Virtual Reality

Meet my virtual model, MizCass. She's a trim 180 pounds (relatively speaking), and this is what I'm hoping my body will more or less look like by my birthday in 2007. I only have about 102 pounds to go and twelve months to get there! {sigh}

On the upside, though, as of today I am down a total of 40.5 pounds! When I got on the scale this morning I could hardly believe it. 107 days ago I never thought that I would be able to get through even the first box of food, let alone be ready to receive my 5th order! I'm proud that I was able to commit myself for nearly a third of a year to something--anything for that matter, cause I have a short attention span: I'm always very enthused about a myriad of ideas, but not so good about following through. So, in addition to the physical benefits of the weight loss, this is a personal victory in terms of self-discipline, setting and achieving goals and overcoming obstacles.

I now realize that I'm going to have to take the lessons I'm learning from this weight loss effort and apply them to other aspects of my life. For example, on NS I've had to learn not to "give-in" to junk food cravings or the urge not to exercise, no matter how I try and rationalize and/or justify them. I've had to learn to ignore and disassociate myself from those people and things that are a bar to my success. I've had to build confidence in myself so that I'm not too embarrassed to go out and walk (people are cruel--I've even been stopped and told "you know, you really should be running!"); eventually I want to add swimming to my workouts and I have to be comfortable enough to go to the pool in a bathing suit without worrying about being harpooned. I have to develop a new attitude while I'm developing my new body: I AM WORTHY! I deserve to be fit and healthy and look good.

Theoretically, it's not impossible for me to be at goal next year; I mean, if I keep losing at a rate of about 1.88 pounds a week I can do it. It HAS been done before, which means I can do it too (talk about ego!! it's kind of like my sudoku obsession--if there's a solution, gosh-darn it I should be able to figure it out)!! I've just got to keep focusing on my mini-goals. So, I've got 2 more pounds to lose in the next 12 days. When I make that goal, I'm going to treat myself to a nice little road trip...the only question is: who's coming with me? ;-)