I found something really motivating.
Do a Google image search for "X pound fish" where X is the number of pounds you've lost.
Here's my fish!
Evan Martin caught this blue catfish:
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| He released that fish, by the way. He's awesome. (not my photo) |
Holy crap,
that's a fish.
This fish represents the weight loss I started in 2003 but stalled at in 2009ish.
The stall has been for various reasons. It started as an ankle/hip injury, then continued as silent acid reflux (unreasonable hunger even immediately after eating), stress, a year or so of pointlessly steeping in fertility treatment hormones, having a baby, plantar fasciitis, etc. Oh yeah, and mostly I have stalled because of laziness.
I've been super ridiculously tired for the last 6+ months, like... scary, can't-even-walk-around-the-block, can't-form-thoughts tired. I'm sure I could fill 5 whiny blog posts about it, but after discovering some bone loss it was finally diagnosed as a calcium deficiency. Well, hypocalcemia plus hitting sleep-deprivation rock bottom... 'cause hey, it turns out you need calcium to make enough melatonin to stay asleep. A few days after getting the diagnosis last month, just because the universe thought I hadn't
actually hit rock bottom yet, I got shingles too. Yay!
It's been a month of supplementing so far and my energy is finally starting to come back, and I can walk around the block without feeling like I might pass out. My never-ending shin cramp is even gone! It's pretty nice.
I'm officially out of excuses.
It is time for me to tackle this hardest part of my 100-pound weight loss journey.
My allies in this quest are:
- My Fitness Pal - for easily counting calories, macros, and making sure my calcium is perfect.
- Happy Scale app - to keep you sane, it shows you trends even when your weight fluctuates, and it also visually breaks your big goal up into 10 little ones for better motivation.
- Fitness trackers - the Bellabeat LEAF and the Fitbit One. Yeah, I decided to wear both for now... the LEAF is gorgeous and was working great, but has been crazily under-counting my steps lately, so I changed some settings and am trying to see if I can improve accuracy while still wearing it as a necklace. It's still kind of in beta, so they keep making changes with the LEAF's algorithms and such. The Fitbit is, as always, perfectly accurate for step-counting.
- Folding magnetic exercise bike - this thing takes up so little space and is silent compared to the old recumbent bike. It's hanging out in the living room for a while as a reminder to bike while Torin is asleep on days that we can't hike. So far it's been working.
- YOU?! Does anyone want to join me on the social side of My Fitness Pal or Fitbit?
71 pounds down, 29 to go.
Time to catch me another fish.
If you've lost weight, show me your fish!
