First things, first: I showed a small loss this week; .6 lbs, which is enough to tip my ticker over to (a rounded up) 36 pounds, but I’m not claiming that here until it’s the full 36 pounds. I’m sitting at 35.6 pounds lost, now, and am happy to be in a loss situation, even if my new loss amount is the rough equivalent of being slightly more than two sticks of butter. 😉 It’s small, but it will add up.

I’ve had a few things floating around my brain this last week; it was the 25th anniversary of my father’s death a few days ago, and as I’ve written before, I still deal with damage left from that toxic relationship — the destructive inner voice I need to quiet on occasion was named for him. (When I address my ‘inner Walt’, that’s who I’m talking about.)

While I haven’t had to deal with that voice much, lately, I constantly deal with my own impatience. I set a goal of losing a total of 100 pounds by the end of this year, and I’m already behind on that number. Plus, I’ve lost weight faster in the past, and while I might be thankful to be losing weight, I really do honestly wish it were faster. Slogging along for the occasional half a pound of loss gets irritating, especially when it took me all of a year to gain that weight.

While these thoughts may not be from my inner Walt, they’re demons that need exorcising, nonetheless.

I saw, recently, that there are open auditions for the ABC show Extreme Weight Loss near me in just a few weeks. I’ve seen this show, and I like how the trainer approaches each person as a whole person, rather than pitting a number of overweight people against each other, like The Biggest Loser. (Comments on that in a moment.) I seriously considered going to the open auditions, and even read up on the application for it. One of the qualifications is that you must need to lose at least half your body weight, and I certainly qualify, there.

I’ve mulled it over — and I’m still mulling it over, but one of the big reasons the whole idea appeals to me is because the goal is to lose half your body weight in a year’s time. That would mean losing somewhere in the neighborhood of 165 pounds or so in 12 months. Is that possible? Well, yes — assuming any medical issues are resolved, including metabolic issues and things like needing knee replacement, which would likely disqualify me, because I have to be careful about impact exercise.

It appeals to my impatience. And it’s for that reason that I’ll likely not go.

In 2003, when I started a journey that eventually led to 140 pounds loss, I lost most of that weight in the first year. Believe me, it was far from easy; it took a lot of hard work, sticking to my diet, and extreme amounts of cardio and strength training to lose that weight. Losing weight fast is addictive; seeing a smaller than expected loss, or no loss at all, can be devastating. It can make you lose sight of the end goal, and compromise logical thought.

That’s when we tend to hurt ourselves; when we lose sight of the goal. There’s a difference between determination and stupidity. I’ll admit I’ve been stupid plenty of times in the name of losing weight, which is probably the biggest reason I became obese in the first place.

I am fortunate to be surrounded by a number of wonderful women who also are working hard to lose weight; the vast majority of them are a lot closer to a healthy weight than I am. Although they have far less weight to lose, and they are dedicated to exercise (whereas I currently am dealing with a number of issues that prohibit it for the time being), we share one commonality: they also struggle with small or no losses. I see them struggle with trying to overcome plateaus, adjusting their diets to help them, working on strength training and cardio, and despite those factors, they lose slowly or not at all.

It’s not just me. It’s an easy thing to want to compartmentalize my own situation by classifying myself as being different from them because of medical circumstances, morbid obesity, etc. But the fact of the matter is that most women struggle with this. I am not alone. Most of us are impatient and want results now.

Impatience can be a motivator, but we all have to work on making sure it’s not what undoes our hard work.

For now, at least in my current mindset, I think it’s a good idea to set the Extreme Weight Loss auditions to the side. In the same vein, though, I’d like to speak briefly about The Biggest Loser, which is a show I used to watch religiously when it first came on the air. Just this past week, they awarded a new winner, a woman who lost 155 pounds — but fell under heavy criticism for being too thin.

Just by the numbers, which I understand place her ending BMI at 17.5 and therefore underweight, this sounds as if she intentionally overshot a healthy weight range. Mind you, I don’t put a lot of stock in BMI, or even healthy weight ranges; and I don’t possess the ability to look at someone and determine their overall health.

That aside, I stopped watching The Biggest Loser because I felt they lost sight of helping people create better lives, and I figured that eventually this exact situation would present itself. While it’s possible that this season’s winner honestly wanted to be 105 pounds, I think it’s more likely that in the name of winning, she purposely overshot the healthy goal. This probably happens every season, but this particular one is drawing a lot more attention because most winners probably just come close to what’s considered a healthier, normal weight, without exceeding it to this degree.

While many have condemned this season’s winner for what they see as carrying weight loss too far, I see it as the byproduct of the show’s process. In the name of helping people choose healthier lives, they encourage the idea that you must lose weight to succeed, regardless of the personal cost. There have been far too many rumors of weight manipulations by contestants, such as overloading with water or dehydrating themselves, to not think at least some of these rumors bear some truth.

It’s great to see before and after photos of those who have been successful with weight loss, and I think most people are intrigued by those who manage to lose great amounts of weight. I am, as well. But no matter the method, it shouldn’t be at the risk of anyone’s health; it should be to promote it.