Reaching a long-held target is incredibly satisfying, especially when you were never really certain that you could do it. All who know me are already aware that I did a weight-loss thing for charity. I lost 16.3kg and helped raise more than $7000 for a local charitable organisation in the process. I lost another 2kg in the couple of weeks after the charity thing ended, but then I stopped using the personal trainer I had been visiting once a week and, to be honest, dropped off my exercise program almost entirely. What I had done, however, was develop healthy eating habits that I have stayed with (apart from a few acceptable weekend blowouts) since, and maintained my total weight loss at 18kg.
For the last three weeks I have considered my weight "at risk" in the sense that I wasn't doing the exercise that I should have been doing, and not even doing anything really apart from my weekly Saturday morning beginners karate classes. This morning I weighed myself after karate and I was pleasantly surprised. I weighed 90.8kg, a total weight loss of exactly 20kg.
I say surprised because it certainly doesn't feel I deserved the result considering how slack I have been over the last month in particular. What this does, however, is create a moment of decision – do I learn that I don't have to really try too hard to maintain my weight, or do I take the result as a "get out of jail free" card, accept it and get back on the job.
What this result has done is bring other, more long-term and distant goals in to reach. the last time I weighed 85kg I was about 17 years old (combination of high stress, cigarettes and not eating much). Already my Body Mass Index has fallen below 30, probably for the first time in a dozen years. That means I've moved from "obese" to "overweight" and, with a little more work, I could actually move in to a normal weight range. Imagine that! At age 34 I can actually be fitter, healthier and feel physically better than I have for the last 15 years of my life.
This afternoon I'm going to try to start things on the right track by joining the family in a really long walk with the dog. In the morning (cold an sore throat notwithstanding) I will try to get back on the exercise horse, strap the heart monitor on and go for one of those part jog/part run thingos that was serving me so well before.
In the stolen words of a friend of mine, "it'll be interesting, won't it".
