2019

Another new year. Another super LONG post 😂

It has been almost 7 years since I started this blog. I'm happy to say that I weigh less today than I did on the day I started this blog. In  years past I would talk about how unhappy I am about the fact that I'm still not at my "goal" weight. I'm not going to say that this year.

SO much has changed with my mindset in the last year that I am going to instead focus on how stoked I am about where I am at.

Towards the end of 2018 I was trying.....OK, I wasn't really trying at all....to stay under 200 pounds. I wanted to end 2018 with a loss in December, but apparently I didn't want it enough. I did well at the start of the month and by mid-December was down about 2 pounds from Dec. 1st. I wrote this blog post on Dec 19th about how I wasn't going to be mad about the fact that I wasn't going to lose weight in December. I talked about 3 goals for the remainder of the year: 1) No Garmin 2) No stressing over food (and eat mindfully) and 3) reflect on 2018.

I call this a success. Last year I gained 7 pounds in December and lost a total
of 8.2 lbs between 1/1/17 and 1/1/18. In 2018 I gained less in December
and lost a total of 22.3 lbs between 1/1/18 and 1/1/19.

I would say I mostly succeeded in those goals. I didn't stress over food and for a while I was able to eat mindfully. Even when I was over indulging I knew exactly what I was doing and I soon decided I was totally OK with it because I was VERY confident that THIS year I would get back on track right away.

You know that I talked about not wanting to see the scale go back above 200. For a while this was really bothering me. When the scale was creeping closer and closer and I wasn't changing my behavior I knew it was inevitable that the scale would go back above 200, if even for a second. At first I decided I wasn't going to get on the scale until today. I figured that would give me 3ish days to get back down under 200.

New Year's Day came and I wasn't going to get on that scale. I knew it was going to be above 200 because on 12/29 I was 198 and there was lots of eating and drinking on both the 30th and 31st. There have been many times that I could "gain" 2 pounds overnight with a night of drinking and eating. I got up late on New Year's Day and shortly after getting out of bed I decided to just get on the scale. Not only did I get on the scale but I didn't care. I didn't care what the number said. I didn't get mad or sad or beat myself up because I "failed". I simply looked at the number and moved on.

If you must know, the number was 201. The number this morning (the day I was going to wait until to weigh myself for my "official" 2019 starting weight) was 199.2. So. If I did what I had planned I would never have seen the scale go above 200. Would that have stopped it from happening? Obviously not. Perhaps avoiding the scale would have meant that it would still be above 200 today because perhaps I wouldn't have been as motivated to get back on track right away.

Christmas Day and I felt amazing!

What amazes me this year and has me so excited for 2019 is my different mindset. Remember when I talked about the fear last year in this post? This is one of the biggest changes I think I've made with my mindset. I used to actually fear seeing the scale go back above 200 because I feared how I would mentally respond to that. I feared it would mean the scale would start going in the opposite direction.

This fear has almost completely gone away and has been replaced with confidence! WHAT?? For right now at least, I no longer fear seeing that 200 on the scale because I am confident that it will go back down. Not only am I confident that it will go back down under 200, but I'm confident that in 2019 it will continue to go back down lower than it has been in over 12 years.

What has helped make this change? The fact that I have also come to the conclusion that I don't care if I hit my "goal" weight in 2019. I decided that I will be perfectly  happy to be writing my 2020 post and talking about how I'm "only" down another 20 pounds. I'm done with the only. Why do I feel like I need to lose all my weight in one year (or even 2) to be successful? That's bullshit. So it's been almost 5 years since my highest weight. So what? In the 4 years and 9 months since I recorded that highest weight I have lost 51.4 pounds (as of my weight this morning). That amounts to less than 12 pounds lost per year; but that's 12 pounds LOST per year for over 4 years in a row. I am no longer looking at that as being a failure. I am seeing it for what it is. Consistency. It may not always feel like consistency because throughout those years my weight has gone up and down; but in the end I weigh 51 pounds less today than I did on April 22, 2014 when I logged my highest weight ever.

Would I love to lose the rest of the weight I want to lose this year? Of course! But will I be mad when I don't? Not anymore and that is such an amazing mental shift that I can't even explain how happy it makes me. For maybe the 2nd time in my life I am starting the year with a level of excitement I can't even believe. The only other time was last year because I had high hopes for the Living Lean #NOEXCUSES Spring Break Challenge.

This post is long enough so stayed tuned for my next one where I talk more about why I am so excited for 2019!

Happy New Year everyone!