Saturday, November 28, 2009

One Third

Yesterday was a momentous day in the Cameron-Donnelly household.

Yesterday, after 14 weeks of minding my peas & carrots, I achieved my first milestone. I am now more than one-third of the way to my weight-loss goal.

You may think well, what's the big deal about that? I tell you what the big deal is! When you are closing in on the last few years of your fourth decade such as I am, deciding to lose weight is one thing. Actually being able to do it is quite another. After about 20 years of crash dieting, yo-yo dieting and just generally abusing my metabolism, well, my metabolism is fighting back. With a vengeance. Every single one of those little fat molecules that have taken up residence in my ass & thighs is waging all out war. "She's doing it again! She's limiting how much she feeds us! Alert, alert, alert! SLOOOOOOOWWWWWWW DOOOOWWWWWNNNNNN...do not burn food as fuel...resist! Resist! Resist!" They've fought long and hard and so well, I think even Rick Hillier might be proud.

But no more.

Their resistance is starting to falter. Their efforts at sabotage are starting to be all for naught. That's right. Naught. Like, I'm "not" going to let them get the better of me - naught.

Those little fat molecules can fight all they want, but last week I discovered that with a little weapon known as the Stair Master and it's side kick known as lunges & squats, well, I started to work my larger muscles and hey, guess what? Those muscles like to be fed. And, if you're watching how much fat you put in your body and how many calories you consume guess what? Yup, those big muscles start to eat away at those #@&*#%@ fat molecules that have been lounging about taking up space (far too much space) in my pants for far too long.

And so. So, for the past 14 weeks I work-out at least five days a week and perhaps most importantly, if I bite it, I write it. That's a cute way of saying I have to keep track of everything I stick in my pie hole. By the way, pie is no longer welcome in my pie hole. So, every day I think about what I want to eat...what will that add up to and more importantly, if I really want those 3 squares of chocolate for my after-dinner treat, then how much time am I going to have to spend on that G@!&*$$ treadmill to earn the extra special, but certainly most critical especially at certain times of the month after-dinner treat.

14 weeks.

One-third of the way there.

Even the most remedial mathematician (me) can figure out that if it took me 14 weeks to get this far, it'll be at least another 28 to go the other two-thirds of the way. So a total of 42 weeks. Just under a year. 9 months from when I started. 294 days.

But, I think I can do it. It's like running a marathon...some miles are easier than others. Some roads have hills. It's not easy and it most assuredly ain't quick, but I think to myself just how much of a sense of accomplishment I'll have when I cross that finish-line. How good will I feel when I go to Europe next summer sporting a size of clothing I haven't seen since I was in my early 30s. How amazing will it feel to finally say, I don't want to be that overweight person ever again.

It's what keeps me going...I didn't get here overnight and I know finishing this race will happen over time. For once, it's going to pay off to be the turtle in this race!