Half Way There

Okay, so I'm half way there!  I'm half way there.  Alright one more time and I'll be done...I'm half way there!  Can you tell I'm excited?  If you have never battled with your weight or hell battled for anything then you might not understand my excitement.  But, if you get the amount of focus and determination it takes to accomplish anything that doesn't come natural or easy, then you totally get this, right?  Well, this surely doesn't come easy for me.  I struggle everyday to make the right choices, sometimes I win and sometimes I don't but this time I'm not losing focus.  Each day in small ways and each week when I weigh myself I assess what I'm doing that's working and what I might need to change.  I think that at the half way mark this is the perfect opportunity for me to look at where I started, how far I've come and what I need to do to finish strong.

Sometime in mid-March of this year, I was up late flipping channels and happened upon this infomercial for the Six Week Body Makeover (6WBMO).  It's an infomercial so it was clearly trying to sell me something, promising me that I could eat more and workout less, no gyms, yada yada yada.  But as I listened, there was something that was making sense to me.  The science behind it clicked with all of the years of weightlossology that I had consumed.  I mean it was at least based on better science than getting a staple inside of my ear that I had to move back and forth each day to control my appetite (NO LIE--I actually went to New Jersey when I was about 18 or 19 and got a staple in my damn ear!)  Anyway, 6WBMO is based on following an eating regimen based on your body type and an exercise program based on your body structure. I read between the lines of "EAT MORE" and "NO GYM" because I knew based on the rest of what they were telling me, the program would require more work and sacrifice than that and even if they didn't require it, I would put in the work and sacrifice to be successful.

I decided to get it.  I had the phone in my hand and was about to dial when I remembered my mother telling me about some diet thing she had purchased and that I should look at (I didn't of course because at that point I didn't want to hear about it.)  I wondered if it was the same thing and I hung up the phone.  Hey, it cost money and I'm a broke single mom.  Well, it was the same exact program and my mom had purchased it for me, could tell I wasn't interested (I actually didn't think that she had gotten it for me) and she didn't bring it up again.  The purchase was unopened in the closet.

I decided I would do it.  I planned, as I usually do, to have a last ho-rah and start at the beginning of some week, I think it was3/29.  I could tell that there was a lot of preparation that would need to happen and wanted to get some binges in before I said goodbye. The Tuesday before I was supposed to start, I was in the kitchen watching the 11:00 news and there was a report about three people who had lost a significant amount of weight and who had turned their weight loss into other avenues, like one became a fitness instructor and another one had an online support group.  I just decided at that moment that I wasn't going to wait.  I started Wednesday, March 24th and haven't looked back (glances don't count!).

Next week I will be starting my 4th six week stint on the program.   I have learned a lot about the science of food and exercise, the everyday little things that I have to do to lose weight, and some harsh realities about how I have to conduct myself in order to keep losing weight and ultimately live a healthy and fit life.  Things that must be life changes, not temporary adjustments that I use to drop some pounds.  These truths and realities are hard pills to swallow sometimes and in the coming days I'm gonna put them all down because I need to process them and remember them.  I also hope that they can help everyone else who is trying to battle through losing weight.

But for today, I'm more than half way there and I'm pretty excited about it.