Crunch Time

I've talked a lot on this blog about how slow I am and how much training I am doing. Something I haven't talked about very specifically that has been foremost in my mind is my weight. I won't go into all the psychological issues I'm sure I have with food, or how damaging it was to be the chubby kid. Suffice it to say that I have always had a problem with my weight. Even during the times when I was fairly physically active, I still struggled with it. I have gained weight and lost it and gained it again.

In November 2006, when Chris and I got engaged, I was 2 pounds short of my highest weight ever, and I was completely disgusted. The wedding seemed like a good motivator and I usually do really well at losing weight when I am motivated. At that point, I set a goal of losing 64.5 pounds, based on an arbitrary ending figure that seemed reasonable, given my height, frame, etc. The reality of it is that I'm never going to weigh 120 pounds, nor am I ever going to be a size 4, and I'm okay with that. There's no reason I can't be a lot thinner and healthier than I am, though.

So, I set about losing this weight and I just had too much time. I started out doing really well, but got tired of it, backslid and petered out. Luckily, I've been fairly active for most of that time and very active for some of it, so I haven't gained as much back as I would have if I had been doing nothing but sitting on the couch.

In the interim, I also decided I wanted to race mountain bikes and I think the weight loss could be really beneficial for that as well. Chris and his friends are always trying to convince me to buy parts that will shave weight off my mountain bike, but none of it would benefit me as much as shaving 20 pounds off my butt.

This week reality set in. And the reality is this—my first race is April 20 and my wedding is May 13. That leaves about 3 months until my race and a little less than four months until the wedding. That's simply not enough time to get to my goal, especially considering the fact that you're supposed to leave about 8 weeks for alterations on your wedding dress. That leaves me really only until March 18, unless I can find someone who will do alterations in a lot less time.

So, what we're looking at is basically another 2 months. Here's where I'm at:

Weight lost since Nov. 2006: 36.5 pounds

Weight gained back: 11.5

Net weight loss: 25

Pounds left to goal: 39.5

Basically, there's no way I'm going to come anywhere near my goal in that timeframe, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't do my best to take off what I can. I am really struggling, though, so I thought I'd add some accountability by talking about it on my blog. (I realize there are only about three people who read my blog but, still, it's out there.)

I thought about posting my actual weight on my blog, but I don't think I can bring myself to do that. Instead, I'm going to report weekly on how much weight I have lost since the last report. I'm also going to post unflattering "fat" photos of myself as motivation. Here's the first one: