BREAKING UP WITH THE NUMBERS

Today I had a long talk with T about personal expectations and let downs which led me to make a decision about how I am going to track my progress from here on out. Well, at least for a while anyway. This all started behind measurement day. I have said since I started this journey that I am not stepping on the scale for a while.My rational behind this decision is that I do not want to get caught up in chasing the numbers. Instead we decided that I would track measurements monthly and chart my progress. That sounded like an excellent idea, especially when I took my second set of measurements and lost an astonishing 22.50 inches total body. I was so proud and motivated and felt like I was finally on the road to making good decision. Then it happened…month two…the month when things slow down. I measured myself Monday to find that I had only lost a total of 12.25 inches total body since last month. I know, I know, that is still great progress and I should be proud. As much as I tried to convince myself of that I still couldn’t shake the feeling of disappointment.

When it’s hard to see the physical changes you tend to cling to anything that will serve as evidence that what you are doing is working. Over the last 30 days I added one hour of kick boxing into my routine twice a week which brought my Tuesday and Thursday workouts up to 2 hours vs 1 hour. I also upped my intensity during my workouts and my breaks have gotten shorter and shorter. All of that combined with a pretty strict diet and the knowledge that “the heavier you are the quicker the weight falls off” made me feel like I should have lost so much more than I did. I then began to feel like I had failed by losing ONLY half of what I perviously did in the same amount of time the month before. That’s when T kind of pulled me back to reality. Yes, my inches lost decreased and yes I may need to change my routine a little to kick it back up, yet at the end of the day I still made progress. I am a step closer to my goals than I was last month.

When I started this journey I said I did not have a weight goal and that is mainly because I have been overweight for so long, I don’t know what these lower weights will look or feel like on me. My goal is to be able to live life with no preventable physical limitations. I want to walk far, hike, ride go carts with my kids, and go 4 wheeling without a second thought. The key to me achieving my goals is not a magic number on the scale or tape measure, it’s the time I put in increasing my activity and gaining strength. The more time I spend working on that the more capable I will become physically and the weight and inches will adjust accordingly. So today I am breaking up with my tape measure and instead focusing on my lifestyle change and being true to myself. Skinny is not the destination…healthy is.