The past year left me spinning my wheels in a lot of ways, this blog being an obvious example. My general health also took a hit, even without contracting COVID (knock on wood). Quarantine found me reaching for comfort foods, prepackaged meals, and takeout. Before long, I found myself in a larger size of jeans. Oops.
Then those jeans got tighter, and I had to get honest with myself. Is this the trajectory I want?
Most definitely not. I worked so hard five years ago to lose all that baby weight, and I will not welcome it back. I am barring the door and calling it a trespasser.
If only it was that easy.
Because I always go all the way off the deep end first, I decided to do the 75Hard Challenge. If you’ve heard anything about it, you’re already laughing at me. If you haven’t, it is a crazy commitment to 75 days WITHOUT FAIL of a list of behaviors. Some are no big deal – read 10 pages of a nonfiction book every day. But there are also 2 workouts PER DAY, lasting at least 45 minutes each, with one of them outside.
I lasted 6 days. Which is actually nothing to sneeze at. The level of stress 75Hard piled on top of my other stress was no good at all, as evidenced by a new level of panic attacks in certain situations. Time to chill.
I took a few days to think about it.
Okay, it was a few weeks. But not a whole month! One morning as I was paging through Facebook or Instagram I came across a meme that said something about how every change I make is based on the idea that tomorrow I will wake up as a person who has a completely different level of discipline and commitment. Ha! There is the crux.
Time to plan something that works with who I am, as sloppy as that makes the plan look. I am a person with a busy family, so my time commitment has to be flexible. I have to account for days when I have no energy and feel like a slug. Evaluating data entertains me, so I can put that to use. And I am supposed to be cooking our meals, anyway…
When I lost weight last time, I began with the rule that I could eat anything I want, I just have to log the calories and nutrition. So that is where I began again, with the addition of trying to be closer to the plant-based diet I profess to follow. I added a daily walk, which counts as exercise, and gets me out the door for a bit. Any other exercise is bonus.
With my plan in place, I was off and running. Er, walking.
I’ve completed six weeks on my plan and have lost 8 pounds and 3 inches around my waist.