Finding the Pieces

For those of you who might have been reading this blog for more than a few months, you might remember that I used to write a lot about my weight loss journey. You might also have noticed that I haven’t really written about that journey in a long time. I could give the excuse that I’ve been busy and school has been crazy, but I’ve found the time to write the occasional blog post and post YouTube videos almost every day this month, so that’s not exactly the best excuse.

So instead of giving you some excuse, I’m going to be honest: I haven’t lost weight (consistently) in about four or five months. This wouldn’t be so bad if I could say I haven’t gained any weight, either, but that’s not true. Since July I have gained almost 10 pounds (gasp! I know, terrible). But that isn’t the whole story, either. Since I have been home from Oxford, I have continued to lose weight, gain weight, lose a bit of weight, then gain some more. In the end, I have gained more than 20 pounds in the last year.

This year has been an insane mess of emotions, decisions, and growth for me. It has not been easy, but I can confidently say that it has been one of the best years of my life. But I think that all of this growth and figuring out what I want to do with my life has somehow resulted in my pushing the weight loss thing to the side for a while. One of the things I’ve been talking about for a long time is finding balance in my life, and this year I have been working really hard to do that. For the first time in a long time I’m getting more than four hours of sleep at night, getting good grades, and managing to spend more time with friends and family. I still have no idea how this is happening, other than by the grace of God.

But even though I have found a better sense of balance in my life, my health has kind of been pushed to the back seat. Oddly enough, I’m spending time exercising this semester because I’m taking a fitness class that requires me to do so. So why am I still gaining weight? I have a couple theories. The first is that, even though I’m working out four times each week, I know that I’m not putting my all into it. I’m usually finding myself doing the minimum requirement for the class and then getting back to the rest of my schoolwork.

The second issue probably has something to do with what I’m eating. If I’m going to be completely honest, I have to say that I have not been eating very well the last few months. Part of this is because budgeting has been a bit difficult at home. And even though I know deep down that this is a horrible excuse, when our food budget is cut, we usually end up buying the cheapest things we can find, and that usually means all of the boxed, canned, and frozen processed foods we can find on clearance. When you reach a point where you go a few days every week or two with nearly-empty cupboards, you kind of stop worrying about how many carbs are in your dinner.

Now I want to be clear about something: I am not asking for pity. I’m not trying to make excuses. If anything, I’m trying to identify for myself what is going wrong in my weight loss plan so that I can make the changes I need to make. I’m also hoping that you (yes, you) could either help keep me accountable or maybe give me some advise on turning things around. I’m not ready to give up on reaching my goal weight, because I promised myself that I would get there. It has taken me almost three years to lose the first 120 pounds; so even if it takes me 10 years, I’m going to lose the next 120 pounds. I just need to get back up, make a new plan, and start moving forward again.