200.4!
I hit 200 today. 200.4, to be exact. I have reached my goal!
As I write this, I'm wearing a shirt Shelley picked out for me two years ago. Once I started grad school in the winter 2011 semester and my gym time got squeezed out, I slowly began to lose pieces of my wardrobe, including a lot of the clothes I bought when I got down to about 190. This shirt is one of them. The pair of khakis I'm wearing today is another of those articles of "lost" clothing. I kept them as a promise to myself that I would one day again be thin.
By the end of last semester, I had peaked at 230, and I maintained that weight well into summer. All the time I had on the road, plus all the books I had to read for my field exams, made it unexpectedly difficult to get exercise time in with any consistency. I managed my weight mostly through diet, which worked, and it helped me shed pounds little by little.
Once this semester started, though, and I was able to settle into a routine, I've been hitting the gym aggressively--sometimes twice a day (it's been a good outlet not only for weight loss but for stress relief, I won't lie). The "tyranny of the numbers," as my friend Lizz once called it, has been a powerful motivating force. There was, for a bit, a little too much starvation going on in there, too (more stress!), but I am mostly past that now and into some healthier eating habits.
I'm about to totally blow that by treating myself to a little Sheetz pizza as I pass through Altoona this afternoon--but after that, it's back on the wagon.
I am now anxious to keep working so that by this time next week, I will step on the scales and the number will start with a "1" instead of a "2." As I've said already, I'd like a fighting weight of 195. If I get much thinner, I'll start to look gaunt in the face (my mother already thinks so, in fact).
Of course, I do wish I could share the victory with Caity. I kept telling her all last semester and all summer that once fall got here and all my gym time wasn't filled with grad class stuff that I'd be hitting the gym again and losing the excess baggage. She believed me, I'm sure, but it's too bad she didn't get to see it happen. She has her own fitness goals she's working at right now, I suspect, because she has a half-marathon to run at Disney next weekend. Part of me is pleased that I reached this benchmark before she goes off to reach hers--not out of spite but just as something to prove to myself.
Looking at that scale this morning made me feel fantastic!
As I write this, I'm wearing a shirt Shelley picked out for me two years ago. Once I started grad school in the winter 2011 semester and my gym time got squeezed out, I slowly began to lose pieces of my wardrobe, including a lot of the clothes I bought when I got down to about 190. This shirt is one of them. The pair of khakis I'm wearing today is another of those articles of "lost" clothing. I kept them as a promise to myself that I would one day again be thin.
By the end of last semester, I had peaked at 230, and I maintained that weight well into summer. All the time I had on the road, plus all the books I had to read for my field exams, made it unexpectedly difficult to get exercise time in with any consistency. I managed my weight mostly through diet, which worked, and it helped me shed pounds little by little.
Once this semester started, though, and I was able to settle into a routine, I've been hitting the gym aggressively--sometimes twice a day (it's been a good outlet not only for weight loss but for stress relief, I won't lie). The "tyranny of the numbers," as my friend Lizz once called it, has been a powerful motivating force. There was, for a bit, a little too much starvation going on in there, too (more stress!), but I am mostly past that now and into some healthier eating habits.
I'm about to totally blow that by treating myself to a little Sheetz pizza as I pass through Altoona this afternoon--but after that, it's back on the wagon.
I am now anxious to keep working so that by this time next week, I will step on the scales and the number will start with a "1" instead of a "2." As I've said already, I'd like a fighting weight of 195. If I get much thinner, I'll start to look gaunt in the face (my mother already thinks so, in fact).
Of course, I do wish I could share the victory with Caity. I kept telling her all last semester and all summer that once fall got here and all my gym time wasn't filled with grad class stuff that I'd be hitting the gym again and losing the excess baggage. She believed me, I'm sure, but it's too bad she didn't get to see it happen. She has her own fitness goals she's working at right now, I suspect, because she has a half-marathon to run at Disney next weekend. Part of me is pleased that I reached this benchmark before she goes off to reach hers--not out of spite but just as something to prove to myself.
Looking at that scale this morning made me feel fantastic!