So I traveled this weekend to the college my daughter will attend in the fall. It is only 1188 miles away but who's counting. I tried to manage my eating well but didn't feel successful. However, the scale was one pound lower this morning. It was met with a sigh of relief because I was fairly certain it was going to go up.

I have trips planned roughly every two weeks until September. Most are fun ones but one is for a funeral and another is to drop my daughter off at school.

I have a couple of new things to try this week and will try to get back to some previous things I felt worked. Still trying to stay on the journey and not to drop out completely!

I am still having a lot of trouble sleeping, Annoyingly the thoughts of how awful the vipers were at my old job keep popping into my head. I think what bothers me the most is I had no true opportunity to defend myself against the terrible and untrue things they said. The things I did try to do to stand up for myself just failed. The feeling of helplessness just makes me so sad.

Just got back from a vacation where the good food and ice cream was plentiful. I am up 3 pounds but it could have been so much worse. I tried to stick to the plan but the ice cream really got me.

Now I have a yucky summer cold.

So the three pounds disappeared- so yeah! Not much of an update today. I wasn't able to check my weight or other things this morning. I had a really good couple of days but yesterday was no so good.

It will be a busy six weeks. I think towards the end of September, I will be able to get into a better routine.

Still here. Still trying to figure things out. I did figure out even if I do as best as I have ever done, I will weigh more at the end of this year than when I started.

I don't understand why habits and lifestyle changes do not stick for me. I had built up really good habits and was consistent with them for at least 3 years. In the course of a couple of months, they are gone. In reality though they were never true "habits". I had to think about it everyday and cajole myself into compliance. However, the commonly accepted theory on habits is it takes about 6 weeks to make one. Why do I have to be such an oddball!?!

Even with the walking. There are countless videos and posts about the great things walking did for people. I walked 2.4 miles a day, six days a week for three years and never saw the benefits people attest to. It made me really tired and in pain.

Still seemly in a gaining cycle and having exceptional difficulty breaking out of it. I will keep trying different things with the hopes a few of them will get me back onto the path of success.

You know, I use to post everyday. I really had my head in the game. I don't know what happened and why I drifted away so much. I've gained 15 pounds since the year started and I can feel it. It makes such a difference.

I fell very hard while skating Thursday and I think someone may have it on video. I banged up my elbow and my hip. The fall also rang my bell although I am pretty certain I didn't actually hit my head. I did keep skating but left a little earlier than usual. Partly because of the fall and partly because there was a really good young figure skater. She was clearly doing final run throughs of her routine to her music. I try to get off of the ice when the music starts so she can concentrate. I am wondering if the ice was in bad shape. Just after I got off the ice the last time because her music started, she fell really hard. These girls are tough as nails but this fall was bad enough she started crying. The poor kiddo!

The day after my fall, my shoulder and neck muscles were quite stiff and sore. It has been a few days and I can still feel it. Long story short, I think I fell because of the extra weight. I hit some sort of imperfection in the ice and I believe if I were lighter, I would have been able to compensate.

So my poor kiddo went to the gym yesterday and someone cleaned out the locker she was sharing with her friend. She lost her house key, car key and pricey air pods she got as a graduation gift. It was worse for her friend. Her friend had the same things stolen and her wallet. The scumbags wasted no time and immediately paid for gas across the street using the stolen card. The police zipped over there to try to catch them but no luck.

My daughter was really lucky because typically her wallet is in the locker too. It is a small wallet and she usually has it attached to her keys. On her way to the gym it broke off of the lanyard she uses so she tucked it into her glove box. Luckily the thieves didn't seem interested hanging around to find the cars. After offering her much sympathy for her lost items, I said her guardian angels worked overtime to make her wallet come off of the lanyard.

The officer said since the thieves used the card, it became an identity theft case. There will be detectives assigned and they have a higher than average rate of success for cases like this. I also spent a far amount of time looking in trash cans in case they ditched anything they didn't want like my daughter's sentimental key chains. I didn't find anything but I bet I looked suspicious!

Yesterday, I went skating again. I only got 10 laps in. Down from the 40+ I was doing in the spring. Turns out I am still recovering from the spill I took last week. My left side is very stiff and I got worn out pretty quickly. It seemed like a good decision to limit myself. Additionally, I discovered my tumble was pretty rough. During skating, I wear wrist guards since I have previously broken each of my wrists. Once severe enough to require surgery. When I put on my wrist guard yesterday, I realized it was very damaged. The entire side seam was blown out and the strap is nearly torn off. Definitely is a good choice to be wearing them when I skate.

I have noticed that individuals tend to protect what was previously injured. There's me with my wrist guards. However, I've seen a few folks in knee guards and one fellow in a helmet who seems to have had some type of brain injury. I am planning on going skating tomorrow.

It is back to 2018 for me and it is not good. In 2018, I started another attempt at really getting this weight off for my health and I am still going with that attempt. I've had my ups and downs but I consider it a progression of that attempt. This has never been far from my mind although my resolve has waxed and waned during that time.

In 2018, I joined this message board and signed up for a year long class on better eating/healthy habits. The class was designed to help you lose weight. I gained 10 pounds. In the spring of 2019, after much research, I started taking supplements in an effort to improve my health. To be clear, none of these supplements were for weight loss. Each one was for a 'symptom' that was affecting my life. It paid off and within in 4 months my weight slowly started to come off. It was pretty consistent for a year and a half or so. Then it stalled out. I really struggled had a small regain of 6 pounds and was able to work that off again. Once again I was stalled out until I got Covid last summer and took an antiviral drug to treat it.

After that, I felt great and lost the next ten pounds. I was thrilled and even made it through the holiday season. Cue to the start of this year and the tires flew off. I couldn't maintain the loss and started regaining. I am still in the regain cycle. To my horror when getting ready for this post, I realized I have gained 17 pounds (unofficially) since the start of the year. That's nearly half of my hard won weight loss. I can't think about it too much because I will be in tears.

In 2018, I was absolutely unable to control my appetite, especially around giving up sugared soda. I was also very tired. I am right back there now. It is so frustrating. My solid exercise routine has evaporated. I am simply too tired to keep it up. In an effort to understand what is going on, I looked back at my list of supplements. One I had been taking, I stopped earlier this summer because it is no longer available. Apparently, it was key for me. I even went to the manufacturer's website. Even though it is still on the site, it won't let me add it to the cart. The supplement is a blend of several things so it is difficult to find a replacement. I didn't realize this one was so key but it clearly was very helpful to me.

It has been a crazy couple of weeks here. We dropped our only child off at college 1200 miles away last week and they are not quite eighteen yet. We just got home today and it is so hard to be home without them....

Still adjusting to the "quiet" life.

With regards to weight loss, even though it is always on my mind I have not been able to get any traction on it. Next Sunday is the start of the month. I think I will bite the bullet and formally announce my gain next week. It will be painful. How can you continue to be in denial about something when you write about it? For the most part, I am in denial about how much I've gained right now.

There are still three months left in the year to get it turned around. No matter what I do though, I will weigh more at the end of this year than the start.

I have the tally and it is ugly! Bleh!!!

So far this year I have gained 19 pounds. Oof-tah! That is hard to "write out loud". Painful but true so let the rationalizations begin. My current total loss is -22 pounds (up from -41 pounds at the beginning of the year).

A year ago July I had Covid. After Covid, I felt great and the weight just fell off. I, quickly for me, lost 10 pounds after being stuck at -30 pounds for years. I was truly excited and felt I was finally going to realize my dream of getting the weight off. Anyway, in my mind I feel like those 10 pounds that came off after Covid were a "false" loss. It was just too easy and I didn't have to struggle to get every ounce off. Easy come, easy go loss that didn't really count. (Should it be easy go, easy come in this case?) The regain of the hard won lost weight is 9 pounds. This feels like something I can face.

Boy, can I feel it though! My skating is a mess. I have to hang on to the wall to pick up speed at first and I feel like I am going to topple over at any moment. In fact, I did fall recently so hard I ruined my wrist guard. I can only do six laps before I have to rest. By comparison, last December I was doing 24 laps in a row at a pretty good clip. My total number of laps these days is 14. In December it was 36 laps and then some.

At the turn of the year, something just changed. Everything, including my well established exercise habits, became a fight. I've been struggling all year with no clear understanding of why.

This was a good week and I stayed within my calorie limit everyday. I was rewarded with a 2 pound drop on the scale. Not sure why I don't feel more excited about it; probably because I've been here before.

Sad news- Our little, ten year old, aquatic frog passed away from natural causes. The cat, who got him out of his tank of water once, seems to miss him and looks for him each day.

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Seriously- this site sometimes! Even though it was a short message and I wrote it quickly, I lost it the first time I tried to post. I ended up having to rewrite it. This time I am using my ctl + A, the ctl+ C trick for sure!
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And it posted just fine this second go around. Seriously! What is up with that!?!

It looks like I can officially say I have lost one pound since the great reset. I need to remember to weigh in at the end of the month.

Unfortunately, the few clothes I cautiously bought last year because I was so happy to have broken the -40 pound barrier barely fit. I can wear them but they look small. Most are ones I bought for sking.

I broke down and bought a new ski coat mostly because I really wanted it. I am worried it won't fit though.

According to the numbers, I lost, or rather re-lost, 5 pounds in October. It is hard to get excited about it because it can come back so fast. Secondly, I already lost this particular 5 pounds twice before. In the meantime, despite being eating at a clear calorie deficit all week, the scale is up 3 pounds in the last four days. This is so ridiculous!

Also, I have learned my blood glucose meter has been reading about 15 points low. This means I am not doing nearly as well as I thought in that regard but it does explain some things.

Additionally, my food scale reads higher than it should. This should have been working in my benefit because it means I was eating less than I thought I was.

Great news! My new ski jacket fits and looks amazing!