Heading In The Right Direction...No Matter What The Speed

This has been a busy week, filled with things that are not part of my 'routine schedule'. Despite trips to Kaiser for lab work, a dental appointment that turned into a pulled tooth and all day Wednesday spent in a tax seminar, I managed to stay on my food plan.

In the middle of all this daily 'stuff', my primary concern...my overriding thought each day has always been, "Did I lose any weight?" That has become my preoccupation. I am constantly thinking about what I must do to lose that next pound or even factor of a pound.

I find myself looking at other women and wondering, "What does she weight?"..."Do I look like that?"..."Could I end up looking like that?"

Yesterday, I did something incredibly bold...perhaps rude. There was a lady speaker at the seminar that I was attending. I couldn't help but notice this attractive lady of about 30. She was wearing an beautiful dress and high heels. She had such a lovely figure, not skinny...just nice...even a little curvy. I wanted so badly to know, "How much does she weigh?"

So...big mouth Sue did the most outrageous thing. I rolled right up to her in my wheelchair and spoke to her. We had met earlier in the conference room, and I had complimented her on her lovely dress. This time, I went a lot further. I asked, "Can I speak to you privately?" She agreed, probably thinking that I had a tax question, since she is a state auditor. You can only imagine her face, when I blurted out, "How tall are you?"

After blinking her eyes a couple of times (probably trying to overcome the obtuse question from the old lady in the wheelchair), she replied with a smile, "5 foot 4." I smiled back and told her that I was also 5' 4" tall. Then, I went right to the point. "Sorry, but I just have to know...how much do you weigh?" I didn't even bother to explain my reason for asking, until later.

The beautiful, young woman blinked again (probably thinking I was some kind of a nut, which might be truer than I care to admit); then, she said, "About 140." I know that I was beaming at her response. She had just told me something very important that I really needed to know.

That's when I explained about my weight loss journey from 280 to my current weight. I told her about needing new knees and also that she was 'the size I wanted to be'. She had the figure that I could only dream of having. I am not delusional enough to believe that I will ever have the wonderful form of a 30 year old girl. I am more than 30 year past that point in my life; but her healthy looking figure showed me the weight I would ideally want to be.

That sweet lady congratulated me on my weight loss so far, and she even said that she would pray that I continued to do so well and get my new knees really soon. That added to the joy of the moment.

Today, I am still at least 65 or 70 pounds away from that amazing number 140 pounds; but I got to see what it looked like yesterday. I liked that weight, even though my body has not been that small in 50 years. Yep, I was 18 years old, when I came out of boot camp weighing 145 pounds.

Is that number realistic for me? Can I hope to ever attain that weight at my age? Should I adjust my weight goal to the extraordinary number of 140 or 145? Have I got it in me to stick it out for another 65 to 70 pounds? How long would it take?

The answer came back...Only God knows? At least, I can keep heading in the right direction. I am tired of looking back to the past for a 'me' at a weight that was normal, healthy and made me not only look good but feel good.

No matter what my goal weight, I need to keep doing what I am doing. I may never weigh 140 or even 145 pounds again; but I won't know, if I don't try. So...for today, I will be motivated even more to stay on my food plan, do my exercise and dream of me at a healthy weight in the future. It's time that I stopped looking back to a memory myself from my past and started focusing on my future and all the days ahead of me.

Do you find it easier to look back to yourself in the past than to invision yourself in the future? Do you try to see your self in other people's ideal bodies? Do you even know what you want to look like at the end of your weight loss journey? Does your goal weight seem like a dream just out of your reach?

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Additional note: I have reached my goal of losing enough weight to get on the preop list for knee surgery. I also knew that it was time to reset my final goal, but it took seeing the right weight on someone else to show me what I really wanted.

My next, obvious mini goal is Onederland. Then, I want to catch up (or maybe you could say down) to my hubbie's weight. He was 190.2 yesterday. Ed is really doing well and has already lost almost 50 pounds. The good news for me is that he wanted to get to 190; so, that should be his goal weight. Of course, he might get inspired to lose more. Either way, I plan to catch him one of these days.

Today, I reset my ticker to 145 pounds as a final goal. That put my little butterfly back to the half way mark. She has been flying for about 7 months now. I think that she can fly for a few more.