900 Calories

Hello, again.  The day of my last post, Wednesday, April 28, 2010, was the day before "T-minus 300" days until my 40th birthday.  And for whatever reason, on that day it all clicked together for me.  Armed with a Bodybugg (literally, it goes on my arm) like they use on The Biggest Loser, I have been experiencing some successful calorie math, making livable lifestyle adjustments, and enjoying a few resulting lost pounds.  My goals have been to face down this weight loss mountain ONE SINGLE DAY AT A TIME, so my goals are small, the results come quickly, and any slip ups are VERY short lived.  My goals have been to burn at least 2600 calories every 24 hours, to eat around 1700 calories, trying to only go over if I have also exceeded my burn, and ending up with a calorie deficit of at least 900 calories daily.  For the most part, each day since then I have actually done that.

Now, I've been writing about wishful and attempted weight loss for going on two years now, and I've had times of "starting" before where I've described the process of the light switch coming on, and about how I have wanted to "protect" the mental switch so nothing shuts it off.  And before, something always has (shut it off, I mean.)  But this time I am taking a whole different approach, because obviously I have to.  It's easy to slip sometimes into "I have lost x pounds in x days (or a month) and I have x more pounds to lose by x."  But this is the previous pattern which has consistently set me up for failure.  It's insurmountable, it's so long term, and it's so rigid.  Life can't be that way, and I've figured out that my usual all or nothing self has no realistic place in getting me to where I want to be.

I chose a dear friend to "report" my numbers to from the previous day each day, also.  Why?  Because, as I told her, failing privately and having the privacy to quit and/or not try is no longer an option, and never works for me.  I thought in the past that this blog might also be good for that, but as I appear to have few readers and even fewer willing to make comment, it's become more of a one-way sounding board for me.  And that's fine, I'm ok with that.  I'd like it if more people were reading, but I haven't gone too far out of my way to promote it.  I'm also not consistent with it, but I enjoy writing as though I'm telling someone what's inside my head, and I like sharing that stuff and having an ongoing record of my dialog.

Anyway, rest assured that this time a month of silence wasn't anything other than a month being put to good use, a stepping stone to returning to the healthier, more energetic, lighter, happier person I know I am, that's just been hiding under some stuff.  I'm going to continue to clear out that stuff, 900 calories at a time.