Losing a part of me

I have often quoted the old trope that if you shoot for the stars, when you miss you still hit the moon. I stand by that, but it is still important to try to achieve the goals that you set for yourself. That is one of the reasons I set out on my walk this morning. Despite feeling sluggish, and the aches in my body from the last week of pushing myself, and the heat advisory, and every other excuse I could have come up with, I set out this morning so that I could achieve the goal that I had set a few days ago to walk fifty-five kilometres in a week.

I took a familiar route this morning in a different direction, so while I was seeing all of the same things, I was seeing them from a different perspective. While I did not set out to do it this way, the route of my walk ensured that when I stepped onto the Itabashi Bridge in Burlington, I would reach my goal of fifty-five. It also meant that I still had one kilometre to walk to get home, but that is another story.

My overall pace was hindered today (really, shredded) because of a freight train at a level crossing. I had to walk in circles leading to my second kilometre on Mainway east of Walker’s Line for nearly five minutes. While I did not stop – I walked in circles, looking pretty stupid to anyone sitting in a car watching – my pace dropped significantly. My overall cadence for the entire walk was 114 steps per minute, but what can you do? I still walked 7 kilometres in the heat, and I reached my goal.

I think that one of the reasons that reaching my goal today was so important to me is because I look back on the weight loss goals that I have set, and failed each time. I felt that if I was ever going to really succeed… I mean, completely knock it out of the park in this multi-year plan I have to be a slim man, I needed to prove to myself that I could set a goal and not compromise, not make excuses, not say ‘I could have done it, but here’s why I decided I did not need to.’ I said that I wanted to fitness walk 55km in a week. I could have made every justification that ‘I took my dog for at least fourteen walks, and that more than put me over the top,’ or whatever else.

I was tired yesterday, and I did not want to walk… but if I did not go out then I would have necessarily failed in my goal. I was not feeling it this morning, and I did not want to walk… but if I did not go out then I would again have failed. I pushed myself to go, and I made it.

Leslie and I were speaking last night, and she suggested that for now, I should set my weight loss goal for 300-pounds. I think that is a good idea, because not only is it achievable, it is a medium-term goal that I can see hitting by October. After that, I will set new goals, and I will keep trying to do better. What will the next goal be after I drop below 300-pounds? Probably to get to 260-pounds, which was my absolute best weight in September 2020, and the lowest weight I remember being in the last twenty years.

In the meantime, I am certainly not there yet, but just by looking at these photographs taken two hundred days apart you can see there is a vast improvement. I look forward to seeing what my Day 300 picture will look like.