Okay, more than a slip up, but whatever. It’s okay.
After losing 104 pounds her the course of 10 months through tracking and exercising, I decided to take a month or two off of logging, mainly because I was burned out, but also because I was confident that I could maintain on my own due to the amount of exercise I was getting.
I started losing weight by cutting my intake to 1,800, then 1,500, then 1,200 calories. I did this over the course of about 5 months, and stayed between 1,200 and 1,500 for the next 5 months. I was running more and more, peaking at 25 miles/week for four weeks. My running ramped up when I decided to stop logging. I weighed 191 that day, on September 15. I then ramped up my running, averaging 30 miles/week, with a peak of 42 miles one week while training for my first half marathon.
The half was in Thanksgiving Day, and I set a goal of < 2:00. I ran it hard, but smart, with excellent (for me) splits, and came across the line at 1:49:24, beating my goal by more than 10 minutes. I was absolutely ecstatic! I’m still paying for that result with soreness and IT band tightness, but that’s okay. I was happy with it.
I then ate a well-earned Thanksgiving dinner. I ate all the food, I didn’t care about the calories. It tasted good, and I didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty. I knew I was heavier than I was in September, but I also knew I had made so much progress over the past 15 months, both mentally and physically.
I stepped on the scale this morning and weighed 204. I was a little bummed out, sure. But only for a few moments. I was mostly bummed out because I was over 200 pounds again, after working so hard to get under that number. But then I realized: “go back to a deficit, get those running clothes on, and you’ll be 199 in a week; some of that is water weight, and you’ll shed it easy.”
So today I start again. Not just counting the calories to maintain a deficit, and not just by running, but both. I’ve got two goals in mind: 185 on the scale (a healthy BMI for my height) and < 4:00:00 on the clock for my marathon on March 17. I’m going to do both. I don’t know when, but I know I will. That’s going to require hard work; a 1,000 calorie deficit/day, and getting my mileage up to 50 miles/week by mid-February. I’ve done harder, and I can do these. You’ve done harder, and you can reach your goals too.
We shouldn’t worry about sliding backwards, or missing goals, or losing ground. This weight loss process we are doing is a ride down a road; a ‘journey’ as we call it. No journey is all downhill, there are hills to go up, and flat parts to navigate. But as long as we focus on the goal, and keep moving forward, we will get there.
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