Hello! It has been more than a month since my last blog post. At some point after the post that precedes this one I lost focus for a time. On April 23rd I regained my focus and put into place a new kind of motivation for myself. This post is being written on May 5th and at least to this point it has worked well for me. More on that in a moment. For now, let me catch everyone up on what has happened since the 23rd of April.
On the 23rd of April, I weighed in at 388.8 pounds. I was just sick of it. My body was never meant to carry that kind of weight and it has been making me painfully aware of that recently. This brought on my idea of what I could do to keep myself motivated throughout the year that I will discuss later on. I weighed again on the 25th of April and then everyday since. The 25th of April is when I began to count calories. Below I will detail my weight on each of those days.
April 25th: 385 (lost 3.8)
April 26th: 385 (lost 0)
April 27th: 383.6 (lost 1.4)
April 28th: 385.6 (gained 2)
April 29th: 383.6 (lost 2)
April 30th: 383.4 (lost 0.2)
May 1st: 383.4 (lost 0)
May 2nd: 383.2 (lost 0.2)
May 3rd: 382 (lost 1.2)
May 4th: 380.8 (lost 1.2)
May 5th: 380.6 (lost 0.2)
This means that I have lost 8.2 pounds since the 23rd of April. That is not necessarily incredible but it is a system that I can keep doing. So what is this motivation that I had mentioned? Well, I was thinking about how I need all kinds of different goals to keep myself motivated. When I lost close to 100 pounds the first time it was because I kept goals that were small and then the overall big goal. An example of a small goal for me right now will be to break below the 380 pound mark. I should be able to do that very soon. It is within reach and attainable. My big goal would be to break below 200 pounds and perhaps someday even attain my high school weight of 175.
What is the common theme between both the small term goal and the long term goal? They are just numbers! There are also no intermediate goals. Once you chew through (pun intended) a few of those short term goals it can get redundant. There is always a new number that is within reach but if I am not careful I can lose sight of the why.
What I have decided to do is to add an intermediate goal that has meaning to me besides just being another number. Numbers do eventually get a little boring to me. There is significance to the time frame of me starting this and what turned me on to this idea. When I was in California in March helping my folks out with some work my father expressed that he was very concerned about my weight and the impact that will have on my life. In some ways I suspect that most guys want to make their father proud. It took me some time after the fact to collect myself and take action.
April 25th is my father's birthday and it just so happens that I have someone important to me with a birthday spread across the entire calendar year within a few months of each other. Mom's is in July. One daughter is September, the other daughter is November. My birthday is in February. Then it repeats. While I am losing the weight for myself, it does help me put down that last slice of pizza when I consider that my mom just might treasure me dropping 25 pounds by her birthday more than any other gift I could give her.
Now I always have someone to think about whenever I am tempted. Not like in a judgmental way at all. I just focus on how I want to have an amazing weight loss number for them by their birthday. Then we will both have something to celebrate on their special day!
