Mission SLIMpossible Follow Up #2 °o° *•._.•* ' *•._.•* °o°

Trying to lose weight can sometimes be a real mind-trip.  I was in my boot camp class Wednesday in which we have a dozen exercise stations that we rotate through, that are scattered throughout the space.  When the timer sounds, we all move to the next station and do that exercise.  The 5^th station was facing a huge floor to ceiling mirror.  So I was forced to watch myself from beginning to end for a solid five minutes. 

This was not good for my self-esteem.

As you have read by now, my total weight loss has been 22 pounds.  I have lost enough that friends and co-workers are noticing and are commenting (my favorite one was "You've done something different to your hair, didn't you?").  My clothes are obviously fitting looser, but when you are still 60-80 pounds overweight, without a lot of gym-floor coordination and your shirt sticks to your body because you are drenched in sweat, that doesn’t help to provide much of a morale boost. 

To make matters more uncomfortable, I am the only overweight boot camper in the class.  It appears most of the members at this gym studio are female, around 24, perky bodies dressed in juicy couture, seem to be in perfect shape and never break a sweat.  Compared to them, I’m like Mr. Snuffleupagus, loping around the room.

All self-deprecation and shortage of self-esteem aside, as awkward as I feel in these classes, nothing is going to stop me from seeing myself through this goal.  Sure I have my challenges; I tend to get dizzy or hyperventilate when I over exert, and it feels like it’s taking forever for that to improve, but I am seeing improvement, slowly but surely (and I had to lay my old jeans to rest… they don’t even stay up with a belt any more).  Not only that, but I will never cross paths with those perky dancercisers again.

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The upside to the mind trip is this; the rocks that you see in the photo above are very symbolic for me.  Every time I hiked the Perimeter Trail of Piestewa Peak, and made it to the point that is referred to as the “Saddle”(this is the top to me; the trail continues over the saddle, but it goes back down and around the mountain), I would search for a small, white rock for a souvenir.  I even have a set of "rules" in place; I can't take a rock from anywhere except the very top, however, if I find a rock on the way up, I can carry it up and leave it in a hidden spot for the next time I climb.  I have a secret stash of a dozen rocks waiting to go home with me now.

But I digress...  these twenty-odd stones represent the twenty-odd pounds that I have lost so far. I certainly didn’t lose one pound on each climb, but they collectively stand for the weight that I am leaving behind on the Piestewa Peak trail.  Hopefully, when I’ve finished this journey I will have a collection of one hundred rocks.  It will be nice to see them displayed in a glass container so that I can think back on how many times I struggled with making it up that steep slope, always trying to beat my time from the last time I hiked.

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Back to the mind trip...  Today's official weigh in does not give me a lot of confidence.  It's only a 1 pound loss in 2 weeks.  I'm hoping this is not a plateau since it's been four months into my journey, and maybe the next weigh in will show a greater loss.

Official weigh in

Highest weight: 275 (January 1, 2012)

Previous weigh in: 250 (April 16th, 2012)

Current weigh in: 249 (April 30th, 2012)

Comments are welcome. Positive feedback encouraged!

Mouseketeer Ken

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