The Reluctant Athlete: Time Keeps on Slippin'

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men

Gang aft agley,

An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,

For promis'd joy!

~Robert Burns

It was not my intention to only post once a week, but it also wasn't my coworker's intention to be hospitalised, so, you know, there's that. In fairness, I haven't been left with grief and pain in place of my promised joy, but I am left feeling like I am incredibly behind on so many jobs I've set for myself.

Oh, Laura Roslin and your thinly-veiled sarcasm.

The crazy last two weeks of August did give me a good view as to what the next three months of work will look like. I know I keep harping on about this "three busiest months of my life" but the workload is ridiculous at the moment. I didn't know it was possible to look forward to the end of something you enjoy. I love my job - I can't state that enough - but sometimes I miss the days of my data entry job and lack of responsibility.

I mean, I'm not president or anything, but I've got a lot of shit to do.

Where does this leave me for my healthy living goals? Well, I have (temporarily) left my gym. I love the gym, I love the girls, I love kickboxing, I hate having to do this, but it is a gym that works on a schedule and I can't make that schedule work with my current schedule. I can't justify the monthly fees if I can't attend classes with regularity. I am still committed to the goal of four hours of physical activity a week, it just means that the Chikara gym and its awesome built-in group of cheerleaders won't be the source of any of that time.

Chikara girls, you're on notice.
Come December, I'm kicking all your asses.

Other than that, it's still just about plugging away and working on the small changes I set out for myself and making sure I use my free time wisely so when really-crazy-busy-time rolls around, I'm prepared with a plan of how I'm keeping myself on track. I want to come out the other side of this work crazy with the personal achievement of losing weight while going through it.

And I fully plan to celebrate when I do... but probably with something like a day at the Spa.

Although popping some champagne in front of a cheer crowd would also be fun.

The Reluctant Athlete: The Re-(re-re-re-re-re-)commitment

A number of years ago, I started a weight-loss themed blog. The idea was to keep myself accountable. I had moderate success but nothing long-term. Then I moved to the new job position, and my need to get healthy completely fell by the wayside - or is it weigh-side? *insert groan here* - because work. I didn't make weight-loss a priority and stopped blogging altogether.

Noticing that my clothing has been feeling tighter, I decided it was time to make it a priority again. It wasn't just about being more consistent with my kickboxing and bootcamp attendance but also being better with my eating habits. As a person who lives alone, being smart with my eating habits has always been an area I struggled, especially once I started kickboxing and wasn't getting home until 7:30 each night. This has to change.

I needed to know my starting point if I was going to do this, so I stepped on the scale for the first time in almost two years.

Before stepping on the scale, I had a number in my head I expected to see. Boy, was I off! I knew I was higher than my previous high of 241lbs, but I honestly didn't expect to see 257lbs on the scale. I could do nothing but think to myself "I am a fucking fat sloth... except not as adorable."

This... is not acceptable. For years, I've hovered around 230lbs. Definitely overweight, I'm not denying that, but I had marginally less than 100lbs to lose. (My lowest adult weight was 135lbs. When I get there, you'll understand why I don't go lower.) Mentally, that less than 100lbs was big to me. I was fat, but I wasn't that fat!

Well, I'm that fat now.

I got on the phone with Katie and discussed what had happened. We talked about what my goals would be for the next few months, what was feasible with the work schedule I had coming up, and what my targets would be weekly, monthly, and for the end of the year.

The best part about talking this all through with Katie? She was so bloody cheerful and positive about the whole thing. It was like I had phoned Bob the Builder. Can you lose it? YES, YOU CAN! Despite my grumbles about her being too fucking happy about all this, I found myself completely convinced by the end of the phone call that I was going to succeed. If you ever need a cheerleader in your corner, she is the person to go to!

I had my first weekly weigh-in yesterday and I'm down 3lbs. I know that even the best weight loss stories are not a straight line from Point A to Point B, but I'd say I'm off to a good start.

And now I really want to watch all three seasons of Sherlock back-to-back.