How long does it take to form a habit?  Some say 21 days; others, 30; and some even suggest that it can be as short as 15-18 days, or as long as most of a year.  The one thing that seems to make a major difference, though, is early repetition.  The sooner you throw yourself completely into a new habit, the sooner it becomes habit.

Five weeks in to this plan, I’m finding that to be very true.  My most recent weight loss effort, which was the start of this blog last year, shows that I didn’t start exercise for several weeks after getting on plan.  This time around, exercise was included from the first week, and I’m happy to report that although I missed one exercise session in the very first week, every week since then has been an exercise success, and my body seems to be liking the change.  Last time, it was tedious.  This time, I’m enjoying going down and getting in the pool.  Last time, I played mental games with myself about putting off exercise for another day.  This time, I’m sticking to a schedule as much as possible.

Five weeks in, I’m handling food fairly well.  I did have a talk with myself, last week, about meal replacements; I had stockpiled Atkins bars when I first started the program, and quickly discovered that it was just too darned easy for me to use that as an option instead of a healthy meal.  So, the only time I’m buying them is when I know I’ll have to have meal replacements because of a schedule or location problem.  Other than that?  I won’t have any on the shelves.

I’m going through the normal bumps that anyone faces while sticking to an eating plan, but they don’t seem to be as major this time around.  Perhaps that initial fake it ’til you make it got me off on the right foot, and it’s been easier to fall into a habit.

In other news…

I’m glad to report that my body continues to improve.  Yeast skin patches are getting better; they’re not quite gone yet, but they’ve definitely improved.  Heart palpitations have disappeared altogether.  I can’t even remember the last time I had one.  My knees are feeling better.  A hip problem I was having seems to be improving.

I sleep a LOT better than before; I’m a very light sleeper, and if I didn’t take something at night to help keep my eyes shut, my mind would be working in the small hours of the night.  Now, I sleep solidly and often don’t awake at all until morning.  I’m rising earlier and feeling much better rested as a result.  I’m pretty sure that’s because of the swimming.

Exercise

I have worked my sessions up to 45 minutes each session, three sessions a week.  As of this week, I’m adding a fourth session.  I’ve also been able to do some limited swimming; this works really well.  If I can get in the pool and not disturb anyone else, I can swim laps, which I have always felt was the absolutely ideal exercise for me.  If space is a problem, I can water jog in place.  Most times, it’s been a combination of the two.  Today, I swam 21 laps.  Go, me!

At this point, my goal is cardio, and only cardio.  My heart is already getting healthier, and I’m breathing better; if you want to work your lungs, the pool’s the place to do it.  I want a lot of cardio, so I can bring up my cardiovascular system while my body drops weight.  Eventually, I will work up to five workout sessions per week, and stay somewhere between 45 minutes and an hour per session, depending on how my body is reacting.  I see myself staying in cardio mode for several months; probably until the end of the summer.  At that point, I should be ready to return to strength training.

That’s it!

That’s all there is to report, as if that’s not enough!  I’m glad that things seem to be going well.  Each day that goes by, the more I want to progress.  Honestly, while I talked a good game last time, I’m not sure I ever really got my head in the right place.  Now, I feel like it is.  And it feels damned good!

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.

Sometimes, it feels like I’ve dieted that many times in my lifetime.  Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating *just a tad*.

I decided to make this Day 1 for this effort.  I’m going low carb, again, since that has been the most successful plan for me to date, and I tend to feel really good when I’m low carbing.  Once I get past the initial carb-bitching that my body does, I tend to settle into the appetite-suppression effects of Atkins quite nicely.

I haven’t weighed, yet.  Once I have, you’ll see the weight posted in place of the progress info to the right.  I can’t weigh on my  home scales; I have to go to the gym to do it.  I’m hoping that later in the day, I’ll be able to go to the gym for my initial exercise session; I’ll be doing pool work, again.  It’s a stormy day and I can’t be in the pool if there’s lightning in the area, so exercise may end up starting tomorrow.  I plan to start off easy; 3 times a week, and I’m shooting for 30 minutes of movement of some kind for each session.  As badly out of shape as I am, 30 minutes can seem like a lifetime, but the really good side of pool work is that it works my lungs.  I can walk across my yard and get winded, so I definitely need improvement, there.

My goal, today?  To get through today.  I’m pretty sure I can do this, one day at a time.

I’m in the process of dumping the water weight I’ve put on in the last couple weeks.  The reasons for the gain are numerous, but they come down to one thing: not being as careful as I should be.  I’m glad to report that this past week, I have had perfect fitness days, which means that fluid intake, exercise, and eating have all been right where they need to be.  As a result, I lost four pounds of the water weight I’ve gained over the last couple of weeks.  I have three more to go, and as long as I am working my plan, I’m sure they will leave, as well — and hopefully carry a few pounds of fat with them.

I think some of the water weight is lingering because I got my exercise mojo back this week, and changed some things up; muscle requires water to repair.  As my muscles repair, the water needed for that will join the rest that’s flooding out.  I’ll outline my exercise changes on the Exercise Progress page.

Now… on to something that I’m not happy about.  That’s sabotage.  These past couple of weeks, I’ve sabotaged myself and not been as focused as I should have been; but I’ve also allowed others to sabotage my efforts.  While it pisses me off to have to work against the devices of those who say they love me, letting them sabotage me is my own decision. My success is my responsibility, not theirs, regardless of any support (or lack of it) they may show.

Sabotage is one of those endless mind games, and I think that I’m more prone to letting sabotage creep in around the edges in the state I’m in — that state in which my weight loss is still not noticeable to others (unless they were already aware of it, because I told them), and there’s still that part of my mind that says you can back out, now, before it’s too late.  I have no intention of doing that, but I admit that having the reinforcement of people noticing weight loss does tend to beat down that inner voice, and that vulnerability to sabotage.

Dear Sabotage: Screw You. Signed, Inner Voice.