook page enough. My eating began to change as I added sugar back into my lifestyle. Exercise became a chore so I slowed it down. Life got in the way and I decided that I was tired. Tired of constantly pushing myself. Though it had been the best time of my life in feeling healthy, the numbers began to come off more slowly than they had at the beginning. I knew that would happen and mentally prepared myself for it! But when it came down to it, I was still so frustrated that I just wanted to give up. Eating whatever I want may not make me feel better but it’s easier. I wanted easy.

The thing about that though… I’m not a quitter. Not now when I’ve come so far.

A year from now when I look back at the months of July and August and see how lazy I let myself get, I’m going to remember it as the only dark time in my weight loss journey. If I allow myself to crumble under this pressure, then I haven’t really changed myself. The woman that began this journey is still here. She just got tired.

I try to think of this process as a long walk. It starts out fast and forceful, leaving everyone behind in the dust. Old ways are forgotten because you’re excited to get where you’re going. As you go on you begin to slow down. Hills pop up and the climb makes you tired. You reach the peak of a hill and are thrilled by how far you’ve come but you’re exhausted. You just want to take a moment of rest. Once you sit, it’s hard to get back up. But you sit and know that if you don’t get back up, you’ll never get where you’re going. You’ll stay stuck in that holding place until you force yourself to stand.

Well… I’m standing. From this moment until I reach my goal, I will not let anything overtake me. The rest was nice and sure, maybe even necessary but my time is up. I NEED to be near my goal weight by January. I have a life to live and it can’t really start until I make this happen! So here’s the new goal. Between now, September 3^rd and when I leave for the Biggest Loser on December 2^nd, I WILL lose 30 more pounds. That averages to about 10 pounds a month. Prior to my break, I was losing about 8 a month. It’s completely doable if I’m diligent. If I fight. I often complain about lack of time and energy. Well, it’s time to suck it up and stop making excuses for myself. If I don’t ever make time, I will never have the time.

One of the things that stressed me the most about my “rest” was that I was terrified of gaining weight back. After all my hard work, I knew that I may have just blown it and taken steps backwards. Thank the Lord, He knew I needed help. By some miracle, when I weighed myself for the first time in a month, I hadn’t gained! I hadn’t lost either but the important thing is that I didn’t move backward. I was just stalled. So I’m happy to report these stats for you all:

August 2^nd: 255 lbs

September 2^nd: 255 lbs

NO GAIN!!! That’s something to celebrate! For a girl who started at over 300, that’s pretty incredible actually.

So with this new goal in mind, instead of setting a certain number to hit for the month I’m just going to take each monthly loss away from my total of 30 pounds between now and December.

Goal:

September 2^nd: 255 lbs

December 2^nd: 225 lbs

Lets do this thing.