Progress Over Perfection
Wednesday, February 9, 2022
“Physician, heal thyself,” they say.
How can I sit here and dispense advice—even advise myself—and then not really follow it? The short answer: I’m human. Then again, aren’t we all?
The Road So Far….
No, you haven’t stumbled into an episode of Supernatural. I’m just recapping. I began in January of 2021 to sort of bitch and moan about my weight and say I was going to do something about it. I tried. Sort of. Then, as it does, life happened, and I sort of lost track, finally getting back to that breaking point in June of 2021, when I had reached a whopping 328.9 pounds! I had a medical emergency then (surprisingly unrelated to my weight), and began a structured weight-management program called FOUND. The program offers medications after consultations with physicians, as well as a personal coach to help keep you on track and motivated.
Things went swimmingly at first, and I shed pounds like crazy. Then, after coming super close to a 40-pound loss, I reached a point of stagnation. I fluctuated up and down by about a pound or two for several weeks. This began near the end of October, and I made excuses and allowances and all kinds of justifications for why I was having this experience. The end of October brought Halloween; mid-November, my birthday; late November, Thanksgiving; December, of course, Christmas, then New Year’s; and January saw the hectic beginning of another chaotic semester. There was near non-stop partying, carousing, family, fun, food, and drink during that time, so I convinced myself that it was a good thing that I hadn’t gained back more, or that I’d lost back the one pound I’d gained over and over again.
But deep inside I knew. I knew it was untenable, at best. I knew I was deluding myself if I thought I could keep going, keep doing the same things, and still somehow make progress. Something had to change. I wrote two posts about it! I told myself the actions needed to happen, and yet, another week or two went by with nothing. Until….
I decided to put my money where my mouth is!
My school is doing a Biggest Loser Challenge. You pay in $20, weigh in 3 times, and at the end of April, the person who has lost the most, wins the pot (or a portion of it). There’s also a team component, where each team member wins something if the team loses the most overall, so my success also helps others.
There’s also a sort of “penalty box” to go with the Challenge. If you gain during the timeframe between weigh-ins, you must pay $1 per pound gained back into the pot. I don’t think you get anything for losing in the interim, other than, of course, the satisfaction of a job well done and the accolades of your teammates. Oh, and the loss is by percentage, so it is more fair across the board for everyone.
This is apparently something they do at my school every year. And it’s kind of a big deal. The only thing that I think is a bit odd about it is that there is no one policing the how of your weight loss. Are you starving yourself? Are you being mindful and healthy? Are you eating tapeworms from Mexico or getting strung out on cocaine? No one knows! (Well, I guess they’d know in some of those cases, but still, you get the idea…) It’s kind of a free for all. I’m sticking to my guns and doing it the healthy way, though!
But that means that I had same problems as before, the same issues. I have to make changes if I want things to change. In one of my more recent posts, I waxed on about tough love and having to get up and go and walk or something to get moving. The day after I posted that, we had a cold snap that left the park across the street from me flooded and temperatures in the upper 20’s and low 30’s (and I’m in Texas, y’all, so that’s in Fahrenheit). Walking was inhospitable.
So, I was determined that once the weather turned I would begin a regimen of walking (to add to my new self-care morning habits which I’ve maintained religiously since late December/early January). Even if it meant I would have to be up at 4:30 every morning to do it. Or I would find some other way. I’ve let the weather and the time be an excuse for too long now, though. I also felt my meds were once again not really doing anything.
I spoke to my doctor and they switched me back up last Thursday. Since then, I’ve found it easier to remain mindful and to quell cravings. I’ve not had a soda in about a week, and I have listened to that little voice that said don’t eat that, you’re full. You’re not hungry; just stop. Because of all of those changes, today’s weigh-in was finally, FINALLY a success, and I finally, finally broke that plateau I’ve been stuck on for so, so long!
As of today, I am down 44.7 pounds overall!
That’s 12.55% of my total body weight!
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
And I do mean the ranch….
Anyone out there watch the show Yellowstone? I recently binged all four seasons, and I fell in love with it. There are times when I think Beth Dutton might kind of be my spirit animal, but then there are times she definitely goes too far. But anyway, I digress. What does this have to do with my health journey? Well, you see, I found something that is likely to motivate me pretty well on getting moving: The Conqueror Challenges.
So, basically, you join a challenge where you walk, run, swim, or bike—distance-related things. Your distance is logged against a map of a different place/goal. For example, I signed up to do Yellowstone Park (75 miles), mostly because of the show. So, as I walk, I will get a map as if I’m walking there and information about the sights I would see there, the milestones I’d run into there, etc. I will also get some postcards as I reach certain points, and when I’m done, at the end, I get a super nice medal to celebrate my success—a real, physical, heavy, lacquered metal medal, many of which have moving parts built in (like this one has a geyser that blows up—pic below, video of it in action on their website). They also plant trees and remove plastic from the oceans, and you can get T-shirts specific to whatever challenge you’re doing. There are all kinds of challenges of varying distances, from about 20 miles up to over 2000 (like you could do the entirety of Route 66 if you wanted to)!
I think this will be a great motivator for me because I love learning about new places but don’t often get to travel, and I have a real, tangible reward at the end. Plus, once again, I have put my money where my mouth is and paid for the challenge. It’s not very expensive, but it’s still me spending some money toward this goal, and I want to get my reward for it. If you, dear reader, are interested and follow my link above, you’ll get 10% off your first challenge.
So, What’s With That Title?
Why did I post the picture above (pulled from one of the coaches in the FOUND Facebook group) that says “Progress over Perfection”? Well, it’s because I am not perfect. You are not perfect. No one is perfect. When we’re on this kind of pat, facing this kind of struggle, with all of the negative images and pushes toward absolute perfection we see each day, sometimes we forget that we will mess up. This plateau nearly took it out of me. It nearly made me give up. I’m not gonna lie, there were days where I gorged myself on the most awful foods and cried my eyes out at the evil I had done to myself. I’m not perfect. I have bad days. I have them all the time. But I’m still having more good days than bad. I’m still having more successes than failures. I just need to make sure that I remember that. I need to be sure that I focus on that.
And if I can do that after a 3-month stoppage—you can, too.