Apparently, Now I'm Posting Weight Loss Stories

I've been so frustrated with writing that I decided to try other projects for a while like, for instance, weight loss. One thing led to another and now I was compelled to write a little about my progress so far. Below is the first post in my myfitnesspal.com blog. I'm reposting it here because, well, why the hell not?

I restarted my weight loss journey toward the end of November 2013 on the notion that I’d give it “just one more go at it.” That casual attitude helped me move past my normal anxiety about starting things and before I knew it I dropped 5 pounds the following week (as expected due to the drop in water weight from reduced food and sodium consumption), and a steady two pounds per week till I ended up at 217lbs from my starting weight of 229lbs. The 11lb loss really lifted my spirits and brought in a warm sense of well-being. That wonderful feeling came with the thought that losing the weight was very possible. It also gave me the false notion that it was pretty easy, as the lifestyle change was relatively painless. Or so I thought.

The holidays arrived and I was inundated, as many of us have been, with so much good food. A lot of it was cooked by other people too, so a lot of the portions that I recorded on my food diary were estimations at best, and wild guesses at worst. There were definitely a few days where I got tired of guessing portions and didn’t log in food for the day. The first day I didn’t log in any food was the most frustrating – I thought, “Was I giving up on the whole thing?” But I recognized the irrationality of that line of thinking (something therapy has trained me to notice). I told myself that I was just going through an emotional ride and that I can make things right once things settle down a bit. I had to put in extra effort in willpower and awareness in order to keep from losing myself in all the holiday craziness.

Now that it’s been about a week since the start of the new year, I’m happy to say that I’ve only gained 1 pound back. If I were to compare this minor regress with the progress I made the first three weeks, I’d be devastated - probably devastated enough to just outright quit. But, again, I recognize how irrational that is, so I pat myself in the back and try to accept the fact that had I not tried at all, I could have fallen off the wagon completely. I consider the fact that I didn’t a victory.

I thought I could keep a perfect weight loss streak going, to the point that I could have lost 70 pounds in 7 months. But the holidays has taught me that it's never going to be perfect. I'm liable to slip every once in a while. I've learned that in order to get back on track I’ll have to start really paying attention to what I'm doing on a weekly, or even daily basis. Part of that increased effort is being grateful, not just when I lose weight, but when I cut myself some slack for slipping up. I still have a goal in mind (150lbs by October of this year), but I'm not giving up if it looks like I'm not going to make that goal. After all, I still lost a total of 11 pounds. If I was still 11 pounds under my starting weight by the end of this year, I'm still 11 pounds better off than I was before.

I have a lot to say about things, apparently.

It's the start of a new year, and around this time I make it a point to do something I haven't gotten around to in 12 months, which is to organize. As mundane and boring as that seems, I actually look forward to the work. One of the tasks that I want to do is to organize my e-mail. This is the chance to make filters and labels to reduce clutter in my inbox. I can even color some of the more important messages. The end goal is to make my inbox look like something akin to a color swatch. Once that happens, I can spot e-mails in a manner that is as accurate as it is pretty.

Still, it requires a lot of work, and I plan on spending about an hour a day to get this done. But, believe it or not, I'm used to this level of drudgery - not just from doing several iterations of the same algebra problem, but from the video games I enjoy. MMOs are a good example of the latter. In games like these you, as the all powerful, world saving adventurer, are sometimes tasked to collect 10 digital hides from 10 digital boars, then run them back to a digital tanner in a digital town for 10 digital gold. To be successful in such a game, you have to repeat quests like these ad naseum. How heroic! Still, the game is good at selling tasks like this as "fun." You are not only compelled to do them, but are convinced that there is a sense of accomplishment in their completion.

Sure, collecting hides is menial work, far less appealing than slaying a centaur turtle (a Turtaur?), and absolutely results in no benefit to life outside the game as a whole, but a player is put in the mindset that work itself is a game. Once that mindset is established, a person could will him or herself to do anything. It's a common trick that overachievers use to get through the bonus homework that their parents force upon them. The trick is to figure out how to apply that to the real world, which is quite the task, isn't it?

But I digress.

This post started out with color coding e-mails, huh? Damn. All I wanted to do was talk about how lame my life is and I end up writing mini op-ed piece.