Is it a Failure or is it a Step?

Zig Zigglar said:  "Most people who fail in their dream fail not from lack of ability but from lack of commitment."

I love listening to recordings of Zig. You cannot listen to him and feel bad, not possible.

It has been a long time. I failed. Gained back a lot of weight and as of last week got clear back to 226 lbs. 

This will be a long rambling post, so for anyone reading this, the rest is for me, you can stop now.

I am down again to 219. Glad to be heading in the right direction.  

***First! My friend Greg Vinnola said something to me the other day that really hurt my feelings. I don't believe that was what was meant, so I forgive him. We were having a conversation and during it he said something along the lines that he knew I was not doing well on my weight anymore because I was no longer bragging on my blog.  Not an exact quote. May not be what he said, but it is what I heard.

I never started this to brag. It was a way to keep myself honest and to maybe inspire someone else to take that first step. The idea was, if I could do it, certainly anyone else could!  It was also a way to give myself a little more incentive, knowing there might be someone out there reading this. And they would know I was failing.  

I can get pretty hard on myself. I can have some incredible pity parties! I have been hard on myself all the way back up to 226 pounds! I don't even want to look, but I was down below 190 at one point.

***Second. I am not a failure. I am a success! I have lost weight. The deal is to incorporate a healthy lifestyle into my life and become healthy, strong and yes even happier. The healthy part is way more important than any number on a scale. And just to be clear, we are only talking about weight here. I feel that I am a "success in the making" in most other areas of my life. Doing well and making progress. In fact, if taken in context, I have done extremely well.

Zig also said "Failure is an event...not a person".  I failed. I am not a failure. 

****Third is the HOW and the things that I will overcome to reach my goal.  Hmmm, Goal... What is it? Is it a number on a scale? Is it a dress? Is it looking good in some of those fancy jeans?  Of course that is part of it! But it is not the real reason or goal. Those are some of the benefits ! My goal is to be able to jump on my horse bareback and not have to fight a roll of belly in the way. It is to run, not jog, but run a mile. I have never done that in my life. I think that is a good goal for this summer. My goal is to play with the grand kids and have fun, not be out of breath because I am 80 pounds overweight.  My goal is to live my life as healthily as possible.

Some additional benefits will be Ron's health. He has Parkinson's. One of the first things the Dr. told us was "your heart disease will kill you before the Parkinson's will". Yea...

What has changed: Me. Gary Keller is the owner of Keller Williams Realty. He is a very rich and very successful man.  I was at a class he was speaking to in February of this year. One of the things he said, that had nothing to do with the class was: "People need to think of eating like taking medicine. That is what food is, medicine to keep you healthy".  That statement really struck me. Food is not a reward or a comfort or a way to drown out pain, it is what is needed for your health. Wow.

HOW DO I DO IT??????? Well, how I plan on doing it is changing forever the way I first, think of food and second, eat and prepare food. It has to be a lifestyle or I will be here again and again and again. 

My sister sent me a book, Minding My Mitochondria 2nd Edition. It is a book written by a Dr. who has MS and was wheelchair bound and what she did to get out of it. Not a small part was eating healthily. And with it goes away many things that I held dear, like Diet soda, milk, breads, cakes, sugar, processed crap, all the things I really really love to eat!

It is not really so different than what I had going before. A bit more info on recipes. A lot more science. Even just eliminating the bad stuff is a big improvement, good medicine, not poison.  I started Sunday at 226. I have not "dieted", been the least bit hungry or felt deprived. This morning I weighed 219.5. Don't forget that ".5"! Ron was quite shocked 6.5 pounds came off in 2 days. I told him, "I have to really eat wrong to keep my weight so artificially high".

What has really been a pleasant surprise is I did not go through the caffeine & sugar withdrawal.  I expected a massive headache and some rather unpleasant moods. I can't swear about the moods, but I think I have been ok and no headaches at all.  I think it is because I replaced the garbage with really very good food. I mean healthy green stuff and Ron made some biscuits that I was sure he used sawdust for. But they were healthy!  We had quite a discussion. He said he would not make them again. I said that nothing we are looking at eating is going to really be tasty to us right now. But I bet in a month or two, we will feel quite different. 

I did warn him that the grand kids would likely starve rather than eat what we are eating.  We will have to figure that one out. Because this I know, if I am tempted for long, I tend to cave in, so the food cannot be in this house. So we will have to find some healthy stuff that even the kids will like.  That might be quite interesting.

Will keep you posted.