Thursday, January 2, 2014

My Life Today Needs a Title

Post Number: 88
Review of Yesterday's Progress
     Daily Points Left: 53 of 71 (Goal: 31)
     Weekly Points Left: 49 of 49 (Goal: 49)
     Pedometer Reading: 5057
     Meetings Attended: Weight Watchers Closed for New Years
     Exercise Completed: At the Y -
          Swam Laps (5 laps, 250 yards)
          Water Jogged (5 laps, 250 yards)
     M-W's Daily Word: Endemic

What a wonderful way to start the New Year! Already more than 50 pounds lost. I will assuredly see the next 50 pounds come off this year. I am mentally planning for the exertion for 150 pounds to come off this year. What a wonder it will be to arrive below 250 pounds.

And speaking of numbers that produce awe. I am already at more than 1200 page views! That means each page is being viewed by 14 people on average. Thank you for being willing to read about my efforts. Part of me hopes that many of the readers are from the original class that inspired this project in the first place. It would be a humbling honor to know that some of those readers have followed this journal from the beginning.

While the beginning is well on its way, my father has been interested in the end. He raised an important concern. I have successfully exerted myself before to remove large amounts of weight. As I remember it, I reached 220 pounds in 14 months and 280 pounds in 18 months in prior weight loss attempts. I have often pondered what happened that I allowed or caused it to come back on. He has asked that I meditate on what diet and exercise habits I should ingrain. His thoughts came about while reading the book: Start Strong, Finish Strong: Prescriptions for a Lifetime of Great Health [Kindle Edition] Kenneth Cooper M.D. MPH (Author), Tyler Cooper M.D. MPH (Author). The book is not available for digital check out from my local library, but I have reserved the hard copy.

I wonder if there is something more than the habits that are necessary for long-term success. I would propose a hypothesis that there are attitudes that were set aside during the previous weight loss experiences that were never really gone. Once the marathon wore me down, the attitude exerted its preeminence within my mental circuitry and took over. That attitude is something that worries, annoys, and upsets MBWM. And even knowing she was upset as I was putting the weight back on didn't slow me or the attitude down. One thing that I do believe has assisted me is the advice and camaraderie of Weight Watchers. It helps having their system running in my mind. Even more helpful is the constant flow of information to look at a wide variety of the aspects of the weight loss process. And most helpful are the meetings. Another thing that will assist is that I will be decelerating the weight loss somewhere between now and 350 pounds. I want to lose the first 100 pounds as quickly as possible. I want to lose the second one hundred pounds in a more intelligent manner. A third thing that I believe that will help is the method of food selection. Right now, I am using Kimkins. That accelerates the weight loss. It is not the most intelligent approach to maintenance. I will approach maintenance starting around 350 pounds with the idea that the how I lose weight is quite similar to how I maintaine weight loss. That is when the real retraining of the brain begins.

And the work of building the habits must take shape throughout each day. My understanding of habits is that if they are new to us, the practice grows into habit quickly, as little as three weeks. For example, let's say you wanted to belt out at the top of your lungs one of your favorite songs as soon as the dishes were done in the evening. Not sure why you picked that habit to start, but I'm just going to run with it. This being foreign ground, the habit will form quickly. Changing habits, for example eating habits, that means first killing the old habit by consciously designing and practicing the new habit. Death of a habit takes time. I've read from various sources that the process of killing of an old habit and replacing with a new one takes anywhere from 6 weeks to 6 months, depending on the source of information. That lengths requirement is because building habits through goals, reminders, benchmarks, and overcoming setbacks takes intense time, concentration, and effort. I believe that the eating habits, being so deeply ingrained are at the 6 month end of the range, if not longer.

And this range of thoughts in the above two paragraphs is just an initial brain storming session to start the meditation process. I am hopeful that I will have even more insight as I ponder, research, and meditate on attitudes and habits that are deadly to the mind, body, and spirit and replacing them with ones that inspire growth and health.

And yes, growth can hurt. I am feeling it as I write this. Maybe it's from stretching my exercise farther and longer. Maybe it's from the vacation of last week. Probably it is a combination of those and a few other things. My muscles and joints are hurt-ting. I am grateful for the pain most days. I means so many things to me. It means I am:
  • alive.
  • working out.
  • pushing myself
  • succeeding in overcoming the punishment my body is feeling.
  • doing something for:
    • myself, 
    • MBWM, and 
    • my kids:
      • Horse,
      • Asian Red Fox,
      • Iguana,
      • Jaguar,
      • Lemur, and
      • Quail.
  • going to sleep well tonight.
  • going to rise with a built in reminder of:
    • where I am going, 
    • what I am doing, and 
    • how I am going to get there
And most of all, more than anything else, it means I am in pain.

Yours in the willingness to keep on keepin' on,

Eliot

P.S.: When  we are reading scriptures, we let the smaller ones join in through an echoing process. One of us reads a short phrase or single word. What we read depends on their echo's ability to remember and repeat. Lemur is quite good and can repeat back 5 to 7 word phrases so long as there aren't too many big words. Quail is just starting out with single words. At the end of his verse, the echoing process when something like:

Asian Red Fox: the
Quail: too
Asian Red Fox: people
Quail: poopy-peel
Asian Red Fox: of
Quail: ot
Asian Red Fox: Ammon,
Quail: apple
Asian Red Fox: who
Quail: oo
Asian Red Fox: were
Quail: rrr
Asian Red Fox: once
Quail: unce
Asian Red Fox: the
Quail: da
Asian Red Fox: people
Quail: poopy-peel
Asian Red Fox: of
Quail: fff
Asian Red Fox: the
Quail: ut
Asian Red Fox: Lamanites.
Quail: Yay!!! *clap* *clap* *clap* *clap* *clap* *clap*

Quail is just too cute.

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