A Marathon, Not A Sprint

marathon

I was speaking to a lady last night in passing who was bemoaning the fact that she’s put weight on recently. She’s starting a diet on Monday  🙂 so she can get in shape for her holiday in September, although she doesn’t have a lot of weight to lose…I’d estimate maybe fifteen or twenty pounds..? The thing is, I know it’s all relative and she has every right to be unhappy with her mini-muffin top, but two things struck me as we chatted.

Firstly, I’m not so sure that if I’d been standing there feeling fifteen pounds too heavy, chatting to someone who was clearly ten times heavier than me I would’ve been quite so quick to moan about how I hated looking in the mirror and seeing ‘all this fat’. To be fair, I imagine that when I get down to being just fifteen pounds overweight you’ll have a hard time stopping me licking my reflection, never mind avoiding it. But whatever, I guess she was just being honest.

The second thing that struck me was envy. Envy that she could start a diet on Monday with a reasonable expectation that in a couple of months’ time she would’ve fully reclaimed her bikini body ready to sizzle on the beach. Let’s just pause a minute in wonder at how that feels, to know that within a few short weeks, you could earn your hallowed string bean stripes.

I’ve been doing this now for ten months, and I’m still almost one hundred pounds too heavy for my frame. Sure, I’m on track and I’ve already lost seventy pounds which is awesome but digging in for the long term is a proper feat of endurance, you know? A marathon, rather than a sprint. It’s different, and it requires a whole bunch of stuff that a ten minute diet doesn’t.

I remember that first day, 17th August 2015 waking up with hope coursing through my veins…this time was my time and I was really going to do it…no, I mean I really was. Let’s be honest, there was no difference whatsoever between that time and the time before and the time before that in terms of what was going on in my head because the finish line seemed so bloody far away that the Asshole voice in my head was just laughing hysterically.

He didn’t even need to put words in my head, you know? I already knew that the odds were not stacked in my favour…my past was littered with false starts because every single time, once the initial flush of determination waned and the reality of how long this was actually going to take started to bite, I always found it really hard not to throw the towel in and head directly back to the land of cheese balls and Haagen Dazs.

It didn’t help that my first few milestones passed by un-noticed. Even when I’d dropped forty pounds, nobody noticed, and why would they? There was just so damned much of me it was hard to tell the difference even if you were looking for it. But I was so determined, and by some miracle I managed to hit that sweet spot where nothing was going to knock me sideways.

So how is it different to a short-term diet? I recognise and embrace tenacity…if you fall over, just get back up again. I’ve had to recognise and embrace patience (she says through gritted teeth) because until you make your peace with it, you’re shafted.

And now…well, now it’s different. Mentally, I’m dug in for the duration. Ten months, and I’m not even half way to Skinny Town yet but you know what, it doesn’t matter…I am more sure than ever that I’m actually going to pull this off. It’s stopped being about how long and now it’s simply about how. There’s no reason for me to think about how long it’s going to take because the foundations of my skinny life have been laid, and now all I need to do is keep on doing what I’m doing.

I’m not even halfway there, but it sort of feels like I’m over the worst, you know? Clear my mind of time, one foot in front of the other, and repeat 🙂

 

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16 thoughts on “A Marathon, Not A Sprint

  1. Dee, there is something about longevity, about sticking with it that really makes a difference. Thinking you’ve conquered the beast does tend to set you up for sidestepping too much, but knowing you are not going to give up battling the beast lets you keep with it. Continually learning, tweaking and riding the storm are the keys to your success. You got this.

    1. Tracey, I daren’t get too cocky, but I really hope so. I feel like I’m looking at the whole thing differently. Mainly down to you guys and what we chat about in here I think!

  2. It is a marathon!!! I remind myself Daily, heck HOURLY that it is a new lifestyle. That I have a new normal. You are doing so fantastically! I had lost 50 lbs before anyone noticed. BUT to be perfectly fair it is hard to tell someones exact size when they are bloused in tents. 🙂 I was ridiculously happy today when I realized that I had no business in the plus sized section. My former favorite store was passed by with a smile. It is so worth it. On the other hand I pouted and sulked when my husband asked if I wanted to share my sandwich at lunch……

    1. Too funny!! I don’t share food easily either, and it requires quick mental calculation on an ongoing basis in case my sharee gets more than me!! grrr ??

  3. Back when I was only 15 kilograms overweight I had just been accepted into an amateur musical (“Gypsy”, you may have seen the movie with Bette Midler and/or Natalie Wood) where I was playing a stripper in a burlesque hall. I was chatting to one of the other strippers about how I really wanted to lose weight before the show started in a few months. After we left, my husband said I had been a bit insensitive because the other woman was much larger than I was, saying I needed to lose weight was implying she needed to lose a lot more. But I hadn’t even thought about her or her size! I had barely even registered her weight.

    Other people tend to be so preoccupied with themselves they really don’t care how big you are. She probably honestly didn’t connect your size with her own need to lose weight.

    A boy I knew back in my Uni days had a quote written on his wall, something like “The pain in your little finger is more important to you than the agony of millions.”

  4. Day by day. That’s a big part of the difference, when you get to where you are only thinking about sticking with it today, getting back up and doing it just for today.

    The lady who wants a quick fix for one event will probably have to do it again for the next event.

  5. I hope you realize that there are plenty of us who read your blog who only comment occasionally (like me), but every once in awhile I need to tell you that I’m so privileged to know you and get to follow along on this incredible journey you are on. I’m sending you smiles and love. This is your new life, and you’re rocking it! 🙂

  6. Hi! Dee, you called it right when you said your Goal is in view, reserved paid & custom-painted, waiting for you to take delivery. In the interim ther is your Cuba trek, and it will feature a Mountain, PLUS a couple of airplane seats…! You get to think, smugly, “One year ago I took this seriously.”

    Oh BTW, admit it, that woman was doing the adolescent “Ohhh, I’m so fat!” – & waiting for someone to oblige her with hasty reassurances. Wow, if she “diets” this month she’ll be a stupid cow in a Brazilian bikini. There’s a magnet for highly evolved men, huh?

  7. You started this journey on my sons birthday how awesome! It took way more than one attempt to lose weight and keep it off for me. I suspect it takes most people more than one try to get it to stick.

    Also that lady is setting herself up to FAIL with a quick weight loss attempt. We all know you have to learn to eat healthy and find exercise you can stand to do for life if you are to keep the weight from coming back on. You are doing great! Don’t compare your journey to hers or any one else’s.

    1. You’re right Susan, each of our journeys will have been different in its own way…lots of similarities too though, right?!

    2. If the woman in the author’s anecdote is someone who doesn’t have an ongoing weight problem but someone who just indulged too much over the winter, realizes it, and wants to dial back to the weight she normally is and feels/looks comfortable at, she is nipping a problem in the bud before 15 lbs becomes 25 which becomes 40 which becomes 60…

      1. That’s very true Michelle, and you know what I admire anyone who can do that…sadly I never had the good sense or the discipline! I’ll make sure I do in future though ?

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