Making Molehills Out of Mountains

I went hiking yet again this weekend. It was awesome! We did a six-mile loop, activity level strenuous, in about three hours. My legs were jelly and the last mile and a half was uphill; for a while I felt like I wouldn’t make it. But I did and I’m really proud of that. Next weekend, two days after Thanksgiving, we’re going camping. I figure that’s a good way to avoid eating myself into a coma with holiday leftovers and that going out to do some really awesome hikes will be enough to undo Thanksgiving damage and to get me right back on track with my weight loss efforts. I’ve been thinking about what a hard time I had this year weight loss wise. I got side tracked around the holidays last year and just never really got this back on to my list of priorities. It was high on my wants and needs list but hardly ever featured on my actively doing list. So many other things just came up and got in the way. And I guess that’s ok in the sense that I’ve really accomplished a lot for myself school-wise and career-wise and I’m glad I made the investment. But getting my weight and fitness back to a level that I’m more comfortable with is really something that I need to turn a lot of attention to. I’m sick of being aware of how uncomfortable I am but continuously delaying doing something about it. I just feel that now that I’ve finally got my focus back I’m dealing with the mother of all weight loss de-railers: The Holidays. I want to survive the next few months with a semblance of normality. I want to thoroughly enjoy the season and the festivities without letting go of my long term goals. I want the ultimate achievement: partake in the merriment AND still lose weight. Is this even possible? I don’t know if it is. In times past I was able to do that but losing weight was simpler for me. I had more to lose and along with that more room to error. But now that I’ve gotten into the battle of these last fifteen or so pounds, everything is important. Every little thing counts. A couple of years ago I could slip up a few days, gain a few pounds, but three or four days of being back on plan would undo the gain. But now it seems that one slip undoes weeks worth of work and I can’t have enough “good” days in a row to get further than breaking even. In fact when I look back over the past half year I see that most of my work has been weight maintenance even though I was putting in weight loss effort. It’s very discouraging and weighs heavy on the morale after a while. Regardless of that I’m still determined to do this even if I just have to accept that part of this process is the natural fact that it gets harder and harder the closer you get and so you have to be prepared for frustrations and feeling discouraged. Anyways, so that’s where I’m at with things right now: experimenting with the fierce kick-ass wilderness chick inside of me and trying to balance her needs with the fierce grumpy couch-potato chick that’s also inside me!