Kickin' It Up a Step

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." ~~ Confucius

Hi, everyone. Well, I gave my current journey a bit of introspection today and decided that my success has been in large part due to under estimating my goals. Yes, I'm dead serious.

Think in terms of a Type A over-achiever mentality who's creating those goals. Now, do you get it? LOL, ok, maybe you are one of those peeps, too, so you might not get it. The goals would be over-achiever goals. So, built-in failure threatens at every turn. Lower those standards, and you might just approach reality...and success.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it, anyway. And I have been successful. Wow, that seems to be such a foreign thing to say for me when it comes to my weight. So, I am enjoying it.

I've now officially lost a net total of 35.25 pounds from my all-time high weight on April 21, 2006. That's been 1 year and 4 months, or 16 months, to lose 35 pounds. Hm, not exactly spectacular, but if you only knew the see-sawing that happened a couple of times, with some periods of *nothing* thrown in there, you would be as proud as I am. During that time I learned how finally to keep the Atkins Induction weight loss off, instead of gaining it all back and then some. I've dealt with a few health issues in that time, too, and still managed not to lose sight of my goals. And I'm now on a good program that will hopefully continue to give me a loss of a pound every 3-4 days, which has been the case over the last couple of months. But I consider that gravy since my goal is 1 pound a week. Yup, I got built-ins on built-ins when it comes to my rationales. And I truly think it's the way to go, cuz for me at least, it spurs me on when I'm successful. I truly don't have to lose the fastest or the most, and I used to think I did.

So, now, I'm gonna tack on a couple more steps to success here. First one is that Sunday I stopped using cream in my coffee. I dearly love heavy whipping cream in my coffee, but you know, it's not good for me. I've begun getting cavities along my gumline and the first thing the dentist asked me was, "Do you drink cream in your coffee?" The first day, I added some SweetnLo, but Monday I started just drinking it black, and drinking not as much. So far, so great! And as everyone knows, there's some calories in that cream that I'm not ingesting now. Yay!

Second thing is, I'm adding 200 more steps a day to my walking. (Okay, for you younger or more athletic readers, don't call me lazy or a whimp; remember, I'm technically DISABLED, OKAY? For me, it's a big deal.) I'm going to try to add 200 on every day to the previous day's total, but I suspect I might have to downsize that a bit to not so quickly. We will see how it goes... At any rate, I did add 200 today to the day before's total. Not that hard.

Oh, one thing I wanted to mention was how beneficial it has been to me to be getting a huge amount of sleep on a daily basis, like 9-10 hours. I'm very grateful to be able to do that, first off. And I feel it physically. Imean, I can feel that my body benefits from it. So I know it's helpful.

One thing that I never seem to remember is that our bodies are undergoing a lot of changes and stress when we actively pursue a weight loss and exercise program. In addition to my weight loss, I'm seeing even more drastic changes in my arms, legs, stomach, butt, face...in some places I look better, but in others worse. Like my upper arms. They looked like huge thick sausages before, but they were firm (from packed in fat, lol). Now, my upper arms hang from the bone and have dimples and wrinkles and valleys and such all over them. YUCK! Yet, I know that's because there used to be fat there that's gone now. So, it's a double-edged sword. Am I gonna be lighter and healthier but ugly and repulsive? (To my knowledge, there's no room in the budget for all that plastic surgery, short of winning the Lotto or something). I know full well that at 51, my skin may not be able to "bounce back". In other words, it might be too late for me, and that realization really, really sucks. Cuz, I did this to myself. Oh, well, can't dwell on that, mainly because I know my history: things always seem to come out better than in my worries, LOL.

Thanks to all of you who have commented, I love to read your messages. Welcome to Maria's group members, stop by and say hi! Well, time for a sleep, laterz!