Life Is Meant To Be Enjoyed

Note: New pictures on the right column, comparing mid December to this past weekend.

Weigh In: 301

Well, today's me and my wife's anniversary. 2 great years, and she hasn't killed me.. yet. My goal was to get under 300 by April 30th, and I can say that I actually did weigh in once a few days ago under 300 with my 299 a few days back, and after taking a 3 day break (I did work out up north but I probably consumed about 2800-3000 calories a day), I pretty much maintained, and kept close to the 300 barrier.

I feel refreshed right now, mentally and physically.

So, this is what I've learned in the past five months.

You have to set goals. You have to challenge yourself. You have to work as hard as you possibly can until you feel like you can't work any harder. But then, you have to let go for a while. You have to be able to relax, and take some time to yourself. I'm one of those guys who work out 6, sometimes 7 days a week. My calories are pushed to the smallest of the limits. I have no 'medium' speed - it's either full speed or off. But I think that we have to keep this in perspective too.

As I read around the Coalition of us who are doing this weight loss thing, I see a lot of similarities. I see us getting frustrated with our plateaus at the same time. I see us celebrating our successes on the scale. I love it when I see people like Becky who is realizing her love for the outdoors. I think that sometimes we get so wrapped up in the scale, the weight loss process, and the numbers (guilty!) that we forget why we do this in the first place.

For guys like Kevin and I, we started off wanting to lose 100 pounds, and we're pretty much both at the halfway point. We're talking about five months. It took us years to put this weight on, and in five months, we've gone from the guy who sits on the couch and shovels embarrassingly obscene amounts of food into our mouths, to the guy who is conscious about what we look like, and what goes into our systems. We get down on ourselves when we fail, and we are overly hard on ourselves when we don't hit our goals when WE WANT to hit our goals.

So, why do I rant about this?

Because May is going to be "goal free". Nothing is going to change in my operation. I'm still in the gym 6-7 days a week. I'm still eating great. I'm feeling about as refreshed as the day that I started this.

But for one month, no "I have to hit my goal by _____". No "I need X amount of this.." or "I must do _____".

Just go out, work hard, and enjoy what the scale gives me.

Stress sucks. Weight loss ain't easy. Fighting the urge to eat those foods that inflated us the first time just sucks.

So why add stress about a number?

Here's what I'm more interested in:

November 22 - 354.
December 9 - 341.
January 31 - 330.5.
February 28 - 325.
March 31 - 312.
April 30 - 301
May 30 - Lower, and healthier.

Enjoy life. If you don't, what's the point of this weight loss process in the first place?