Problems
I’ve been at risk of undoing much of the health improvements I’ve done over the last four years. My eating habits are not only directly unhealthy, but not great for my mental health with the self-loathing I feel after a whole week of eating bad… week after week.
I’ve let myself get lazy and distracted. I haven’t been keeping up on household chores. I’ve basically been a mess.
I’m going to refocus. I’m weighing myself again. I haven’t started posting it again because the page is crazy with too much data. I’ll find a better way to present it soon. My weight this morning was 236.4lbs. That’s higher than it’s been since October of 2008.
I need to stop going out to eat so much. Going out for pizza or a burger and a beer three or four times a week is not only working against my goals, but is costing too much money.
Today, I cooked a pork chop on the grill and had celery sticks. I have leftovers for lunch tomorrow. It was a sensible size portion and I drank water with it.
More Goals
In December 2008 I listed a few secondary goals. I just revisited that.
- Learn to ride a unicycle (next year)
I wisely gave up on this.
- Be car-free (three years away)
Strangely enough, I’m on track for this.
- Either fix-up my house, or move (three years away)
I moved more than a year ahead of the goal.
- Meet a woman crazy enough to like my lifestyle (never?)
I got married – we’re split up now – don’t want to say much more than that.
- Ride a several hundred mile multi-day tour (next year?)
Although late, I did this in March of this year.
Message From The Past
In January of 2009, I wrote something that I needed to read now. Luckily, I do re-read my older blog entries occasionally.
I mention effort to save a life. I was trying at the time to convince my audience that this is possible and necessary. It turns out the audience is me in 2011.
Alright Then
If I fix my eating habits and focus more on productive activities, not only will I lose weight, but I should feel better about myself. It’s not a cure for depression, but it means fewer bad days.
It’s strange that the things I crave when depressed (food & beer) are things that will eventually make me more depressed. This is common. What is it with the human psyche?
I can’t pretend to 100% understand what you’re going through, but I believe the bike can help. When I was quitting smoking (yes, I used to be a smoker) the bike was both the motivation and the means to get through whatever rough patches I found. And of course we’ve all used our bikes to take our minds off other stuff. Stay focused on your goals, and biking … hopefully that will help somewhat, at least.
Yes Apertome is right I have had a few problems lately and still am, but riding my bike keeps me sane and gives me thinking time away from the mad mad world.Just have more good days than bad with the food and keep riding and things will be better.
The bike helps. The point of the post was that the focusing on the goals helps too. It also helps me achieve those goals.
My goal weight is still 175lbs. I’ve been under 200 twice since beginning this adventure, and I sit here now over 230.
Focus.
Must focus.
Dave, I am so sorry that you are going through a rough patch right now. If you take baby steps, you will be back on track. I know you will, because you are so smart and you know exactly what to do to help yourself. You can do it, one day or maybe one minute at a time.
I’m pulling for you today — and I know that you will start to feel much better soon.