Looking Back and Looking Forward

      5 Comments on Looking Back and Looking Forward

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was looking to update my blog content.  I had gone looking for a specific post to review something that had happened in my life a while back (a benefit to having a blog, which is a lot like a diary, only not at all secret, right? :-P), and I realized that I have over five years of my life recorded on here!  Unfortunately, a lot of the content is formatted for prior WordPress themes or plugins that I don’t use anymore, and that means it doesn’t look very good.  :/ And although I’m no design guru, I do like things neat and orderly whenever I can accomplish it.

I also felt like I needed to update my main pages, such as About Me, I Lost to Gain, etc.  I’m working on those. I edited (ie, shortened) my weight loss story page and will work on the running one next. In addition, I’ve added a “Weigh-Ins” page to help keep me truly accountable (and make it easy to see at a glance where I’m at in my journey).

While I’ve been poking around to see what needs fixing, I’ve read a lot of blog posts, and in doing so have run through the gamut of emotions.  I have really had my ups and downs these last five years, that’s for sure!  Some of the ups were so fun to read, but some of the downs were…well, let’s just say I have discovered that I’ve made a post or two (or three or five) that, while perfectly acceptable for a private diary or an email between friends, are probably less suitable for Internet posting.  What can I say, sometimes I just need a place to vent!  However, in retrospect, I have realized this is not the place.

So, I have hidden several posts (most of them hockey-drama related…that shouldn’t surprise you!) just to keep myself from getting into trouble in real life.  I thought about rewriting them to make them a little more Internet-friendly, but it would have been too hard, and the reality is that while they should probably not be public, I do want to keep them intact, because re-reading those posts has helped me see that problems that I thought were THE END OF THE WORLD were not really the end of the world at all. 🙂

I’m sure you won’t miss them, but just in case you find a link in an active post that throws an error, you’ll just have to forgive me!  If you really want to know what the content was, feel free to email me.   But, I promise, it was really not that exciting. 😉 It’s surprising, though, how much heartbreak, emotion, and drama there can be in kids’ sports (with some occasional school drama thrown in for fun 😛 ).

Besides reliving All The Drama, there were other aspects of reading through my blog that caused me some heartache.  It was harder than I expected to read through that period between 2012 and 2014 when I was breaking all kinds of personal records, both in running and in weight loss.  Honestly, looking at the pictures from then is hard.  I was so skinny!  😮  Here are a just a few I found…

Free Press Relay October 2012 (113.6 lb)

Dexter to Ann Arbor Half Marathon June 2013 (118.0 lb)

Post-Martian Marathon April 2014 (117.4 lb)

I’m definitely heavier now than I was in all of those photos (anywhere from 8 to 14 pounds heavier!).  Yes, it just so happens that each of those pictures was taken at a point when I had just trained for a major race goal (my first race at a sub-10 pace, my first half-marathon, and my first marathon), so obviously I had metabolism in my favor for those, but still…it’s very sobering.  I definitely do not feel as thin now (a sentiment to which my pants will attest).  Not to mention—holy cow, I’m older now, too! 😮

I guess this is another one of those “understanding maintenance” posts, where I kind of blather on in hopes that I’ll come to some determination of how to make this work—I mean really work—for the long term.  It’s ironic that I’m coming up on 5 years since I joined Weight Watchers for (literally) the last time, but although I’ve successfully kept off (at this point) a total of 75 pounds since I was at my heaviest 15 years ago, I still don’t feel like I’ve crossed the finish line yet.  To me, “the finish line” represents that point in time when I’m happy with my body, my weight, and my health in general.  And although I’m happy with certain aspects of those three things (happy to be thinner than I was and happy to be so much more active and healthy than I ever was), I’m not fully there yet.

I know this post is totally “blah” and not very motivating, but it’s definitely honest.  I hate being negative, and I feel like I’m falling quickly down that well, so I will end with this positive comparison.  Here is one of my “famous” before photos, taken in May 2000.

And here is the most recent full body shot I can find of myself, taken in late September 2016.

I may not be perfect, but I am much improved from that first girl! Not to mention, that first girl would have never gotten up at 4:30am to run five steps before work, much less five miles like I did this morning. 😀

Thank you for reading!

5 thoughts on “Looking Back and Looking Forward

  1. Meg B

    I love looking back at old posts. And yes, I agree, I used to blog just for the fun of it, not exercise related, and I went back and read some of those and cringed. Um, not good for sharing with the Internets!

    Reply
  2. Catherine

    I think you look fantastic! I lost roughly the same amount as you with WW almost 6 years ago, and have been in maintenance since. I am 5’5″, and my current weight is 143ish. I got as low as 136.4 when I was first losing, but could never get to that 135 that was my goal (my “healthy” range is somewhere between 118-150, so I figured hey, shoot for the middle! But I was never able to really keep myself in the 130s for more than a few months at a time; when I look at my weight progress over the years, I fluctuate in the 140s for the most part, and when I start to get into the 150s, I rein my diet in and then get back down pretty quickly. I enjoy wine, I enjoy sweets, and I don’t want to live a life where I can’t have the things I love. I never used to exercise at all; now I exercise 6 days a week, and actually enjoy some of it (the running :-); I eat mostly vegetables and don’t smoke (I smoked for 22 years prior to my weight loss). So, would I look better at 135? Probably. But I think I look pretty darn good at 143, and it’s a heck of a lot better than I used to look and feel at 213! So I guess my point is this: I’ve read your blog for a few years (found you through Katie’s blog), and have always thought that you are doing so great and that you’re too hard on yourself for these relatively small fluctuations in weight. You are living such a more healthy lifestyle than before, I really feel you should be proud of all you have accomplished and continue to accomplish. It might be that your body just really wants to be at the range you are in now, and not in the 8-14 pounds less range that is your ideal. Especially now that we’re getting older I think we need to be a little gentle with ourselves 🙂 You rock!

    Reply
    1. steph Post author

      I did not get a chance to respond earlier, but I did read it when first posted and I wanted to tell you how much your post meant to me. It’s hard for me to see myself objectively, which is just human nature. Your kind and thought-provoking words really hit home and made me feel really good. So THANK YOU for helping me to have a new perspective!!

      Reply
      1. Catherine

        I’m so glad to hear that! 🙂 I meant every word. And it’s not like I also don’t have those same conversations with myself, agonizing over small weight gains, but I try to keep the big picture in mind. You are doing awesome, and I look forward to keeping up with your adventures! 🙂

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