Back On Track

In the book, Pilgrim's Progress, Christian hit some road blocks during his journey. He fell into a bog called Slough of Despond. He ran into people who tempted him to try a different, less difficult path. He got stuck for awhile in a valley. He was put into a prison a couple of times. A giant tortured and nearly killed him. Just before he finally reached his goal, the poor guy was nearly drowned.

My journey hasn't had near the ups and downs, but it hasn't been a free and clear path, either. I am just now climbing back after falling into my own Slough of Despond for a few weeks. I got into a cycle of eating too far above my calorie limit, and I couldn't break it. The scale gave me sort of a grace period for a while, but then it started showing gains. The past few days I have finally seen some progress. I'm still consuming more than 1500 calories, but I feel like I've got things under control. What I'm eating now is probably a maintenance level for the weight I am. I'm not losing but at least I've stopped the craziness with the food.

One thought I had today... when I feel like I'm taking too long to reach my goal, I have to remind myself that "slow and steady wins the race." When I get to the end of this year, and look back, if I've doubled my weight loss from last year, I'll be very happy. It won't matter that I did it slowly. It won't matter that I lost less than a pound a month. And I just love that mental image of butter sticks: there are four sticks in a pound box of butter. To lose the equivalent of eighty butter sticks would be a marvelous accomplishment for me. Let me restate that: To lose the equivalent of eighty butter sticks will be a marvelous accomplishment. I'll still have weight to lose, but twenty pounds will help my motivation to keep working at it.

*Hey, Daughter! I read your blog today and congratulations on your progress and accomplishments this past month! I'm very proud of you. - Mom

It truly is inspiring to watch the progress of others. This is a hard thing we're doing. When we see people we know accomplishing their goals it encourages us to keep going. Someday I hope to play a part in encouraging someone with "if I can do it, so can you."