Looping back to provide some thoughts about my latest effort to lose weight.

I know I said "no stories," but here's a story to help explain what turns out to be a long-term struggle.

A few years ago I ran into a major challenge at my prior job. A lot of it was my fault, but in addition to falling partway down the stairs, I had managed to throw myself down the rest of the stairs, so to speak. I was planning on leaving that job and had another job lined up. To make a long story short, after I was done setting fire to all of the bridges at my job, that new job fell through at the last minute. I felt as though my career was over and there was no way to recover. I did my best to patch things up, but it was really too little too late.

I was both sad at the loss, angry at myself for my stupidity, and angry at folks who I thought were my friends but who weren't able or willing to stand by me (for understandable reasons).

I felt very sorry for myself, and that led down a path of "soothing" myself every day with wine or beer, maybe some extra food, etc. You know the story.

That self-soothing process went on for a long time...even after I managed to pull my career back on track, land a new (better) job, and ultimately move to a new city that was much better for my family.

But...I had established a set of habits that weren't the most useful.

It's actually surprising that I managed to keep my weight under my WW goal, but 10-15 pounds above my personal target weight.

For a while I've been thinking that my alcohol intake, while not "destructive," was certainly not helpful. I began feeling bad about myself every morning and it seemed like every day I would resolve to skip having a glass of wine that day, only to find myself sitting on the couch with a glass of wine in my hand.

I am generally not one to make New Year's resolutions, but this year I decided that I was going to go back to an old plan of mine, which was to limit alcohol to the weekend only (and ultimately, to Friday/Saturday). At the same time, I realized that every time I tried to limit alcohol, I would make up for it by having snacks at night instead. I was simply replacing one habit with another. As such, I also resolved that I was going to break the evening snacking habit. Finally, I resolved that I was going to restart my running again, and go back through the Couch to 5K program.

So, why was this time different and how did the switch get flipped? I think I felt like I had simply lost control of this aspect of my life. To be fair, I continued to maintain my weight, but I hate the feeling that I have no control over things. I guess I decided that I needed to take back control. If I was taking back control, it made sense to set a useful and personally-important goal: to get back to my target weight.

There's definitely some "white-knuckling" along the way, to remind myself that I made a plan to avoid weekday alcohol and snacks entirely, and that if I just keep eating three proper meals a day and get some exercise in, that good things would happen.

So, I'm 5-6 pounds down from January 1st, I'm on week 7 of the C25K program, and I am feeling in better control. I forgot how good it feels to feel good about yourself! It feels like when I first started WW 10 years ago and the weight was coming off at a good pace. What a sense of joy and accomplishment. I guess that helps to reinforce the on-switch!