But... it's not going to work...

Yeah, I've said that before. I've had an inherent distrust in myself and my ability to carry on and finish something I've started. Of course when you think like that you are practically doomed to fail. I've learned in the past few years to give myself the compassion and grace that I would easily give to others. I'm my own toughest critic, I say things to myself that I would never in a million years say to anyone else, things like, "It's got to be perfect or not at all" or "You screwed that up, what's the point of continuing". When I started my current journey to fitness I decided to begin with nutrition and not with exercise. In the past I would start a work out program (usually a video or a 'set' that I ordered on the phone) and dilligently do the work outs, but I never ended getting significant results. No doubt this was because the exercise would make me hungry and since I was starting with the work out and moving on to the nutrition later I wasn't getting results and would quit. As the saying goes "abs are made in the kitchen", so this time I resolved to start by fixing what I eat.

I chose to sign up for Noom at the end of January in 2018. I liked that their approach began with not only what you are eating but why you are eating it. I liked learning about the psychological reasons behind why I may act the way I do. I liked their humor and their way to frame things, elephant and rider indeed! I also liked that their food logging system was easy. It included easy measurements (cups, handfuls, bowls, etc) instead of oz and grams. I liked that it wasn't initially focussed on exercise but did eventually encourage me to get moving. I liked that when I did log exercise it increased my calorie allotment. In March of 2018 due largely in part to the encouragement from the Noom App I joined a gym and hired a trainer to help me get into better shape.

I learned a *lot*, some of which was easy and some of which I still strive to remember and implement. One of the biggest being that I'm a 'fast eater'. Remembering to be mindful when I eat is hard for me. Remembering to put my fork (or spoon or food) down between bites is difficult. I was 'true' to the program and lost 30 lbs, not quite to ONEderland but really close. I ran into some aspects of the program that were difficult for me, one of the biggest ironically, was journaling. I fell behind in the daily readings and logging when I was on vacation for about 3 weeks without access to my mobile connection and never caught up again. It's a little bit of a fail, but one of the biggest lessons I learned from Noom is to quit the all or nothing thinking. Just because I'm not sticking to the 'thing' doesn't mean I've backslid to where I started. I was still going to the gym, but because my attention to my nutrition had 'fallen off' I was no longer losing weight. I had a huge Non Scale Victory (NSV) during that 3 week vacation. At the beginning and end of the two week trip we load up a box truck with all the things we'll need for our off the grid desert camping trip. In 2017 bringing all the gear up from the bottom basement and loading it into the truck left me out of breath, exhausted, and sore. In 2018 I did it with no problems. It was enough of a change that I actually asked my husband if this work still felt really difficult to him as I thought I was misremembering. He confirmed that for him it was as physically difficult as I had recalled. One of my main goals when I joined the gym was to make that process easier, so that definitely counts as a NSV!!! In March of 2020, we all know what happened, the world went sideways as a pandemic hit us hard. Shut downs, lock downs, and protests abounded. Not being able to workout amongst the craziness made me anxious and was affecting my sleep. I decided to sign up for 2 different free trials for online workout apps. Both of them had many differnet programs that I could try out as well as quite few other features that I enjoyed. When my free trial was up I chose one of them and have managed to complet 5 programs since then.

The going hasn't always been smooth and I've not yet managed to stick exactly to the recommended workout schedule. But I've lost another 25 pounds (that makes it 50 total so far!) and have crossed the line into ONEderland. My BMI lowered from obese to overweight (just barely but it still counts), And best of all? I've gone from just fitting into an XL/size 16 to wearing a M/size 10. I've got somewhere between 30-50 lbs left to lose before I get into 'maintenance mode'. It's slow going but I am determined to stick to my goals and get there, however long it takes!