Having Trouble

Losing weight is hard, losing a lot of weight is very hard

I’ve recorded two walks recently, but neither of them are really worth publishing. I spent hours basically just complaining about hard this all is. It’s been good being outside more, but I’ve had a very negative disposition recently. I am uncertain that I should even publish this. This post is being written not for sympathy, but so that I can clearly articulate my present challenges to reference in the future.

In short, things are getting to me. A couple of recent challenges and setbacks have really got me down. My scale broke, which puts previous weigh-ins in doubt and required me to rush to get a new one. I’ve been dissatisfied with what I’ve been able to accomplish in a given day/week. The next few months are also filled with uncertainty, and it is stressing me significantly. In addition to all this, January isn’t looking to be as successful as I had hoped.

Scale troubles

I first noticed a problem with my scale where depending on how I was leaning on it, the weight would vary by 10-20 pounds. I had hoped simply being consistent would work in the long run. Unfortunately one day the scale just simply stopped working and would then only report 16.x lbs regardless of what was done with it. With a new scale I weigh’d in at 476.4 lbs, 99.6 lbs down from my highest recorded weight. The good news is that previous weigh-ins were not as distorted as I had feared.

Eating challenges

I had hoped to be much further along halfway into January, but I have been finding keeping portion sizes low very challenging. I experimented with trying to have peanuts for their own benefits, but it seems like they are too calorie dense to consider. I’m finding it harder and harder to manage hunger as the stress ramps up. The only consolation I have is that I am sure to be below what I started this month with, but unfortunately not by that much. I am still eating significantly better than I was before, but I am finding maintaining good habits particularly challenging lately.

Feelings

I am frustrated and disappointed in myself. I feel worn down and panicky. My sleep is back to the ’normal’ terrible rotation, and I’ve lost dozens of hours attempting to correct this. I really hate Winter, and it’s wearing me thin. The hardest part about losing weight is that failing to lose weight is just as hard as successfully doing it. If anything, failing to lose is much harder because of the frustration, guilt, and sadness associated with mistakes.

I don’t feel helpless, I know I can continue to make progress, but I am incredibly disheartened. I was wildly optimistic about what I would be able to accomplish this Winter and I’m saddened that it feels like everything I try is working less and less. I am constantly wrestling with despair over the potentiality of reversing course.

Despite making a huge amount of progress, I am still very much in the same trap as before. Being able to do a couple more things makes the things I am currently unable to do so hard to bear. I am disheartened by the fact that my options remain incredibly limited by my size and mobility. It tears me apart that I am still quite far away from being “a functional human being”. It sounds harsh, but I am very aware of the fact that I am not even functional enough that I could be able to work a part time job IRL.

I feel broken, I feel worthless, I feel scared. I know that it will end, but it wears heavily on my heart.

Time is one of the most difficult pressures I have nowadays. I am significantly less functional (wording that generously) during the daytime. The major progress on sleep habits have entirely receded putting me in a situation where getting even the simplest of productive things done feels insurmountable again. It is a bitter reminder that my problems are not limited to weight management. Time is once again an incredibly scarce resource and until I improve my sleep routine, it will remain so.

I am capable of enduring moderate setbacks and failures without becoming too disheartened, but their accumulation over time is something that I can hardly bear. Occasionally, I consider glimpses of where I could have been if I had been more capable and made less mistakes, and feel dread and sadness.While I have a great deal to be thankful for, I struggle to evade harsh judgement of myself. It is the things that I am thankful for that often make dealing with failures so much more difficult.

I am beginning to feel the familiar icy feeling of shame and regret congealing over my mind. The numbness previously erected to avoid facing those feelings is something I am starting to feel drawn to. It is hard enough to fail to succeed at what is so important, is it really so important that I feel these emotions on top of it? It’s never been more clear to me how avoiding these difficult feelings is one of the early steps towards regressing to ‘old habits’. I think I am starting to understand how fully experiencing the torrent of negative emotions can lead to finding hope and optimism on the other side. By wrestling with my fears and regrets I am not avoiding the root cause, the desire to change my circumstances. I hope that sometime soon, I may feel revitalized in taking this on. For the moment, things are cold and grim.

I cannot permit myself to end this on a negative note, so I am going to share a couple of things that are going well.

• I have been consistently below what I started at in January.

• I have acquired a step counter, and hope to regularly increase it over time.

• I recently did over 40 swings of a 70lb kettlebell.

• I am now able to hold a ‘plank’ position for a few moments, and looking forward to eventually working towards push-ups.

• I am optimistic for Spring.