Trouble with the Curvy

To say "The End" is so final isn't it? THE end implies there is one finite finish but this Trouble with the Curvy is something I don't think is ever going to actually end. In the weeks since I wanted to make the transition to wedding planning and making my wedding dress I've struggled to "just do" what I have identified over the past 3 years help me achieve my weight goals. I can't seem to get myself out of bed in the morning and then work has early morning demands, then I'm sick and who knows what will be the next obstacle. I have gone completely off the rails since the holidays. At my doctor's appointment yesterday I weighed in at 173lbs fully winter bundled. Not bad but certainly not great. I'm moving in the wrong direction. I recognize this. I acknowledge this. Now I need to do something about it. What I can't figure out is why I can't seem to make the good decision and how easy it is to talk myself out of doing the things I...

I suppose it is no secret that I've been finding it difficult to find the motivation to write within the last few... several... months. I have officially lost 47 of the 57 pounds I hoped to lose when I started this blog and I think that is an awesome accomplishment! Over my time with this blog I have built some great habits that are now ingrained in my daily life including making better food choices and walking a lot. I actually feel the physical changes in my body.. my contours are different and my overall body image I had in my head now, more or less, matches the image I see in the mirror. I know this doesn't happen for everyone who loses weight but for me, I'm truly happy with who I am and where I am in my life. I'm a much healthier person than I was 2 and a half years ago. There is still room for some improvements and I look forward to working off the last 10lbs of my original goal. The difference is that I am no longer constantly focused on taking off the weight....

I think I have hit a true turning point in my journey. When I stopped writing in July I knew that I needed to lighten my load because work was starting to get busier and most of my free time was spent walking with Brutus once his cast came off. He is back in good health now but, slowly, from July to September I made some killer progress. I got down to my lowest weight and I had good habits both with eating and with exercise. As the days began to get shorter though and my job moved me to a warehouse (temporarily) where its just me a whole bunch of old stuff, I started to make some questionable decisions that I did not, in fact, question at all. Examples of this include staying home from a walk to bake and ordering a chicken burger and french fries just about every day for a good week and a half just so I could see another human being... Well that's what I said but they serve salads and I didn't order a single one of those so.... When I hopped back on the scale only to see I ...

I haven't written since July. It is almost November and the last thing I spoke about was making it to 165lbs by my birthday. I did it a week early and then just kind of coasted right through the rest of the month and the next one too. Now I'm back to planning for winter and how not to gain it all back and I realized that I need the one tool that actually works: this blog. Of everything I've done this blog feels like the biggest change to my life because it keeps me accountable. I felt like I made a lot of progress this summer but looking back at this time last year I've only lost about 8lbs in the whole year. That feels like nothing when I see it "on paper" but it feels big and real in person. Those were the heaviest 8lbs I think I've ever encountered... Regardless about the stats, I'm feeling really great about this and I'm ready to make more headway this winter. I've reworked my goal from 155 to 145 because I had no idea where my target...

I haven't written a lot about weight loss or the endeavor thereof this week and truth be told I haven't really been paying much attention to it. I haven't been splurge eating and I have been walking so it isn't a slack week but I have been going through the motions while my mind lingers on other things. These things include but are not limited to planning a wedding, work, Stephen King, and how awesome Brutus has recovered from his accident. This week we walked every day. On Monday we took it slow and only did about two miles. Toward the end of it he seemed to be favoring the hurt leg so Tuesday we did the same route and he didn't have a problem. On Wednesday I asked Ben to come pick Brutus up when he got tired so I could still do our regular 5 mile route. We made it to 3 and a half miles though and he was still going strong so he didn't need the ride and we did the whole 5 miles. Yesterday we did about 4 miles. I don't want to push him too far too fast but...

For all the preaching I do about points systems and how awesome they work and blah blah blah I also do a fair amount of preaching how "fad" diets are a whole bunch of bullshit. Why are they bullshit? Because they are not sustainable. I'm finding that power weeks and points systems are also hard to sustain. When work and other things put demands on my time all of that extra time exercising just doesn't seem worth killing myself to do it. I'm not a very happy person when I'm stressed. I didn't know it then but that's why I struggled with a lot of things when I worked at my previous job. I loved the work and the people and but the stress and mismanagement of tasks and resources always had me on edge. So much so that I developed the phrase "embrace the chaos" and that was my mantra and it worked... for a while but I see now that stress is not something that makes me thrive. It flusters me and then I feel like a failure and then it all just goes d...

I grew up in a really small town and while I cherish the friendships I developed as a kid and as a teen there is something uniquely circumstantial about them. The things we had in common back then were age and proximity to one another. I think this is especially true when I was a kid and the things I liked were TLC, the Spice Girls, Hanson and rollerblading. When you're 10 in a small town, the world is simple because the choices are rarely overwhelming. The older I got the more that changed to a degree and I started friendships with the few people in town that were around my age that liked music, writing, and creativity. I think the first time this concept dawned on me was when I started to gravitate to the director Kevin Smith and his brand of comedy and storytelling. He released a DVD of a live Q&A he did and I invited all my friends over to watch it. My closest friend since Kindergarten made a comment in passing after it was over to the effect of "Please don't mak...