Failure: it’s a good thing

Embrace failure. Yes, I just said embrace it!!!   Its a fact of life.  It’s going to happen, so why not embrace it and plan for it?    We start the year with resolutions but then face failure when we stumble.  We start a new plan or goal and then along the way encounter a bump in the road and experience failure.  It is bound to happen. And so many times when it does happen we throw up our hands and give up totally.  So for this reason, I am welcoming failure and upheaval this year!  I am embracing that it is going to happen!

What in the world am I talking about? I am saying that in no way shape or form am I aming for perfection in this journey that I am on.   It’s not a sustainable concept or mission on life for me and probably not for most people!  Life happens and life is definitely NOT perfect. So why do we expect our diet and health plans to always be perfect? 

I tried the perfect route before!  Over and over!  I’ve drawn lines in the sand and said ‘this is it’ time and time again!   I have also had incredible success with the “let’s be perfect route” on this healthy journey!  One look at these pictures and you can see the success!

I achieved that success with total restriction!  Seriously, I remember days where I would have a perfect day and get to the end of my day with some calories (ww points) still left and I would reward myself...with a small glass of grape juice!  Seriously?  Grape juice as a reward???   I was striving for perfection.

While perfection DID work...it wasn’t sustainable!!!  Just look at my current picture and that is proven!!!

What happened????  Life happened!!!  I reached my goals and felt so amazing...but life happened.  I went on vacation    I had busy days at work.  I had a crumbling marriage.  Injuries.  You name it...but to sum it up...life happened!!  And perfection wasn’t as easily or even possible to achieve and I stumbled...I stumbled big time!

This time around I’m allowing and even accepting failure.  It will happen.  So why not embrace it and figure out ways to keep failure at a minimum?  But how??

The main thing is that  I’m not setting any major goals in terms of weight I will lose each week/month/year.  My goal for January was to be less on the scales.   If that was one measly ounce...awesome it would be less!!!   I’m committed to tracking every bite I eat!   With such easy and loose ‘goals’, I’m allowing for failure! I can eat what I want....I just have to track it!    Somehow the simple act of tracking my food works for me in that being cognizant and aware of the food going into my mouth has made me very willing to keep it under control and stay within a set caloric range!   But the freedom of not vowing to stay within that range and having to lose weight gives me the freedom to be completely honest with myself when it comes to tracking.  I don’t ‘forget’ to put in something that I ate.  I don’t ‘accidentally’ misjudge my portion sizes.  I just put it down in black and white and it’s ok if I fail for the day.  Ironically enough...on Monday I was sure I went over that range of calories...but I was determined to be utterly honest and track it regardless!  I allowed myself the room for ‘failure’ in my eating....I embraced the fact that I will falter.  And by embracing it, I took away the ‘I messed up’ mentality and turned it into a complete victory!!!   

As a side note, I was sure I totally blew my numbers on Monday.  But  when I did go in and track...even though I messed up, I found that I was really not that far off ...maybe 30 calories over!!   How many times have I given up and gone off track for days or even weeks and months in the past because I thought that I had blown it by eating too much??  It has happened over and over because I wanted and expected perfection  and when perfection didn’t happen (even just in my mind) I gave up in disgusted failure!   But how many times could it have been like Monday where I was sure I messed up and if I just would have tracked found that I was actually doing well???  This time I embraced the possibility of failure and found that I really didn’t fail at all!!!

Embrace it...because failure WILL happan!  

Rockin’ the first week of the year!

The first week of January is just about over, and the first weekend of the year is in the books.   We have had a pretty good start...thus far!

I am doing really well with tracking my food and while my goal is NOT to worry about my calories (this month at least)...I am finding that since I am tracking I am more open and apt to keeping my calories beneath a set level.   Unofficially I am working to stay between 1200 calories and 1500 calories.  Why that range?  1200 has always been the ‘magical’ figure that is used in weight loss as the lowest to go and that would theoretically give me a two pound loss each week.   1500 calories is theoretically causing a deficit that would allow me to lose one pound a week.  That is still a nice loss.  (Yes, I unashamedly admit that I would like the faster loss...but I also know that I want this to work and be a forever deal.....1200 calories is very restrictive and will eventually cause me to stumble.  1500 calories is more doable!). So I have been staying within my range...admittedly at the higher end on many days....but I’m there!!!

We had a quiet weekend.  Saturday started with me meeting a friend for breakfast. Of course I sent Jason a selfie and some texts whilst out with her!!! (Waiting for her to arrive.)

After breakfast she and I walked through target. (I needed a new band for my Fitbit!). I saw this journal...and I was so tempted to get it....but I knew I wouldn’t use it....it wasn’t blank inside..it was preprinted for fitness and would be redundant with me posting here!  But still I was tempted...the $17.99 price tag deterred me!

After my breakfast outing, (food tracked of course) Jason and I ran some errands and we went to a local park to allow him to fly his drone.   It was a quiet and relaxing day.

 On Saturday...more of the same.  I however started my day by sleeping on the couch for an hour or two in the morning.  We ran into a few stores (For me, dollhouse supplies to make a new crib for the nursery!) We also hit  up a local trail and hiked for a while.  It was short but hey...I’ve been sick and still not completely well!  

It was a muddy hike (the trail was a muddy mess...bad enough to sink 2-3 inches in some places and for my foot to get stuck once!).  

After our hike, we gassed up my car for the work week ahead of us and headed to the park for our drone flying time!  It was windy so the batteries ran down pretty quick!!!  Booo!  But it was still fun!

We spent the evening planning and plotting our vacation this year.   The more it’s planned and ‘definite’ the more motivated I will be to get into shape. 

The new week is upon me...and so far I am rocking this new year!   I just need to get rid of this congestion and I’ll be on fire!!!!!

13 years and Counting: A blogiversary

How crazy is it that I have been writing about weight loss (and sadly enough gain) for 13 years!  (This weekend is the actual anniversary day.)  It has been a wild ride for sure...I have had amazing success and suffered setbacks and failures.  This is my journey and I have learned a lot and continue to learn a lot about weight loss AND myself.

So here is a thirteen year in review and some lessons learned along the way post.   (If you have been reading a while, you may recognize part of this post as a blatant steal from a blogiversary post a few years ago...I couldn’t say it any better so I copied and updated!!).  I have struggled with taking pictures of myself along the way.....a regret of mine.  (pictures are SO important on this journey) so the pictures are somewhat sparse in the earlier years of my journey!

I started this blog as a heavily overweight woman.  Here is a picture or two from that time....or rather, these pictures were taken December 2005....the closest pictures of myself I could find to the 10 year anniversary of this blog.   I was probably right around 260 pounds at this time....and had already lost roughly 50 pounds.

Not easy to see........

But I had a mission.  I was going to lose the weight.  I sadly, was losing the weight for the wrong reasons.....NEVER lose weight to try to make someone love you the way you want to be loved.  They need to love you for you and not the number on the scale or the size of your body.  It took me quite a few years to figure that lesson out. 

Right or wrong reasons, I started working  diligently on this weight thing!!!! I walked.  I rode my bike. I became a collector of exercise videos and I actually used them....EVERY DAY!     I watched everything I ate.....and guess what?   It worked!   I can see my face had started thinning out in this picture.

By mid 2007 my weight was lower than ever and I was feeling fantastic!!!!  I wasn't done  I kept moving!  I kept working it!  And the weight just kept dropping!!!

By 2008 I had reached my goal weight (as prescribed by my doctor).   Oh my word.  I can't even describe how fabulous I felt.   I was on top of the world.  I had never felt that well physically as an adult.   My arthritis in my knees all but disappeared.  I felt confident.  I just can't describe how life was...I just felt GREAT! (Size 10 shorts in the picture below..my lowest size)

I even managed to make it to be a lifetime member at Weight watchers!!!!!!  GO me!!!!!!!

I still had some weight to lose.  I was still about 15 pounds over where the BMI charts told me that I needed to be in order to be healthy.  I pushed..and pushed.   Family and friends started to worry about me and told me that my face looked gaunt and started asking if I was sick.  I knew I wasn't.  But I still struggled with self image.  I never saw myself as a thin person.  So I pushed forward.  But I can NOW see how my face was SOOOOO thin!  

It was shortly after this picture that I realized that losing the weight in an effort to make my husband love me the way I needed to be loved was NOT working.  My marriage was still on the rocks, and nothing I was doing was working  (I had tried everything...not just a massive weight loss!).  I stopped caring about my weight....after all the purpose for losing weight had crumbled and proved to be ineffective. Ok, I still wanted to be thin, but I didn't want to bother with watching everything.  I didn't want to worry about the work it would take to complete my mission.  I started to slip.  

In 2009 I had done something I said I would NEVER do.....allow my weight to creep back above 200 pounds.    

By the way...I don't like the weird mouth thing going on...but my hair was AWESOME in this picture!!!    In 2009 I met a blog buddy for the first  and we rode Girls with Gears!!! What a fabulous experience and what a fabulous friend!!  I was about 210 pounds.  

Donna and I had so much fun doing the Girls with Gears Bike ride that we decided to do Pedal to Preserve the same year.  You can see that I gained weight between these two rides...two short months.  My hair was still awesome though!!!

I vowed over and over to stop the weight gain.  But I'm ashamed to say that it kept creeping up and up.

I took steps to try to eliminate the weight.  I just struggled.  I rode in Pedal to Preservethe following year, 2010  (I have no pictures of me doing it)   I had gained even more.     

I never gained everything back as evidenced in this 2011 or 2012 picture. But I had done some serious weight gain!

My salvation during this time was that I never stopped exercising.  I still rode my bike.  I had started going to zumba religiously.  I was still moving  and being active.  I was just gaining.  Weight is lost in the kitchen....NOT the gym and I was/am living proof!

In 2013  I decided to start losing weight for ME.  I didn't care what anyone else thought.  This was a mission for ME.   My weight started to drop again.  I was well on my way.   Things were looking GRAND for me and my weight loss.  I was featured in a newspaper article talking about my weight loss.  I had this in the bag I was on my way back to my goal weight!!!!!

Yup.....a picture from the article.  Not the grandest picture...but it was out there for the world to see.

Remember when I said I 'had this'?   I thought I did.  But my already crumbling marriage took a blow that no marriage should EVER have to endure.....and I lost my focus again.

I'd like to say that I got that focus back.  But I didn't. Once again I kept moving.  I was running.  I was going to zumba.  I was riding my bikes.  I was walking.  But the weight was not coming off. 

I ran in 5K's and even a few 10K's and the weight just wasn't dropping......

 In mid 2014 I started to lose weight again.......

Then my life changed drastically.  My marriage ended....and I finally admitted to the world what I had known for years!      Life was upside down and I still couldn't get a grip on it...but I kept moving!!!!  I kept pushing....but gained again. 

2015 was rough for my weight.  I regained what I lost in 2014.....maybe I needed the year to come to terms with where I was in life.  My life had turned upside down in so many ways.  I had to come to terms with being single.  I had to come to an understanding with the dating world (wow.....just wow). I had to figure out where I stood in this world.  And my weight suffered.

It took quite a bit of time....but in October of 2015  it  clicked and I got back on track.  AND....I met Jason!

I was in amazing shape.  We hiked mountains 

 And then we started to ride bikes together!

We weree on FIRE!

And then we both switched jobs in 2017. The evening walks got a lot shorter due to our long commutes.  The weekend rides and hikes happened less and were shorter also due to the lingering tiredness from the long work weeks.   We still moved...but not as much and it started to show in my weight.  I started to gain!

2018 rolled around and I was so sure I was going to be successful.  But the year turned out to be me maintaining my weight but  losing some of my fitness levels.  I saw it happening and just lacked the willpower to stop the train.  I DID buy a new bike and plan on using that new bike in 2019 to get healthy!

See, I told you...it was a journey!   It IS a journey.  It is emotional to write and read this.  It is hard to see some aspects of the journey.  But I am in awe at the journey.  I am amazed to see the confidene on my face when I was a thin woman.  It is definitely torture to see the weight creep back on and my continual lack of change.  But through it all I an see the value of the effort.

This journey has shaped me into the person that I am right now!   I am now making this journey PERSONAL.  This weight loss is for ME!  This journey is because I want to live a long and active and healthy life!    I am in control of the next chapter of this book.  I can write it as a overweight woman or I can write it as a healthy woman.  The choice is mine!   Stay tuned!