Friday, May 04, 2007

Failure isn't final

I always thought I was motivated by money.

I thought that if I could somehow tie money to weight loss, that would be the thing to get me to lose weight. If I would just get a deal where somone paid me a bonus for every pound I lost...that would be great.

Then along came the Biggest Loser! Whoa! that is awesome! And I knew I wasn't big enough for that show, but if I could somehow make a contest in Wichita...then I could win that and I would lose weight.

So I did that. Thus the blog.

Only it wasn't for big money. $50 and anyone could have won it...they picked the winner out of a hat. It wasn't based on who lost the most. Although, it still motivated me and I went from 289 to 258. YES!

Then when that competition was almost over, Play it again Sports had a REAL contest for REAL money...$5K. Finally, my dream came true! I could finally get paid to lose weight. I had already lost 30 pounds and if I did this contest I would lose another 60! YES!!!!

So I signed up. And waited. Didn't do much. Didn't lose any weight. I figured I'd start it up later. After all, I lost 20 of my pounds in a month for the biggest loser deal, I could certainly do some damage in two months so I can wait.

Long story short...tomorrow is the awards day. tomorrow the contest is over. And tomorrow someone is going to walk away with $5K. Othes will walk away with other prizes.

Not me.

I didn't even go to my final weigh in. I knew I wouldn't win. So why take a ten pound loss to them.

Then, over five short months, I think I've gained it all back.

How sad is that? I'm afraid to weigh in. All those great feelings of clothes fitting and feeling great...I suck. So crappy.

One of the contestants from TBL was told that they have three strikes to weight loss. If they gain 5 lbs, that is strike one. If they gain 7 pounds that is strike two. If they gain 10 pounds, that is strike three and they will go back to thier original weight and probably gain more!

That has certainly been true for me.

Here is the good news: Failure isn't final.

I have the tools. I know I can do it.

Part of my stress has been writing a book. That manuscript is due July 2nd. So on that day, I will celebrate by going to the Y.

The good news is as well, that if I eat right, I can lose weight without even exercising! Shoot, I'm so fat now, walking is exercising!

So I have less than two months, but I can eat better now. Which I am going to do.

My hope, my dream, is that Xmas time, I'll have a little more than 4 months. That's, at the very least, 40 pounds I could drop. Maybe more. And then, next summer, I should be down to my goal weight.

Oh, how nice will that be.

So tomorrow will suck. I will feel like a failure. But I know that my failure isn't final.