It seems that ever since the Las Vegas trip I've been steadily increasing my consumption of food and drinks. And this is now starting to jeopardize my status as a person weighing less than 300 pounds.
Right now I'm at 295, up from a month ago when I was about 290 and around two months ago when I started my climb back from 288. True, not massive increases but I know my body and I know this is the trend towards a total regain of my all-time high somewhere in the 320's...if I'm not careful.
All the old symptoms are creeping back. Ravenous hunger and thirst, a need for caffeine to fight fatigue, lethargy, apathy, aches and pain, sore shoulders (from side-sleeping) and a straining belt. I just generally feel fatter again, and, imagined or not, it seems I look much heavier in the mirror.
Why this retreat in my battle of the bulge? Why now after almost a year of maintaining in the 280's?
I hypothesize two potential reasons:
First is simply the fact that all I've done in the past 9 or 10 months is maintain. I lost a chunk of weight shortly after I went back on the wagon last summer for a while and was able to keep it off and drop a bit more until I was comfortably below 300 for the first time in years. But maintenance is harder when you go back to drinking again and eventually give up exercise again which eventually leads to eating bad foods again.
I've been behaving badly for months now and I'm just starting to see the sad results on the scale.
Secondly I think I've upped the ante as of late to perhaps inspire me to get back on track, and then some, by getting on a real weight loss program of intensive diet and exercise. Sounds counter-intuitive to make yourself gain weight in order to eventually put forth hard effort to lose it, but I'm a counter-intuitive kinda guy a lot of times.
I should go ahead and "just do it"! Really crack down on this weight. It'd be an appropriate time...
Twenty years ago this week I started a diet and exercise routine that reshaped my body, mind and spirit for years afterwards.
Ah, the summer of '92.
What a feeling! In just three months I went from 250 to 185 and by fall of that year I was a skinny 175.
And I stayed in the 180's, the ideal weight range for my height, for many years after that.
It seems like another life now.
Hmm, maybe after my days off, later this week.
I mean, after all, I do have 2 DiGiorno's pizzas in the freezer and some Longhammmer IPAs with my name on them...
Oh, I'm just hopeless.