Huge progress, huge slideback, huge committment

[vicrandom]

So, a couple of years ago I got scared by a few health indicators and got pretty serious about my health. The psychological work and time committment involved were brain-bending - I had to think about it all the time, probably six+ hours a day, to stay on track. I had to work really hard at thinking about my health instead of going down weird spiral trails of thinking about food and weight, which would lead to binging. But the easiest way to describe how far I got is in pounds, so I'll throw out there that I lost a hundred and twenty pounds. I "joined the rebellion" but you don't know my name because I didn't really use the boards; I had a decent group of proximal humans who were also getting healthy so I mostly used them for support. I was intermittent fasting, angry-birding, walking lots, still at a newbie level because losing 120 pounds was a big deal but when you're starting from 360 and completely sedentary with some physical limitations, there's going to be lots of room for improvement, but I was feeling pretty awesome.

 

Anyway... fast forward. I held steady for a while and then at some point it all fell apart; 6+ hours a day of mental and physical work is tough to maintain. I haven't been on a scale in some time (don't own one, prefer not to fixate on it) but I've lost many of my good habits and gotten most of my fat back. The timing of this post is coincidental; this is not a new year's resolution. It's taken a long time and a fair amount of mental work to get back to the point where I'm ready to be serious about deciding to do right by myself and my body (and with that said, I had cookies for breakfast so it's not like I'm taking off like wildfire).

 

I have a new job and (literally) don't have time to do mental work towards health 6+ hours a day, so the last route I took toward health won't work again, although there were great habits built there that I'm planning to get back with. I'm not expecting to be able to manage the fantastic turnaround I pulled last time - or at least, not as quickly. I'm gonna have to be easy on myself in some respects. I may not get back on myfitnesspal for a few months; I may not drop grains completely for some time; I'm going to be starting with portion control, snack reduction, sugar elimination, dramatic carb gram reduction through meal planning and veg intake increase, and a walk to Mordor. I love walking and hiking - at my size and activity level it's going to be a slow start, but I'm really looking forward to it (got started officially tracking just yesterday).

 

The Mordor walk showed up when I was surfing through my inbox trying to find something else... I don't recall even being signed up for NF in 2012, so I'm not sure how I actually came across it, but obviously I missed the big start. If anybody else is near-ish the beginning of their journey, I'd love to walk "together." I'm on RunKeeper, just started yesterday; I'm not sure how much time I can realistically commit to the NF boards but I'll see how it fits in as I move forward.

 

In short, hi! I'm here hoping to break carb addiction and renew peripatetic addiction in as nerdy a way as possible. 

[kuraiuncia]

Hi there! I'm glad you've respawned. Small steps eventually turn into great acheivements. Be kind to yourself, you can do this.

 

Hope to see you around sometime!

[halixius]

^ Seconded. I haven't started the walk to Mordor unless you count my 10 minutes dog walk today, although it would be a really good thing to do. I side-eye the cold, windy weather every time I think about going outside, but I'm hoping to force myself into it. If you want, I can try to keep up with your progress and walk "with" you.

[Deirdredawne]

Hey There! I'm in a similar boat. I committed myself to run a 5k this summer - so my pup and I are on a training mission to get there (I'm starting from square 1 - no running!). 

 

I'll have to look at runkeeper - I usually just use my Samsung health app to keep track of the distance I do.

[Endurer]

Hi, I am right there with you. I have weight to lose around fifty pounds more or less to probably be the best me that I can be. At 57 it is much harder to make long lasting changes than when I was in my twenties.  This minth I got on NF and have set three goals, one is to walk ten minutes a day - so far I am doing it.  As it has been a very cold start, I have convinced myself to walk inside my house or the school where I work.  I have only missed one day so far and am getting to where I feel better after walking and am thinking of upping my time to 15 minutes a day.  I started small so I could feel success as I tend to be one to dive in do alot and then not last.  I am trying the small and steady baby steps to see if it works better.  Good luck on your waling and I will cheer you on.

[vicrandom]

@Endurer: That's great. I really made a lot of progress starting small and feeling the satisfaction from the changes that even small regular effort brings. The gains snowballed into big changes for me. I ran into trouble when I needed to try to transition to a next level - or maybe maintain. Basically, when I got used to seeing regular changes in measurements, it really threw me when I stopped seeing regular improvements in my strength. It started to get tough to hang onto my very careful food routine when I was seeing smaller changes on the scale/tape measure -- that was really NOT my initial motivation, but health indicators change so slowly that I relied on the other things to show me I was making progress. As a result I experienced some "mission drift" that ended up being a big problem. I lost track of the basics and eventually fell full-on into old habits for an extended period of time. And the old habits were epically bad, so I had pretty epic results from it. I'm starting again, knowing that starting is definitely hard, but once I get going there's going to be a mental hurdle down the road that I haven't figured out how to clear yet. Hopefully I'll have a support team going by then that can help me kinda figure it out.

[Sunday]

I really understand this -- the initial success, the growing confidence, and then The Wall, the disappointment, and the dissolution of the good habits.  Good on you for starting over!  I hope to walk with you, because I have a long journey ahead rather like yours.