Stagnation

Posted October 19th, 2008 by Jeff J. Snider

Sometimes you just hit a lull, ya know? For the last week or two, my weight has been hanging out right in the 351-353 range. I’m not gaining anything, but if I’m losing anything, it’s coming off VERY slowly. There are a couple things I think might be contributing to that:

1. Coming down off the emotional high. I am still committed to losing the weight, but the raw emotion of when I originally got fired up is gone. I don’t think that’s a bad thing — it’s hard to live a balanced life if you are too focused on one particular thing — but it’s definitely something I will need to overcome.
2. My body is demanding more effort. In the three months I have been losing weight, I’ve also been facing a lot of medical problems. Nothing major, just a couple sinus infections and some very severe allergies. As a result, I haven’t been able to exercise much. A couple treadmill sessions, one weightlifting session with a friend, and that’s about it for formal exercise. It’s just hard to get motivated to get on the treadmill or the elliptical when you can’t breathe.

   So anyway, the vast majority of the weight I have lost has been due to eating better, and I think my body has reached the point where it’s like, “Okay, dude, that’s great, but it’s time to get off your butt and get healthy!” Just eating right may not be enough anymore.

So I have a couple things to overcome. The second one is easy — just start exercising. I worked out last night after Beth went to bed, and it felt really good. Back when I used to make excuses for myself, I used to say, “It’s hard to exercise when I feel so unhealthy, but I’ll never feel healthy until I lose weight, and I won’t lose weight until I exercise. Wo is me!” Now that I HAVE lost some weight — and no matter how big you start, 50 pounds is significant enough to feel it — exercising is starting to get easier. I feel about a million times better than I did at 400 pounds. It’s actually really encouraging to feel so good right now, considering that I am still unhealthily large — I can only imagine how good I will feel at 300, and 275, and 240. Last night, I actually got bored before I got tired, which means I just need to get some better stuff on the DVR down here in the exercise room.

The first issue is not quite so easy to tackle. (One thing I’ve noticed in this endeavor: like most things, the physical parts are SO much easier than the mental parts.) I don’t know if that initial emotion will ever come back, and like I said, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. What I need to do is find little things that supply a bit of that emotion, a little extra motivation.

One thing we have found it “The Biggest Loser: Families.” We had never watched the show before, but we thought that since we are working as a couple to become healthier, it would be a good show to watch. If you haven’t watched it, the basic premise is this: it’s a reality show where whoever loses the most weight wins a crapload of money. This season, everyone came on in pairs — some are husbands and wifes, and others are mother/father and son/daughter combos. People get eliminated based on a combination of weight and voting (depending on the week). But what I REALLY like is that even after you’ve been eliminated, you still have a chance to win, because the biggest loser of the losers wins a slighty smaller crapload of money!

And the best part for me — the part that inspires me the most — is that, since the show was filmed several months ago, they can show us real-time-ish updates on the people right after they get eliminated. A couple weeks ago, an old man named Jerry went home, leaving his daughter behind to continue the competition. Jerry was old, fat, and near death when he came on the show. When he left, he was a little bit older, a little bit thinner, and a little bit further from death. But then they showed us the update, and he has lost like 80 pounds, and he runs a couple miles a day, and he is off almost all the medications he had been taking. He looks GREAT. And when I see him, I think, “Wow, if he can fight through all this adversity, I can definitely take my body that still works far better than I deserve it to and do at least as well as he has.”

Last week, a guy named Ed went home. I liked Ed (other than the fact that he sounds like Forrest Gump), because he reminded me the most of myself (in size, athleticism, etc.). So I was very excited to see his update, and I was extremely pleased to see that he has lost 85 pounds and looks absolutely great. Seeing him thin made it much easier for me to visualize myself thin, which is something I’ve had a hard time doing because I’ve never actually been thin before.

So that show is helping me get re-inspired. Bethy is, of course, a huge support for me. And I am always on the lookout for other ways to get inspired. Anyone have any thoughts or ideas?

3 Comments | Post a Comment