Once upon a time, I used to post to this blog regularly. Then my mom found it and I apparently ran out of things to say. Until then, this space was filled with random life stuff, and I liked it that way.
When I decided to try to lose some weight, because I really needed to, I didn’t want this space to get totally overwhelmed by food and fitness, so I started a second blog, The Road to Half. Then it fell by the wayside when my efforts derailed.
Several times.
I’m back on the road again, and got inspired by Ben Does Life to blog it. Then I thought to myself “but you barely have time for the rest of your hobbies, and your boss would not be happy if he found out he was paying you to blog.” and there went that idea.
But then I read more of Ben’s story and kind of got mad. He lost 73 pounds in 3 months. Which is so totally awesome for him. But sometimes it feels really unfair that men seem to lose weight faster than women. My friend’s husband lost 50 pounds in the time it took for her to lose 20. I’ve been busting my ass at the gym for 2 months and I’ve lost just shy of 15 pounds. The point though is that Ben Does Life has inspired a LOT of people. He’s inspired ME. He started at 360 pounds and is now around 240 (he’s almost 6 feet tall). He’s run several marathons.
I thought maybe I’d start a tumblr page and blog about my journey. But I have this perfectly serviceable blog right here that has been dormant for a long time. So here I write.
When I started the “Road to Half” blog I mentioned above, I was around 340 pounds, and to get to my goal weight of 170, I needed to lose literally half of myself. It’s a bit more than half now.
I am saying publicly for the first time that my highest recorded weight, when I joined Weight Watchers in January of 2011, was 376. I’m around 362 today. I could have worked harder on the diet part, but I didn’t. I probably could have pushed myself to go to the gym, but I didn’t. I played hockey, but still ate enough calories that it didn’t make me lose weight.
I’m still reading the first months of Ben’s blog, which means I have about 3 years of posts left to read if I want to catch up on the whole thing. He didn’t do it overnight, but he worked out for what appears to be hours every day and made drastic changes to his diet. He was a student at the time and so he had a bit more free time than I do. What he did for his life, and what he’s doing for others is amazing.
I thought that I’d document my journey since I will walk the same path, hopefully with similar results, but in a completely different manner. Women lose weight differently than men. I have demands on my time. I’m older.
But I can do this.
It is time.