Badass or Big Buffoon

Monday marks seventeen and a half years that I have been writing about my efforts to lose weight.    Wow, just writing that makes me feel like an old timer!   I have had success but I have had a lot of failure, yet I continue to write.  Does that make me bad ass or a buffoon?  I mean, it could go both ways.  And how I feel about my weight loss journey vacillates between the two options.  

The Argument for Buffoon

 How many times have I restarted this weight loss journey? Yet I’m no closer to the end result.  I remain full of desire to lose this weight and regain a healthy life, yet I fail time and time again.  It is rather embarrassing to keep writing about failure after failure, yet the buffoon in me keeps writing about my downfalls and my defeats.  

Plans have been plentiful.  I will count all my habits and assign points to them.   I will follow a plan for intermittent fasting.    I will ride my bike 2022 miles in 2022. There is always a new plan to make myself healthy.  The fact that I have to come up with a new plan so frequently points to buffoon, because a new plan indicates that my previous umpteen plans have failed. 

The Argument for Badass

I honestly sometimes think that the sheer longevity of this blog is enough to make me badass.   The numerous posts show that I never gave up.   I haven’t let failures slow me down on my weight loss efforts.   I am not a failure, because I never quit…I’m badass.  

While there have been failures, I have also had successes!  I did manage to complete my 2021 miles in 2021, and I did it a few months early!  I have run 5k’s and 10k’s.   I have ridden a mountain bike on trails that terrify me!  I have had periods of high success with my efforts.  I’ve done amazing things! I have been a badass!

Badass or Buffoon

I guess the answer lies in my feelings on each individual day.  Some days I will wear the title of buffoon while I write about a failure once again.  But other days I will feel like a total badass as I conquer some trail, or challenge or see the scales showing me down a pound or two.   That is part of this rollercoaster journey of weight loss and I will just have embrace the feelings as they come, even while striving to ensure that there are more and more badass days and fewer buffoon days!

April weight loss recap: never give up

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Well I can’t seem to get it right!  I posted march’s recap a few days early. And here it is May 3 and I am just getting around to posting the recap for April, so I’m a few days late.   Maybe I will hit May spot on!!! April was a mixed bag of success and failure in my weight loss efforts!  I took steps to be more healthy but I also struggled in a few areas!  I learned more about myself during the month.  But the most important thing, I never gave up!!! 

So let’s look at the monthly goals

1. Track every bite of food!    I tracked my food.  There were a few days that I was so tempted to not track, but I went back and tracked it each and every time!
2.  Put money into my savings. Done
3.  Weight less than I do now!  I don't care if it's a measly ounce...I want to weigh less!   I actually managed a 3.2 pound loss this month.  Not spectacular.  Not deserved.  But appreciated!
4.  Do something active (a walk suffices) at least 3 times a week. I did great with walking on my lunch breaks!  I didn’t walk every day, but I hit a LOT of days!  We also did some after work bike rides (not many but a few) and most weekends managed to be active both days.

5. Keep my eating in check for at least 6 days a week. I was over my goal range of calories 9 days of the month.  Only one day did I go over 2000 calories.  (And if I add in exercise that number goes down to only ) days did I eat over my goal range!).  I had a week where I ate a bit more than I wanted...and a weekend of food feeding frenzy!   I definitely need to bring this back into check and lower the amount of ‘over days’.

7.  Walk at least an average of 5 k steps a day... I managed this!  The lunch time walks really helped...and the hikes on the weekend made up for the days that I didn’t walk on my lunch!  I’m aiming for the 5k again this month..but I may try to beef up that number in coming months!!!

Proof of lunchtime walks!

So while I managed most of my goals, I am not counting it as a stellar month of success.  I had some slip ups with my eating and my exercise is still not where I want it.  But all in all I am counting it as a success!

A while back I was interested in intermittent fasting, I explained it a bit in this post.  I did it for a while and then just kind of fell off the bandwagon.  I had a day or two that I was ravenous in the morning! So I started to eat breakfast and just never stopped again.  Well, one morning this week I got to work and somehow forgot to eat my morning breakfast of a banana.  (I typically don’t like to eat right after I wake up so I throw an extra piece of fruit in my lunch box and eat that when I get to work).  I didn’t miss it!  It made me start to think about why I’m eating that banana in the morning.  I found that I’m eating it out of habit...not because I’m hungry!   I have just naturally stopped eating that piece of fruit...I just don’t want it.  I have packed a fig bar  (Amazon affiliate link....I find the big boxes at Costco also!) in my lunch that I can eat should I get that ravenous feeling...because when I get like that, I tend to gorge on all sorts of things throughout the day!  So I am back to intermittent fasting!  I am aiming for the 16:8 method again.  I’m not going to be religiously anal about it....but I am going to see how it goes!  So far I feel great!

So there you have it.  The recap for April AND the last  epiphany in the month of April!  I had some success in my weight loss journey.  I had some failure in my weight loss journey.  I had some revelations in my weight loss journey.   I am still alive and kicking and I plan on making May a great month for my quest to get healthy and fit!!