Plateau

I’ve hit my first stumbling block.

I know there will be many, many, many more on this journey…but that doesn’t make it okay.  I’ve hit my first plateau in weight loss.  I have remained the same weight the last two weeks in a row.  I know, I know–I shouldn’t complain, at least I’m not gaining weight, but I’m not losing weight either.  I know exactly why–some biological factors combined with food vs. exercise.  I’ve increased my exercise, but this last week I increased my eating a little bit too.  Darn you chocolate and your amazing allure!  It’s all a numbers game, and I’ve been playing it too loosely.  Time to reign in my choices and keep on the straight and narrow.  I refuse to be the Nazi I was on weight watchers previously, because that’s just going to end in failure, but I do need to be a little stricter with myself. One step at a time, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Speaking of marathons, I was thinking it would be really great to start training for an event…work towards something.  So, I have decided that in September I’m going to enter the Chamber of Commerce’s Color Your Sole 5k (https://www.facebook.com/coloryoursole5k).  This gives me just under 5 months to get in shape enough for the 3.1 mile jaunt.  Right now, my treadmill speed is 2.5 MPH for 30 minutes.  So, my first goal is to get up to 3.0 MPH for 30 minutes.  Then I’ll be halfway there!

I may have mentioned this in a previous post, but I’m really struggling with my “future view.”  My goal weight is 180 pounds (because you have to be 200 or less to go tandem sky-diving, which will be my goal weight reward).  I don’t know what I would look like as an adult weighing 180 pounds, as I was quite young the last time I weighed that amount.  I’ve been scouring google for images of women that I would imagine I could possibly look like as assigned for our peer-to-peer Christian weight loss support group (man, that’s a mouthful!).  I think I found an image of what I can imagine being a “healthy” size.

From the brief caption that I read, this woman lost like over a hundred pounds doing Zumba.  Which is awesome, because I soooo do not have the coordination to dance. My Wii Zumba disk started collecting dust long ago.  But I would like to look like her.  No offense, but she’s not a skinny-Minnie, she’s still got some meat on her bones.  She looks strong, in shape, and happy.  She looks healthy.  She’s what I would consider “normal size.”  (and she’s not a size 2)  I think that I can start to wrap my head around this image.  I can’t quite put my head on her body yet, but I can start to dream a little bit of what I might look like.  I could be happy being her size (yes, I do know that size does not equate to happiness in and of itself–hence the emotional and spiritual parts of the gig).  I could be really satisfied looking like her.  So for now, I’m going to stick with this image.

I promise I’m not going to turn into a promoter of products, but I’ve been diving into Lysa TerKeurst’s “Made to Crave” Ministry Set (www.madetocrave.org).  I’ve been reading the trade book as I prepare to lead the accompanying Bible studies with our Christian weight loss support group.  Reading isn’t the right word–devouring is more like it.  Talk about someone who gets the daily battle with food.  I look forward to learning and growing more as I explore my relationship with God and food through this particular study.  I’ve also started another one-on-one discipleship program that I am doing with a friend that is proving to be quite stretching, it’s kind of a rigid 90-day program…rigid isn’t something I’m used to in my walk with God.  This program is based on Proverbs 31.  If I became half the woman mentioned in Proverbs 31, I’d be doing pretty darn well.

And, as Paul Harvey puts it, “that’s the rest of the story”