Not dead, despite all evidence to the contrary

L’s health program has this fabulous idea for people who are transitioning into maintenance, or continuing their weight loss. The idea is that you ‘protect your loss’ first and foremost—even over attempting to lose more. That’s a concept I’m not adhering to at all well at the moment, I must say. I’ve gained back 7 of the pounds I lose early in the summer. Most of that was due to a lot of drama surrounding a friend of mine who appears to have gone completely crazy. It was just so devastating and hurtful that both L. and I indulged far too much at The Homemade Pie Kitchen (pie heaven, as L. calls it) and—worse—too many runs through Taco Hell. We’ve both been just *acting out* with food in the worst way and it’s getting rather old.

So we’re trying to get into better habits this fall, and I’m taking the rest of the year to try to rethink my horrible food ideas. I’m such a horrible ‘all or nothing’ thinker. As in “well, today I’ve been bad so I may as well have a few scoops of ice cream.” Strangely knowing this about myself does not seem to make it better.
Anyway, on top of that I’m a recovering low-carber. I don’t mean that in a snide way—low-carb has always worked for me, but I take it way too far. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t want to always be feeling guilty for eating watermelon or other fruit. I seem to have gotten stuck in the ‘induction’ part of all low-carb plans and never learned how to add things back in in a sensible way, so I’ll be working on that too.

And, lastly. I miss running. It’s hard for me to believe that less than two years ago I trained and was able to run nearly 10 miles at a go. I’m embarrassed that I let that ability go.

I’m vile at math, but I swear I could be a genius at weight-loss arithmetic. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t completely aware of how many weeks/days were left to an event that I wanted to lose weight for, and exactly how much it would take to get me there. But my goals were a bit out of reach. So with 16 weeks left in this year (give or take a day) and aiming for a 2-3 pound loss per week that could put me anywhere from 32-48 pounds down by the New Year. Which is a goal I’d like to aim for.

With that said, I took an almost 2 hour hike/walk both yesterday and this morning, more or less as an accident. It was a gorgeous day and for once this summer, not too stifling. Lia and I walked through Cherokee Park and took a few trails we’d never taken before. This got us a lot farther away from the house than we’d planned, but it wasn’t awful. We stumbled into the house having done about 105 minutes total. Then this morning we both were out for about an hour and a half. I’d love to do that walk every day or two if I can. My evenings this week are going to be taken up doing an ‘intro to running’ course again to see if I can’t build up some resistance and cardiovascular strength.

I’m glad you’re here. I could use the support. ;)