Big Success!
I’ve finally hit a major milestone! I’m over 175lbs down, and finally below 400lbs. I had the pleasure of somebody telling me they’re noticing that I’m ‘wasting away’ over time. Feel free to join me on this walk where I celebrate this milestone, reflect on recent challenges and how I hope to overcome them. I truly didn’t appreciate how close I was to this milestone when I started. Far from being impossible, I have had the roller-coaster of making it actual.
As I write this my 4xl shorts are already loose enough they need to be tied to stay up. It is clear to me that I have reversed all of my post-2020 weight gain. In so many ways I feel ’normal’ again, because I’ve spent so much of my adult life around this size.
Learning to weave
Ankle pain has become a bit of a constraint on my activities. Instead of stubbornly repeating the same activities expecting a different outcome, I’ve been thinking about how I can approach this differently. Reflecting on this reveals to me that there actually is a great deal of opportunity for growth, and it’s reassuring to find other areas I can work on with less strain. I think this generalizes well to other situations. I understand that just because you’ve hit diminishing returns in a single area, that doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to continue making progress.
A big part of this has been facing my own mental limitations. It’s clear to me that I recoil from the unfamiliar, and crave steady familiar routines. This is quite the realization considering my ‘routine’ has been so chaotic and counter-productive. I’m recognizing the power of making strange things familiar. This process takes a fair bit of time, but I’m recognizing the incredible power of it. To apply this, I have a goal of attempting to make a variety of new exercises feel familiar to me. Instead of confining myself to merely walking and swimming, I need to expand my exercise options.
Recognizing momentum
I can no longer deny that this is working. This may shock many people, but only now that I’ve lost 170lbs am I really beginning to ’trust the process’. I am now much more confident and dragged down by fear and despair a lot less often. It took a lot of faith to get to this point, but I’m beginning to really feel the changes in my mindset and emotional responses to challenges.
Because of this, I can report that I’m beginning to even out the emotional waves of this process. I feel a level of peace with it that seems entirely unfamiliar. It’s a shame that it took this long for me to truly recognize the power of gradual but consistent improvement. I am immensely grateful for being at this point, and recognize it as the blessing that it is.
I hope that in some small way, the journey I’ve taken can already show others that they can get started. I certainly wouldn’t have believed I would be where I am today as recently as a year ago. I am glad I’ve shared as much as I have, and I wish I had done more in the earliest days.
Are you aware of any health/fitness channels on PeerTube?
The only channel I can think about is Shifter which is a channel urban cycling, particularly in Canada. I found this video on winter cycling very informative! I’d also be curious to hear of any small independent blogs and/or podcasts that deserve more recognition!
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