I dropped a pound yesterday. I was happy with that, but there was a teensy little voice in my head saying “That’s all? Really? You worked out 6 days more than you did last week and you only lost a pound??” I try to be grateful for what I have, so I just kept telling that voice to shut up. This morning I got on the scale again. Two more pounds…GONE! That’s right, peeps…look at the weight loss ticker over there on the right. 25 pounds are gone for good, never to touch my ass again. Shut UP!!!

Today I rest. Yesterday was the last day of Seven Days of Sanity!!

The Seven Days of Sanity challenge was fun & interesting to me – even though I never made up the second playlist for my iPod that I wanted. (Guess what I’ll be doing today? Playlist!) Still, it felt great to take action against one of my issues and to be motivated to work on it…and to have so many of you join me!

I rolled my ankle in the parking garage at work and had to skip one night – but I still did 6 more work outs than I did the week before, so I call this a solid win. I fully intend to pick this right up again tomorrow – but I did stumble on a little bit of a problem this week. The shoes that I work out in, which I get fitted for at runner’s stores, are almost 3 years old. I really need new shoes. There is no more “cush” to the ones I have. I have foot pain every day right now – and if I try to do another 6 days straight, I’m sure I’m going to end up with an injury I’m all too familiar with: a stress fracture. I’ve had 4 in the last 6 years and I’m not too keen on the idea of getting another one.

 

Even when I was a 125 pound dancer, I had foot problems. Years later, I’ve had countless wraps, braces, injections, casts, and even a surgery. I’m sure my feet hate me even more now that I weigh over 300 pounds. Unfortunately for my feet, I have to use them in order to lose weight. They’re going to have to deal with some of it, but I also have to be a little careful. A stress fracture will land me in a soft cast for 6 – 8 weeks and I won’t be walking at all.

I’m sure many of you can relate to this, but it’s not in our budget for me to get new shoes right this minute. I’ll be able to get them within the next 3 weeks, but until then I’m going to modify my Sanity Plan. 🙂 The new temporary plan is 30 minutes on the treadmill, every other day. When I get my new shoes, I’ll go back to 6 days, rest on 7.

Anyway…25 pounds GONE!! That feels awesome! I’m half way back to the 50 pounds I lost in 2009 right before I pulled a Ross & Rachel on myself and “went on a break”. Ugh. Dumbest mistake I ever made. When I lose that 50 pounds, we are gonna PARTY! I’ll feel like I redeemed myself in a way.

I’m starting to recognize that I handle myself a certain way as I move through each set of tens. (Y’all know I’m breaking the task of losing 219 pounds down into 10 pound increments.) Each pound has a meaning of its own…and I’m starting to see a pattern emerge.

Let’s start at the beginning when I weighed my top weight of 381 pounds. I felt horrible. I was angry with myself and felt like a failure, but I started eating healthy because I knew I had no other choice. Self-disgust was my motivator.

I hit 379. I was no longer in the 380’s and hoped that I never would be again. I wasn’t sure, honestly. I’ve done this many times before – but I really hoped I would never see the 380’s again. Seeing 379 was a big step in the right direction and it gave me momentum to tackle 377, 376, and 375. When I hit 375, I realized I was in the middle of the tens. Things were juuuuust starting to feel like they were dragging when I hit 375. Realizing I was half way through the tens made it bearable and I got to 374, then 373…and I started to smell victory. 🙂 369 was reachable. I was motivated again and made it to 372 and bulldozed my way to 369. Holy crap! 369.

Things would feel like a chore once in a while, but I kept reminding myself that I had no choice. Sure, you can argue that I do have a choice: I can keep working on this or I can slip on some stretchy pants and go for pizza, but the latter is not even a choice for me. I’ve done it a million times, I know what happens when I do it, and I’m just not even interested in playing that game with myself. No choice at all.

I got to 368 and felt….eh. Big deal. I’ve done this. I want more. 367…366…ugh. Then I got to 365. I hit the middle again! I knew I was on the cusp of sliding down the good side, so I kept my chin up. Self-disgust was no longer my motivator, seeing 359 on the scale was. After lecturing my scale and shoving it against the Hot Mess Hubby’s table saw for good measure, I budged the scale all the way to 359. Another set of tens.

Looking back, when I hit 379 I felt only a budding sense of hope that I would never see 381 again. When I hit 359, I started to believe.

Now I’m at 356. I’m just one pound away from the middle of the tens again…and I’m ready to push through the next 2 pounds so that I can feel the thrill of seeing 354 on the scale. 354 is more than halfway through the tens…almost to 352…which is just a hair’s breath from 350. And you know what’s next, right? 349.

 

This is how I make such a tremendous goal manageable. If I look at this as 219 pounds to lose, I know I’ll fail. Instead, I keep it in the back of my head and away from my every thought. It pops up when I get dressed in ugly plus sized clothes in the morning, when I look in the mirror to put my make-up on, and when I walk into any room full of people. It’s always back there lurking, but it doesn’t have to control me. If I let it in too much, it makes me afraid…it makes me discouraged…and I want to quit.

This is not unlike the feeling I had when I was learning to ride a bike. You know that moment that comes when your Dad stops pushing you and you realize he’s let go of the bike and you’re…you’re…you’re riding! You’re riding a bike!! OMG, I’m riding my bike by myself!!!! (CRASH)

I’m afraid of that crash. The big difference is that I’m no longer riding my beloved pink bike with the super cool banana seat & sparkly streamers on the handle bars. I have more control over whether I fall off this bike – however, there is much more at risk than a couple of skinned knees.

When I was a kid, riding my bike was scary when I was learning. Crashes were scary and painful – especially if there wasn’t an obliging patch of grass nearby. But the thrill of the ride put me back up on my bike again. I wanted to be a “big kid”. I wanted to ride to my friends’ houses and explore the neighborhood. I wanted to go. My desire to do all those things was bigger than the fear crashing and scraping my knees and hands. The thrill of riding was my goal and fear wasn’t big enough to stop me.

There is no thrill in weighing 381 pounds. Technically, there’s no thrill in weighing 356 pounds either – but there is for me. For today. Today, I’m thrilled to weigh 356 pounds. Today, I have a little spring in my step and I’m feeling a little bad ass. By tonight, I will be imagining what it will be like to see 354 on the scale…soon, it will be 349.

Imagine where I would be if I was focused on hitting my goal weight of 155 pounds instead. I would already be discouraged – and maybe even already defeated. I’ve worked so hard and I’ve given up so much and I’m only at 356? I need to be at 155…holy crap, this is going to take forever. I can’t do this. I don’t even want to do this. It’s not worth it. Pass me the effing Twinkies.

Nothing makes me more proud to than to tell you I feel nothing like that. Nothing.

This is how I get through it. By the tens. And right there around the *68 – *66 stage, when I feel like throwing my hands up and giving up, I remember where the road behind me leads. It’s not fun back there. I have no interest in repeating history, I only want to ride farther.

I am so happy and grateful to weigh 356 pounds – and even though I have to get up in the morning and look at a fat face in the mirror, put on ugly fat clothes to go to work, and have step onto the treadmill with already sore feet…I don’t care. The pain and embarrassment of being so overweight and the fear of failure on the road ahead are simply not enough to scare me away from my goal.

All I want to do is get on my bike and ride. Pink streamers and all.