Erk. OK, 104 weeks ago this week (Wednesday, specifically), I set out to lose some weight. I decided that 218.4 lbs was way too heavy for someone 5'7" with a medium bone structure. So my husband and I embarked on a journey that involved eating less and exercising more. My original plan was to drop approximately 70 lbs, putting me under 150 lbs for the first time since college, and putting me under my high school graduation weight. It seemed like a monumental task. But as we started out, motivating each other and trying to be good about eating, it was amazing at how the weight started to drop off. We'd lose sometimes over four lbs in a week! I figured we'd be at our target weights in no time. Sure enough, by the beginning of the summer I was in the 170s and feeling great. I'd lost about 40 lbs, well over half my intended goal.

And then we got lazy.

It crept in gradually. We'd talk ourselves out of a work-out. We'd go hit a restaurant on the way home and eat a big dinner. We stopped our two-a-day workout schedule. And suddenly, the weight stopped dropping off. And sure enough, after a while, the weight started creeping back on.

And for the next year, if you've read this blog semi-regularly, I made resolution after resolution to "get back on it" and start losing weight again. But you also know, it never happened. My weight stayed stagnant at about 180 lbs. I started getting really obsessed with it, and yet at the same time I continued the destructive path of not working out regularly and not eating reasonably. And the weight continued to creep.

I sit here now, having weighed in this morning at 192.2. I'm all the way back up to only about a 26 lb weight loss, really about a third of my intended goal. The clothes that seemed so loose months ago that I thought I'd have to throw them out are back to being tight. I'm tired all the time. I feel like crap. I have no energy, no motivation, no drive to do anything productive. And the attitude has drifted in to the rest of my life. I made a resolution this year to get my papers graded promptly. My elbows are currently resting on the better part of two weeks' worth of homework from my students. I still have assignments from Oct. 8 that I can't bring myself to grade. I take my work for a ride every night--to swim practice, to my house, and back to school--without ever really making a dent in it. And it's super-frustrating. I've been awful about housecleaning, leaving it to my poor husband to do dishes and laundry because I just don't feel like it. I'm coaching swimming and really just "phoning it in" as far as the effort I'm committing to it. It's looking like I won't be coaching lacrosse this spring (not because of my choice but because I've kind of been pinched out by some new coaches, but I'm not fighting it). I really think I'm depressed.

And I don't know how to turn this around. I mean, I know what I need to do--stop eating like a pig, start working out twice a day, and use my time wisely to get my grading done--but I don't know how to MAKE myself do it. How do you motivate yourself when your main problem is a lack of motivation?

Anyway, there is always time to start over.

Goal #1: Work out at least once per day.

I have a gym membership. I also have hand weights, a yoga mat, and one of those big stabilization balls at school. And I can swim before practice on the nights I go.

Goal #2: Make at least three morning workouts per week.

It means getting up at 4:00 in the morning, but the time change this Sunday should make that reasonable.

Goal #3: Get caught up and stay caught up with grading.

This weekend I'm not doing anything other than coaching at a meet and watching some football, so I should be able to knock out much of their papers. Starting in the middle of next week the students will be reading a novel, which means no daily homework to grade (just occasional quizzes). That will help. I hope to be fully caught up with grading by Thanksgiving.

Goal #4: Be under 180 lbs by Christmas.

If I can keep Goals 1 and 2, this shouldn't be a problem. Of course, I have to deal with lots of food at Thanksgiving and Christmas (my in-laws can cook, and do, a lot). But if I try hard enough, I can make it easier on myself.

Goal #5: Keep the house in better shape.

My hubby deserves to have a wife who actually cleans up occasionally. He takes far better care of me than I do of him, and that needs to change.


I think that's enough to start out with, don't you? Stay tuned...