The Beginning

I had already made the decision that I wasn't going to go an ounce above the 248 I had just witnessed appear on the scale. I am sure I weighed more than that in the few months prior to braving the scale, however, since it wasn't documented I do not know the heaviest I have been.

The feminist in me keeps telling me that the number is of no importance as it doesn't define me. The sociologist in me wants the exact and most accurate data. I still struggle with this.

I didn't know if I should start with my food or my exercise. Either way, it seemed like it was going to suck monkey balls. So I started off slow. I cut out "real" soda and went to straight Diet Coke. Then I signed up for a functional fitness class at 6:30am on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I figured that this would be a good start to see how well I handled cutting back sugar and pushing my body to move. 

I was pleasantly surprised. After a few weeks, the scale started going down. It wasn't a mind-blowing, jaw-dropping event every morning but it was movement and it was in the right direction.

I knew I couldn't give up sweets altogether. That would have caused me to quit immediately. So I cut down the number of total carbs I consumed. I have been young before and have tried the juice cleanses and fad diets and I knew that wasn't going to work. It never truly does. I knew that dropping weight was going to take real work. 

The worst part of it all was that I was going to have to sweat.

So that is what I did. I got up in the morning and I worked out with David and a handful of my coworkers. We started by "kicking our own butts" and "Frankenstein steps" which then led us to a few rounds on the rowing machines. We then moved to the ropes, or the tire or the bags of dead weight to challenge our upper bodies. 

It was weirdly nice. Every Tuesday and Thursday morning for a month I struggled to get out of bed. Some mornings I did not win that battle. But I tried. And I felt that rewarding myself for that by not being so hard on myself was a good call.

This is how the first few months went with my small changes:

I was ecstatic. I couldn't believe that I could move the scale in the opposite direction that it had been moving over the past 20 years. Then I got frustrated. (I am sure you can see how that went).

I had dropped 11 pounds in two months (13 pounds for a hot second) - then I seemed to plateau. Then I wanted to stop.

I even skipped weighing myself on my Friday weigh-in day. I was going to that early morning torture session, I had given up so many delicious opportunities for doughnuts, and I was limiting my sweets. How could something go so well then stop?

I was coming up on my 38th birthday and a scheduled trip from Indiana to Oregon to visit my in-laws, then a stop in Utah to visit with my best friend. I felt that I couldn't keep my weight loss journey going the right direction with the added stress and time spent stationary in the car.

I was so tired of starting over. I didn't want to give up. So I decided to "pause" it instead.