Getting on my bi/pap machine therapy in 2010. Life and health changing.

Two important insights:

(a): I realized in my mid 40s that I could not run the way I did when I was 20+ years younger, and - once I accepted this and set my sights appropriately - running was actually very enjoyable again.

(b): I realized on the cusp of turning 60 that insight (a) needs to be revisited frequently.

If I think about all I have learned about weight loss, the real key was something I learned when I first found GOAD. I learned that diets don't work if you just complete the diet and go back to what you were doing before. The insight is to think of weight management as a lifetime commitment. That seems obvious to me now, but it was quite a revelation at the time.

I haven’t responded because I can’t think of any epiphany or “aha!” moment where things crystallized for me. There’s no point where I had a blinding flash of insight or had a U-turn in my direction. My motivation to start WW at the end of 2007 was a bit of a walk-up, but that’s not the question.

I’m reminded that shortly after I hit goal, my Meeting Leader (back when we called them that) asked me during a meeting whether it was a big change losing weight. I responded without thinking “no - but it was a lot of little ones!” I think that’s largely the answer to this question.

The one possible thing that might qualify as “biggest insight” was Covid. I’d been drifting, and I was about 89# over my goal weight. It became apparent early in the pandemic that the disease was claiming the elderly, the infirm, and the overweight. I couldn’t do anything about my age, but I could do something about the other two. I’m that exception that lost weight - and in fact got back to goal - during, and largely because of Covid. Between February 2020 and November 2022 I lost the 89#, and since then I’ve weighed in “free” every month so far.