I think I made a wise decision to start back on plan this past Monday. I meant to get down to the gym and weigh, so I’d have an official start weight; I wasn’t able to do it Monday or yesterday. So, on Day 3… I weighed, and I worked out.

The Good: I started working out, again.  My choice: water walking.  I’m not sure what else to call it… I’m not really walking in the pool; I’m doing light jogging.  It’s great exercise for me, because I need something that’s no-impact, gives me decent cardio workouts, and also works my entire body.  Moving nearly my whole body against water is just the thing I need.

When I gave up last September, I’d just bought a waterproof case and headphones for my mp3 player, as well as a waterproof heart monitor.  I didn’t wear the heart monitor today, but I’m happy to report that the waterproof case and headphones for my mp3 player worked quite well.

The Bad: I don’t think there’s really a “bad” to getting back on plan, no matter how slow I have to start out.  I’m moving, and I’m eating better.  I can already tell that I’m dropping water weight; and I know it’s water weight because I had some edema in my left foot, and that’s gone down.  Maybe the bad is that I’ve already lost a couple pounds of weight (water or fat, it’s still weight) before having an initial weigh-in.

The Fugly: My new starting weight, which you’ll see posted on the upper right of the screen: 334 pounds.  I have gained 51 pounds from last September, and it’s April.  Pregnant people don’t gain this fast.  You’d think I fell off the wagon and started snarfing down twinkies with reckless abandon: that’s not so.  I definitely could have eaten better than I did.

For me personally, it’s a bit of a blow, because my start weight back in 2002, before I started a low carb journey that led me to lose 140.5 pounds, was 337.  Now, I wasn’t able to weigh for several weeks, so I probably lost 20-30 pounds before that start weight.  Nonetheless, today’s weight is an indicator of several things that I need to accept.

• If I choose to have carbs in my diet, I choose to gain weight.  It’s as simple as that.  Sure, eating too many calories is going to slap chunks of lard on my bubble butt, but nothing seems to do that quicker than the addition of carbs.  And not even extreme carbs; if I had been keeping a food diary over recent months, it likely would have shown that I probably ate approximately the RDA of 300 carbs a day.  I just can’t do it.  Not if I want to be healthy.
• While I’m flogging myself over what I’ve allowed to happen since getting to a low of 197.5 several years back, I need to remember that while I’ve gained nearly everything back, I haven’t topped out.  I still have some of the clothes from the “old days” as a reminder.  I was in a 4x top and size 32 jeans.  I am currently in 3x top and size 26 jeans, although they’re tight.  While the path ahead of me is difficult, I have already proven that I can do this, and I’m not at the horrible start point that I was at, before.
• If I don’t get my head right, it’ll be the death of me — literally.  This isn’t a quest for cute clothes.  It’s a battle for my life.  I’m a few months short of 50 years old; if I want to see a few more decades, I need to do something and do it now.  I can no longer allow my head to tell me things are okay when they aren’t.  And those are the facts.

I have admitted to those close to me that my head isn’t quite in this just yet; that I’m faking it until I make it.  Seeing my weight this morning was a wake-up call, particularly since I’ve put on so much weight so fast.  It’s no wonder that I’m out of breath; that I have terrific joint pain; that it doesn’t take much to wear me out.

When I was around 200 pounds, which is still fairly heavy for someone my height, I took scuba diving lessons, and had to be able to walk with the tank and gear on.  A full tank plus gear (weights, BC, suit, octo, etc.) runs somewhere in the neighborhood of 60-80 pounds.  I was very fit at the time, able to squat over 250 pounds, and yet, having to carry that gear made me feel like I was going to run myself into the ground.  My weight plus the scuba gear was somewhere around 260-280 pounds; I weigh much more than that right now.  I’m lugging around the equivalent of twice as much scuba gear.  My body is pissed at me.  I can feel it with every step.

In conclusion… while my head still isn’t 100% in the game, it’s much closer than it was just a couple days ago.  I’ll add this, though; since I have already recognized that weighing and not seeing success measured on the scales tends to mess with my head, I have decided that I will only weigh when I change pants sizes.  I’m in a tight 26 right now.  I have jeans of every size down to 16.  When I reach size 24 in something — that can be shorts, too — I will weigh again.  Then, if that number isn’t what I want, I will already have the reinforcing knowledge of knowing that I’m in a smaller size, and that’s a big indicator of success.

Thanks for taking this journey with me.  I’m promising you — and myself, most of all — that I’m going to do what’s necessary to make this work.