PLANS AND PLATEAUS

I’m sitting here listening to my stomach ‘growl’, despite the fact that I ate my lunch only about two hours ago. I dare not eat anything else, however, because I am desperately trying to continue my routine and thus lose some weight.  Unfortunately, for the past 4 or 5 days, I’ve been kind of sliding back and forth between 197 and 199, and I have to tell you….it’s getting OLD! OK...so realistically, I’m still doing well, and I’ve managed to stay below 200 lbs thus far. I have new goals in mind, though, and while I am perfectly willing and ready to move toward them, I seem to have stopped to lounge about on one of those ‘plateaus’ that weight-loss experts speak so casually of! Sounds so good, doesn’t it? I’ve ‘reached a plateau,’ as if I had a long hard climb, and this is a level place for me to rest and recharge. Well, guess what! I’m already CHARGED and ready to keep climbing!! So, what’s holding me back? Metabolism. I don’t even LIKE that word already, and now it’s become my enemy! Metabolism is one of the things that I had hoped I had already overcome, and here it is, standing in my path, and thumbing its nose at me!

Research has shown that after some initial weight loss, our metabolism, or the process that burns calories for energy, slows down as we begin to lose muscle. We begin to burn fewer calories than when we were heavier, even at the same level of activity. Basically, the calories we eat, we expend. What that then means is that we must increase our activity levels OR decrease the calories we take in. So, staying the course, as it were, simply won’t work any longer.  Also, quite honestly, while I don’t go hungry right now, really, I don’t know that I can eat much LESS per day! So, logically, it stands to reason I’m going to have to increase my activity levels. I can do that! Sitting in an office chair all day can certainly be improved upon! I have already started bounding up the steps when I am not loaded down with my extra 45 or 50 pounds of equipment and lunch bag I bring with me every morning. So far, that’s about 4 times a week or so. And when I say ‘steps,’ I mean the 58 steps from the first floor to the third floor of the library, where my office is currently. And when I say ‘bound,’ I mean that I pretty much attack the steps, often skipping every other one as I go. I am going to have to increase the number of times I do that. I am also going to have to get back to a much more regular routine of lunchtime walking. The weather is getting much nicer, so the sunshine is certainly an added incentive.

This morning, I was down to 197 even. I’ll take it! 195 would be better, but I’ll get there. 185 would be awesome right now, but I am a realist, and I know I will get there. That idiom, “slow and steady wins the race” comes to mind. So, I’m a tortoise! I’ll take it!