On June 1 I got on the scale and it read: 222.7.
The day before I did this, I decided it was time to get my shit together again. As someone who goes up & down over the years, I knew I wasn't sitting at 199 pounds. I had avoided the scale for a while. Every now & again I would get on and not like what I saw. The winter hadn't been especially good. Weight lifting ended up adding 10+ pounds, and I never bothered to take it off. I felt fine. My overall health was good. And I asked myself this question. Am I ok being 225 pounds as a normal weight so long as I'm happy & healthy?
In the end the answer was sure, until the biking season started to ramp up. Then healthy & happy had to take a back seat to, "Dragging an extra 20+ pounds up this fucking hill sucks." So the day before June 1, I decided to get my act together. This was really a 2-part approach. First: keep doing the same amount of activity I have always been doing. Second, start tracking my calories. It was that simple.
Yesterday I woke up at 196.5, which, doing the math, is a 26.2 pounds loss. That's a marathon, if you're into math and numbers and shit.
One might ask how I got back up to 222+ pounds. To this I would say:
Actually, the correct Sesame Street giphy would probably be this:
No matter, here we are. Well, there we were and here we are now. I feel great. It's so much easier to get up the hills these days. Funny enough, going down is better too, as it's a lot easier to control my speed. A conversation for another time, but an interesting discussion one day.
I decided not to bring the topic up on this thread, mostly as an experiment, In part, it was because I've been up & down, then up & down, and it's yet another cycle. I would like to think this is a more firm foundation I've built this iteration on. But time will be the judge of that. No, the real reason I decided not to say anything was because of something I read on the Biggest Loser thread. Someone commented they lost a bunch of weight and nobody said anything, for months & months. I was seeing this same phenomenon the past 3+ months. It's been about 100 days and 26+ pounds and up until today, not a single person commented about it. Then today one of the dog walking crew that D goes with made the comment. It was the first thing he said when we saw them.
I wonder, is it not politically correct to say something anymore? I guess I understand that. By saying, "Hey, you lost weight," are you retroactively saying, "Hey, you used to be fat?" Maybe this is what we should say instead. I find it an interesting thought. As a side note, in my previous iterations of weight loss people often commented on it. I guess times have changed.
Anyway, I don't plan to post a lot about this. But the experiment lasted ~100 days, 26+ pounds, and covered 100s of people over the summer. I'm certain some people noticed, but I'm also certain that people don't know what they're allowed to say anymore. This also brings up an interesting question I pose to you. If someone you know HAS put on some weight, where is the right time and place to express concern for their health?
I don't know the answers to this questions. I'm just curious what is acceptable anymore. In any event, I'm just gonna keep trying to chip away pound by pound and we'll see where it all goes.
Also, we had a great ride at Allaire yesterday.