Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso (or Weigh-in Wednesday #3, Part 2 of the ongoing saga that is OMG...what if I don't have a pretty face?)

I woke up this morning just after 5.30AM without an alarm.  I lay in bed scrolling through various apps on my phone designed to help me.  For the last four years, these apps have indeed helped me...they have helped me feel bad about myself.  This morning, like last Wednesday and the Wednesday before that, I was too excited to fall back asleep.  Instead of rolling over and drifting off...I checked my exercise stats from the last week, I made sure I had inputted my latest meal in my food journal, and (even though I hadn't actually worked out yet) I put a very red, very large checkmark beside SUZIE CARDIO in my calendar.  The apps have finally started doing what they were intended to do...as I had also finally started doing what I intended to do.

Starting weight - Jan. 17th, 2020 - 285.4 pounds (115 days until my 45th birthday)

1st weigh-in - Jan. 22nd, 2020 - 281.3 pounds (-4.1 lbs)

2nd weigh-in - Jan. 29th, 2020 - 277.0 pounds (-4.3 lbs)
3rd weigh-in - Feb. 5th, 2020 - 273.7 pounds (-3.3lbs)

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

"Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven"

And gods know that I have had one hell of a lot of good intentions over the last four years.  I have set them, written about them, talked about them, and half-assedly gone through the motions.

In February of 2016, I wrote about how I had gained weight after knee surgery (2015) and then some more because of various dietary indiscretions/training delinquency.  That was three years into my weight loss journey, I was 187 pounds.  I was self-blaming for letting myself go while simultaneously trying to be all zen by letting go of blame and moving forward from a place of self-love.  Well, that was my intention anyway. 

Fast forward to January of 2017 or 2018, it doesn't really matter, it's a whole lot of the same thing.  Apparently, I was incredibly annoyed at being fat, and I wrote several repetitious blog posts about it.  I even mentioned my weight a couple times - in the upper 200s at that point.  That's a bit of progress - admitting that I had a problem, I mean.  It was a step...step one in some cases.  But, alas, instead of moving through the various other steps (of which there are generally twelve)...I just kept paving the road with idle hands.  Incidentally, paving a road is a seven-step process according to an asphalt pavement installation website I happened upon.  That's a difference of five whole steps - no wonder so many of us are choosing the easier route.  

Then something happened in 2019...well, late summer 2018 really.  I was tired of being ashamed, embarrassed, angry, and bitter, of avoiding things, of isolating myself, I was exhausted from all the procrastination, and the fear.  I was scared of who I'd become, and of what people thought of me.  I was afraid that I couldn't change my situation, and I was uncertain of my future while simultaneously dwelling in my past.  I was trapped in a hell of my own making, and I was doing absolutely nothing to rectify the situation...until I was.

In October 2018, I started walking.  I paid attention to my apps and my pedometer, and I got more active.  That month, I  ate healthy foods in appropriate portions, and I journaled it all.  Baby steps in the right direction.  308  pounds of baby at the beginning, mind you, but baby steps nonetheless.  It was the first time in a long time that I took a good hard look at all the roadwork I had done...and realised that the street I had been working on was two ways.  After pulling that U-ey, in February of 2019, I joined a gym, hired myself a personal trainer, and got ready to work my arse off.  I will call 2019 the year of "girding my loins," because it wasn't until January of 2020 that I was fully prepared to go into battle. 

C. S. Lewis once wrote, "you can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending."  I guess this is just the next chapter in my epic saga of going from biblical proportions to the Devil wearing Prada.