itsawonderfilledlife

As of last week, I am halfway!

Halfway to what, you ask?

It could be halfway to school starting … oh no, not the dreaded ‘s‘ word!

It could be halfway, as in middle aged … no way baby, this chick is going for 100!

It could be halfway to paying off our mortgage … in the immortal words of Cinderella, “a dream is a wish your heart makes …”

It could be halfway to vacation destination (Cannon Beach? New Brunswick?) … nope … sadly still slogging away!

It is none of these.

Last week I reached the halfway mark of my weight loss goal … thirty pounds down, and thirty more to go. Hurray, all that hard work, saying ‘no’ when I really wanted to say ‘yes’ to my favorite treats. All those miles of walking. All those celery sticks and salad. All those times I had nothing, when what I desired most was cheesecake.

Hey, it’s time for cheesecake, to celebrate! Actually, even though it is only 8am, as I am writing this, I could really go for a slice of cheesecake right now … the variety really doesn’t matter. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water (and my pants feel tighter … sigh, I have reached the point of weight loss that my own brain becomes my enemy … aka, my accountability conscience).

This weight loss stuff is quite the journey … really more like a slow motion video than a journey. Back in January I began this process (no, this was not a New Years Resolution, it was more of a response to the fact that my hubby was dropping pounds like my beast drops poo! So I figured I better keep up with his fine example … it might have also been in response to that ‘sweety’ at church who said, “so have you been finding all that weight your husband has been losing?” … deep breaths … deep breaths … deep breaths! But, I digress).

Somehow, unlike other weight loss phases of my life (oh yes, I’ve been this size before … heck I have been anywhere from a size eight to a size twenty-four over the past twenty years), this time I have not gotten all depressed when I go through those ‘plateau’ phases. And I don’t even feel tempted to stop eating well … I guess it is because, this time I have finally got it through my thick skull that it took all these years to pack on the pounds and ounces, and it will probably take years to take them all off again … and then it will take the rest of my life (decades) to keep it off.

And really that is the biggest battle in this exercise (pun intended) of weight loss, but really in battling any bad habit. The need to realize that, although we live in a ‘microwave’ society, where we can access what we want, and when we want it (from hamburgers to movies to education to money from a cash machine) there are some things that take time to access, to achieve.

In this time that we are living, cash is quick and easy to access … and debt, along with that!

Sex is quick and easy to access … and loving, meaningful relationships are not.

Food is quick and easy to access … and our belts constantly need readjusting.

The things that are truly good for us, are not quickly accessed, and the habits that are bad for us, take immense strategy, commitment and determination to overcome.

And so I will continue plodding along on this quest to, not just a smaller pant size, but to a healthier me. I also know that although it only took six and a half months to loose the first thirty, it will probably take another year (or more) to take off the next thirty. And that’s okay, because I have learned that things that are good, are worth taking the time to achieve.