When it comes to weight loss, it seems most of us are obsessed with the “Before” and the “After”.  I’m no different.  I don’t dwell a lot on the before.  But I plan my after the way some of you spend your mythical lottery winnings.  My favorite fantasy for the after?  The pictures.  I’ve avoided the camera for so long, people think I am running from the law.  But when it’s after, I have a long list of photo shoots planned.

– Me in a pair of big pants

– Me and Jen both wearing the big pants.  There may be a thumbs up involved in this one.  Regardless, I will be getting this print on enlarged canvas and hanging it on top of my fireplace.

– Me in the old jeans.

– Me in THE jeans

-Me in exercise clothes that aren’t pajamas.  I may get one of those spray on six packs too.  Or maybe I’ll just use photoshop.

– New profile pic for Facebook (This is only to redeem myself from the ‘friend’ that made of fun of me for keeping an old profile where I am thin.  This always bothered me because my intention was never to try to fool anyone.  Everyone I know knows how big I am.  But it’s far past time to change it.)

The thing is…

It’s not after yet.

So here I am at what should be the end of this journey.  And the finish line is far, far away right now.

I’m way past the Before but I’m not close to the After.

I am firmly in the ‘During“.

There are no accolades for the during.  No photoshoots.  No parties.  No YouTube time lapse videos.

But I refuse to not acknowledge this season.  I choose to celebrate it.  All these thoughts, and words and posts are my gifts to myself.  Because honestly ya’ll, most of our lives are lived in the during.  And when you think about it, we’re all in the during, aren’t we?  Yours might be different than mine.  Yours might be easier or more difficult and come next year, it may be completely different.

So as this year winds it’s way down, I face it’s conclusion with joy and anticipation.

I am enduring.

The easy part is figuring out the things you did wrong. The hard part is learning how change them.

So I know now that exercise, while awesome and necessary, isn’t a magic pill that will make up for my nutritional detours. Trust me here. I have worked out a lot this year. And if losing weight was as easy as “calories in/calories out” I’d be writing this while wearing a bikini. We each bring our baggage to this struggle and mine might be different than yours. And that makes a one size fits all weight loss approach naive or stupid. This year has shown me that the wiggle room for me is very small. I thought working out was going to give me a lot of freedom. And in lots of ways it did. But freedom and license are not the same thing.
I’m going to end this year with a loss. It won’t be 100 pounds. But without exercise it wouldn’t have been a loss at all. The workouts filled in my nutritional holes just enough to keep my weight moving down. But 2015 must be better. My food game is going to have to be right at least 95% of the time.  If you know me, you are shaking your head right now because…well let’s just say that 95% for me is difficult in any arena. And obviously bad food is my archenemy, my kryptonite, and my biggest stumbling block.

But I’m not worried.

Wanna know why?

Because I’m a ridiculously optimistic person when it comes to my goal.  You see I used to give up 95% of the time and I stopped doing that cold turkey 16 months ago.  Hang with me guys.  There’s no telling what I might do this year.

Ready for my next big revelation?

The best fitness regimen in the world can never make up for bad nutrition.

Of the 350 days that have passed this year, I have eaten perfectly on plan for at least 310 of those days.  I put kale in my shakes ya’ll. KALE!!! I didn’t have even one fun size Snickers on Halloween.   And those days I ate the wrong thing?  I can honestly tell you those weren’t binge days. I wasn’t driving through multiple fast food places or double dunking doughnuts.  There were weeks that I lost 5 pounds between Monday and Friday and regained them over a weekend after a Red Lobster dinner.  (Those cheesy biscuits will be the death of me.)  I’m not suggesting that’s a universal rule.  But it is definitely a 41 year old Rachel rule.

41 year old Rachel is a pain.

You all know that physical fitness has never been a big part of my life.  I faked cramps for a whole year in high school to sit out of gym class. So when I started this deal 16 months ago, I never expected to actually keep doing it.  Every time I find myself working out, I’m shocked.  But make no mistake, my only reason for working out when I started was to be thin.  I didn’t care about health, or strength, or endurance, or any of that stuff.  I cared about my skinny jeans.

But guess what happened?  I accidentally got strong.  Like I could probably beat you up.  I’m not planning to but it’s important for you to know that I could. And I’m enjoying getting stronger almost as much as I am longing to fit into those jeans.

This year has been an amazing learning experience for me.  I wished I had learned some of this stuff earlier but that’s a statement that’s been true in my life for as long as I can remember.  Here’s the first thing:

41 year old Rachel is different from 30 year old Rachel.  I know it sounds nuts but I really believed that the weight loss approach that gave me great success 10 years ago would work the same today.  Even when my results said otherwise, I was undeterred.  I kept thinking I must not be trying hard enough.  You see I believed in my nutritional approach with an almost religious fervor.  The hard reality is that I am not the same. And while the core principles that I will cling to until they pry the coconut oil OUT OF MY COLD DEAD HANDS are still the foundation of my program, things had to be tweaked.  And I had to admit that I was wrong about a thing or seven (Lawdy I hate this!)  I’m actually thrilled that this happened though because I will be different at 51 and 61.  I’m playing a long game here friends.  When I finally hit that goal (It’s happening. Write it down.  Believe me or no.  It matters not.)  it will only be the first step on this journey.  People lose weight all the ding dong day.  Only 5% of those people keep it off.  I have to use this new insight to be part of that percentage.

Change is not hard.

Waking up every day and doing something different from the day before is not really a big deal.  If you had eggs for breakfast yesterday and a doughnut omelet today, then that’s change.  I’m not suggesting it’s a good one but it counts.

It’s the day in and day out retention of a change you already made that’s difficult.

Change is easy.

Changing is hard.