Yup, you read that right, 271lbs 😦 OUCH. So, I think I’m not alone in that the events of 2020 and 2021 sent me for a huge loop around the sun, or two. And with that came the old habits of eating too much, eating things I shouldn’t, hating on myself for doing it which causes a nasty downward spiral towards failure. I’ll recount all the stuff that’s happened.
I work at home now permanently. Yup, never going back to the office. NEVER,.. It’s not that I hated the office but it took a lot of time to get ready every day, drive around, burn fuel, plan meals, pack stuff up to go to the office, etc., etc. The downside of that is I’m in walking distance to the fridge and pantry at home. The advantage of being in the office was that the only food I really had to eat was what I’d brought for the day, in the morning, when my willpower was very high and I was thinking about staying the course. I think anyone with the options contained within their entire house would opt for the comfort food. I sure did! And the number you see above is the result of nearly 2 years of eating whatever want. It could be worse, a lot worse. At one point in my life when I was doing that I was over 300 lbs. I take some feeling of victory that certain new habits started to stick. I was eating more fiber, and am today. What’s happened though is my love of things like butter, cheese, tortillas, roasts, and SUGAR came back with the stress induced in a change of my daily habits. Let’s address the elephant in the room, alcohol! I like a quality cocktail. Full stop. It’s not that there’s ever a goal of getting drunk, but rather the enjoyment of a finely made whiskey cocktail made with quality ingredients and care is a fantastic reward for a long day at the keys, or whatever else I was doing that day which was stress inducing.
Alcohol. It has a triple effect in that it makes you hungry, lowers inhibition, and slows your metabolism. The real trifecta of bad. And when you combine that with sugar, like a fine whiskey cocktail. The formula of sugar, whiskey and bitters really hammers the dopamine in my brain. It’s not that I can’t say no to it, it’s that I don’t feel the need to say no because I wasn’t focused on my own health. Like I said before, it was never about being drunk or numbing the world away and it never stopped me from working hard, riding the mountain bike (something we will get into later) or functioning. I’ll never stop enjoying a fine cocktail. I’ll also be cutting that back to zero, save special occasions and holidays with family. The days of the Tuesday evening cocktail or two, are over.
That said, let’s have a quick chat about habits. It’s impossible to stop doing something and not replace it with something else. Because the time spent doing something has to spent doing something else. I need to find something to do to replace that activity. I have lots of other things I like to do, but, none of those things involve my better half and us catching up on the days events. I will have to bring her into something, because I really love her and need that time together. Couples that think they can spend their lives doing completely separate things, never spending time together on a common activity, always fail. We shall have to launch into something we can do together that doesn’t involve relaxing in the evening having a drink. Probably good for us both.
Coming back to the mountain bike. I really love the bike. It’s a form of escape for me. Escape from the days concerns, from pressure exerted on me, by me in an attempt to satisfy others. We all do it. Put pressure on ourselves to satisfy others and sometimes to an unhealthy place. It’s a function of how I grew up. I think we all do it to some extent. On the bike I’m forced to focus on what lies directly ahead, mind my line, my breathing and heart rate and keep the bike rolling forward. Many days it’s not an adventure, not finding new territory in my mind, but riding a familiar track and blocking out the world. I do this in the motorcycle too. Forced focus is just that, and it works on both modes of travel. And that’s why I love them both.
Back in March of 2020, I’d lost a bunch of weight and stared riding again. Having been off the bike in an attempt to drop the pounds quickly I soon found out the advantage of being much lighter. It was shocking. I could climb better than ever before, faster, and the bike felt light under me. Same old bike, different me. I felt like I couldn’t or wasn’t supposed to ride while I was trying to lose weight as fast as possible. Exercise would have my body holding the pounds. And instead of thinking logically about it and staying the course, I would eat some comfort food. Tortillas usually, and you can read the old posts about that.
Alright. Enough of a recap of the last couple years. Where am I now? Fat! Not as sloppy as I was, not as unhealthy but pretty darn fat all the same. I will not stay off the bike like last time, weight isn’t going to melt away like it was. At least I don ‘t think it will. I’ll be going back to logging what I eat every day here, my weight and eventually some images when I start to feel more comfortable with that.
Today. I have some white potatoes on the stove boiling that I intend to smash on a cookie sheet and bake them until crispy. I have salad makings in the fridge too, like before. I’ll stay clear of animal products and oil and likely nuts for a while too. Any fruit, any veg, any grain that’s whole (meaning not ground and concentrated). Reductions in salt too are part of the whole plan. There are times when salt is really pretty important and makes whatever it is edible.
I’ll be back tomorrow, with another weigh in like today.
Until then,…
BobLosesWeight 