Nine Years

It just occured to me today that this week marks my nine-year anniversary of commiting myself to health, fitness and weight loss!

It was 1996 and I had just started a new job. I went to Chicago on vacation in September. On the day I left Chicago I caught an episode of 0prah where she was talking about her new book with B0b Green. I bought the book at 0'Hare and read it non-stop for the next few days. Shortly thereafter, I saw some photos of myself on vacation and was horrified at what I saw. Within a couple of weeks, I joined the gym at work, got with "the program" and the rest is history.

The journey has been very long. Mine is not an overnight weight-loss success story. I didn't magically wake up five months later 100 pounds thinner. The first 20 pounds came off fairly easy. I then struggled for every pound after that and it took me several years before I saw another significant loss.

In the fall of '99 - three years after I began my journey - I decided to have br3ast r3duction surgery. I had also just heard about this "low-carb" approach to dieting and decided to give it a try. I lost about 15 pounds before meeting with my surgeon, but then she suggested that I should try to lose another 25. So, by May of 2000 I was down about 60 pounds from where I had started and I ended up losing another five pounds just after my surgery.

Since then, my weight had stabilized and hovered between 175-180 (although getting all the way back up to 188 in January of 2003) for the next couple of years. I felt good and carrying around an extra 30 pounds or so didn't really hold me back from running -- in fact, I did a couple of marathons and an Ironman triathlon at that weight.

But here I am now, dissatisfied with my current weight (169 as of this morning). I managed to get my weight down from 182 after Christmas down to about 170-174 for most of the summer, but I've struggled to go below that magic 169 number. Actually, I did see a 168 on my scale a few months ago, but that was for one brief day.

For the last four weeks I've been re-dedicating myself to weight-loss, trying to lose those final 20-25 pounds. After my summer vacation I think my weight was around 172 or 173, so in the last four weeks I've barely lost 3 pounds. I've journalled virtually every piece of food I've put in my mouth and exercised 5-6 days a week. My daily deficit has been about 750 calories (sometimes more), so I don't know why I'm not seeing any movement on the scales!

Funny, with today being my 9-year anniversary, that I completely blew all my Boot Camp rules: I had turkey dinner with all the trimmings, including a glass of wine and dessert. I feel like a stuffed pig. Blech! I could rationalize my food choices by saying that I didn't eat any of the turkey skin, that I only had two tiny slivers of apple and of pumpkin pie with barely a spoonful of ice cream, and that all the potatoes and squash I had were healthy. But that would just be a rationalization, wouldn't it.

So, it's back to the gym tomorrow. I think I'll do a bike workout in the morning on my trainer and then try to squeeze in a weight session after work before my floor hockey game.

I'm really hoping that I'll see some new movement on the scales this week. I really do.