Success!

. . .or, I don't need no stinkin' treadmill!

Like many people, my adult weight has fluctuated significantly over the years and like most people my weight fluctuates slightly on a daily basis. I do my best to weigh myself at the same time each morning, however I have my last meal (or snack) at a different time each night, so it's hard to establish a baseline. I can however confidently say that for the last week I have been below my You've-Got-To-Be-Kidding-Me weight (also known as my YGTBKM weight). To avoid an embarrassing post about actual tonnage, I will revert to basic algebra:

• Let's say my reasonable adult weight = X
• My YGTBKM weight has always been X+9
• On my wedding day I was X-4
• Before my dad got sick I was X+6
• While my dad was sick and in the hospital I lost weight, I also turned 30 and my metabolism said "See-Ya! I'm outta here!" and then my dad died, and during 3 days of Shiva I put back on everything I had lost and then I kept putting on, and then I passed my YGTBKM weight and ended up somewhere around X+15.

So since my wedding day three years ago I have gone from X-4 to X+15, a "swing" of nearly 20 pounds. It hasn't been pretty.

But since arriving in LA I have stuck to a strict plan of walking -- 5 days a week on the flat ground in my neighborhood and 1 day a week on the steep grade of Wilacre Park -- I've changed my eating habits slightly and I've been drinking tons of water. These lifestyle changes have resulted in a changes in my weight, my attitude and my general well being. It feels great!

You will notice I take a day off from walking -- I should point out that it is not because I think I need or "deserve" a day off -- I do it to show myself that it's ok to take a day off. See, in the past, I would walk every day for 4 days and then miss 2 for whatever reason and then not go back to it because I had already "screwed up." Now, I build in a day off so that if I have to miss a day or two, I don't fee derailed.

I always knew that I wasn't getting enough exercise and I can't quite explain why I couldn't motivate to do more of it, but now that I am, I'm really enjoying it!

So for now, the internal treadmill debate is silenced. . . however, it is unseasonably "cool" and it might rain (gasp!) so we'll see how that plays into everything. . .