March 30th, 2012: Still another pound gained, and now I explain what I will do about it.
I am 292 pounds today, which seems to fit what could be a disturbing trend. However, if you’re a daily weigher, and you do any statistics with that, or track it, it’s actually not a big deal at all, you could fit a trend line to my weight curve and see that, yeah, I’ll get there. It’s all good and I’ll continue to fight.
My body and I are writing our own story about the weight-loss journey. It would be quite boring if it was always the same thing. A week of gains every now and then just adds some flavor to the end product. I guess. Every time I write shit like that I know I’m still trying to absorb it, process it, and move on without letting it get past the surface. It still aggravates the BeJesus outta me to sacrifice, yet go in the opposite direction of where the sacrifice is supposed to take me. It’s kind of like practicing something and getting worse and worse at it. However, as I’ve stated ad nauseam, I designed this program a long time ago with the understanding that I have to keep the faith in trying times. Scientifically, it can’t not work. I do not know how to perform photosynthesis on myself, and thus, convert the sun’s energy into mass, which I would then convert back into energy.
I used to fly-fish quite a bit, and wasn’t too bad at it because I WAS PATIENT. Instead of switching flies and switching fishing holes, repeatedly, over the course of the day, I’d stick with one or two flies, stay in the same general area, and just try to work harder on making better casts. The metaphor for this weight-loss shit is that I will continue to follow what I’m doing with this program, and if anything, just try to work harder and smarter in the gym. I will win because of that. The caveat is that if I don’t average 1-2 pounds per week over the course of a month, then I’ll consider adjusting something – change flies or fishing holes, so to speak. But for now I’m averaging much better numbers than 1-2 pounds per week, so I guess I’m just back at tortoise speed.
March 30th, 2020: Good record-keeping and lots of measurements, at least in the beginning, were essential for my success. I’m not naturally good at either, so it was another activity I had to force upon myself until it became intuitive, or organic, or something. The cliché is that numbers don’t lie, and though I sometimes want to punch numbers in the face for telling the truth, I ultimately have to live with what they describe.
After I had hip-replacement surgery in June 2019, I rather quickly beefed up to almost 220 lbs. Obviously compared to the first battles of the war in January 2012, 220 lbs. isn’t horrible, but it’s still 31 pounds over my original-recipe goal weight, and not a scale number that my frame can tolerate with all the movement I give it over the course of a day. So I had to do it all over again. And it was just as hard to reverse my heading and make the necessary changes in 2020 as it was in 2012, and the handful of other times over the course of the last 8 years where I’ve found myself at a body-weight too far above 189 for my comfort.
I had to go back to keeping daily records of my weight, and of what/how much I was eating, and how many calories I was burning. It took a week to figure out that I had digressed to the point I was regularly eating 2000 or more calories above my RMR almost daily and not doing nearly enough cardio. It’s no wonder it didn’t take long to gain 31 pounds. However, by doing what I said in the first sentence, and implementing my preferred diet and exercise plans to step back into the navigational beacons, I lost that 31 pounds in 8 weeks. I had supreme confidence in the Program and the Program didn’t let me down. Shit, it’s still a battle though. If I don’t keep fighting, if I don’t watch what I’m doing, I’ll get busted up fast. This motherfucker I’m in the ring with now don’t take no prisoners.
