Forgiveness and Learning.......

In my last post, I discussed where I was headed with this Lent, but I didn’t disclose all of the details. 

When I weighed in on Ash Wednesday (after a Mardi Gras celebration, truth be told), I was an astonishing 202 pounds.  This wasn’t the first time I was over 200, but it was the first time getting that high.  I know that I’ve been effectively out of control for too long, and that’s why it’s time to do something.

That said, I wish it had taken fuller root.  Here I am on the first Sunday of Lent, and yesterday was not a good day.  I could blame circumstances – I’m on a Boy Scout trip where the menus were planned in advance, not all of which are conducive to my diet, but that’s a poor excuse for two reasons.  First, I could have stuck to just the healthier elements of that meal structure, and been totally fine.  I chose not to do that, and over-consumed as a result.  Second, I made other choices during the day (while stuck in a ski lodge) that were not helping my situation, but actively hurting it (French fries for a snack are a poor choice, even if I threw half of them away).

Even today, after I told myself that I would swap my “forgiveness Sunday” for a “rigid Sunday” in exchange, I’m still making some poor decisions.  Breakfast was far from light, and lunch will be the same if I eat the prepared box lunch.   That said, no one is (yet) forcing anything down my throat – I know that these are my decisions alone, and that if I had wanted to stick to my plan, I totally could have.

Perhaps what I’m learning is that the way my day starts is the theme for the day.  Wednesday through Friday, I started with a run and a very light, late breakfast, and I had three good days.  Saturday and Sunday, I start with a heavier breakfast, designed for very active teenagers, and the rest of my day was a struggle.

Or maybe I’m relearning that I can’t go deep into the well for too many days without a ‘rubber band’ effect, which stymies my efforts and sets me back, reversing the gains I had made.  Neither of these seems like a new revelation, but just reminders of the rules of my life (like rules of physics) that I haven’t yet found a way around.  

Sincerely, I would love to lose weight by spending time doing exercises that I enjoy –running, walking, hiking, swimming, cycling – heck, I even like rowing machines.  But for the past six months, time has been at a premium, a fact that is not likely to change soon in any material way.  If I can’t spend time working on the expenditure side of the weight loss equation, I have to focus more on the ingestion side.  That has always seemed harder to me, as it requires more willpower, and more self-denial.  It’s not doing things that I enjoy, or even doing things that I don’t enjoy; it’s NOT doing things that I know I enjoy.  

That approach doesn’t make me happier in the moment, only over time, and it’s (increasingly?) harder for me to execute on that tradeoff of short-term and long-term satisfaction.