Two Years Later 4

Two years after I set out to lose eighty pounds, I have swam and swam and ellipticaled and biked and I have now lost…seventy seven pounds.

So the pace I set for myself last year was a little ridiculous – I wanted to lose 38 pounds in eight months, and I didn’t really take into account how much harder it is to take the weight off when a) I’m actually working all the time and b) once I’ve gotten the easy pounds off.

I’ve still got three really fucking stubborn pounds that won’t come off, and the evil that is the Craft Service Table is fighting back at me, calling out to me with its delicious croissants and mini-cupcakes and banana cream pudding and on and on and on.

But when I start to get discouraged after some fluctuation, I have to look at what’s changed:

I used to wear double XL men’s American Apparel shirts. Now I wear a large.

I used to wear 44 inch Levi’s loose fit jeans, which weren’t all that loose. Now I wear 34 inch loose fit jeans, and they actually are loose-fitting.

I used to be 5’4″ tall on a good day. I thought the doctor made a mistake at my physical this year when she listed me at 5’5″. They measured three times. I was so overweight it was compressing my spine by an INCH.

I’m now within three pounds of weighing what I weighed my junior year of high school, when I was in the best shape I’ve ever been since I stopped growing (or at least thought I had).

I used to have a BMI of 42.9, which was almost 3 points over Morbidly Obese. I now have a BMI of 28.8., which is now finally out of Obese and simply at Overweight.

I have come a long damn way. And I’m close to my original goal. Original, because the goal has changed. I have come this far, I can go farther. I can get my BMI to 25, the top of the normal range. Ain’t no way in hell I can get to the middle of that range, I’m just built too stockily. But I can get to the top of the normal range.

To do this, I have to lose 23 more pounds, for an even 100 total. This is going to be…well, very difficult. I’m aiming to have it done by this time next year, but I know it’s not going to come off terribly fast anymore.

These are the pounds that have been on for 10+ years, and these are going to be the ones that are the hardest to convince to go. These are the ones that demand I start eating salad and vegetables on a regular basis, that I work out hard five days a week period end of discussion no matter what.

Of course, I’m on the verge of being unemployed again early next month, so I’ll be back on the broke-ass diet, the single most effective diet and exercise program I’ve ever been on. Not having the money for alcohol or eating out and having time to work out for over an hour every day tends to help with weight loss.

But as slow and painful as it will be, I still have confidence that because I have come so goddamn far that I can go just a bit further. It can be done. It’s only a matter of time.