A little truth-telling

Since the beginning of the year, I've "weighed in" for you by telling you how much I've lost and a few of my goals. But I've avoided telling you how much I weighed because I was so ashamed. Of course, if you were dying to know, you could do a little math and figure it out. But typing those numbers was terrifying to me.

It's time to rip the Band-Aid off.

And after I tell you, maybe you'll see why I'm so anxious to get these first 20 pounds off and why I'm so frustrated it's not happening as quick as I'd like.

In mid-October, I got down to 207 pounds. By Jan. 1, I weighed 235 pounds.

Yeah. I gained nearly 30 pounds in two months.

More painful was the idea that I had entered that "100 pounds lost" territory. You see, as long as I weighed less than 217 pounds, I could say that I've kept off 100 pounds since 2005 (instead of focusing on the 50 I regained). At 235, I was entering that Danger Zone: If I kept it up, I could be back to 300 pounds in a few months.

So I have worked and worked and worked to get to my first real goal: under 217. I expected to be there by March 1. It's now April 8, and I weigh 222 pounds.

I have all these mini-goals with incentives attached (217, 210, 199, 185, 175, 167) but I haven't even met the first one yet. Frustrating.

The scary thing is how quickly I could gain 30 pounds and, even with an insane amount of work, how long it's taken me to lose a mere 13 pounds.

On a bright note
I'm not seeing results on the scale or in the mirror or in my clothes. BUT I did see major progress on the street yesterday. After my hourlong Power Cut class, I started on my three-miler. I was pretty sore, so I decided to walk the first mile and then see where things went. I had a great run on Tuesday, so I wasn't going to push myself. If I could run, great; if I had to walk, that was just fine.

After that first mile, I started in on a jog. My arms were sore, so it was hard to even pump them. But after a few minutes, I realized something amazing: The run was feeling effortless. I decided to just keep going, a half mile at a time, and see how far I could run without stopping. I also decided I wouldn't turn around at the 1.5-mile point; it was such a beautiful day and I was feeling so good, I was just going to run until I felt like turning around.

I ended up running three miles straight and those three miles felt wonderful, like I was just gliding along (albeit slowly). I stopped at three miles b/c I have a long run scheduled for Sunday and didn't want to overdo it. Then I walked 1.5 miles home. A total of 5.5 miles after an hourlong class.

For three months, I've been working out steadily four days a week, strength training, running, walking and spinning. And I'm finally starting to see that work pay off in my running.

And that's something.