Weighing My Options

Century mark hit + a half pound.

I'm done with weight loss. I'm going to finish off this months supplementation and then just move to an Omega-3 / 6 + Multi Vitamin and be done with dieting down.

Its actually starting to weigh down on me psychologically. Ever LB lost for the last 20 has been a painful process of watching what I eat like a hawk, then fending off cravings every day with an iron will, only to crash and burn on a pizza or something when something didn't go right at work, or it rained hard on a day that I was really keen on riding or running.

Its no longer working for me the way it used to and the way it used to motivate me as I saw the lbs peeling off and eating is turning into a comforting experience again, and that's what got me there in the first place. College, coming home from college, finding my way through my 20s, all lead to comfort eating on a record scale. It honestly was a pretty normal evening to come home, fire up a thick crust meat lovers pizza, then coat it with sauces *could be anything from Ranch dressing, to Onion Dip* and down it with a 2L bottle of coke.

A 4000 calorie dinner in a matter of 20 minutes of eating. More then I eat in a day in a half now.

I also developed and still have an eating disorder that I work on every day. I eat too fast. Like WAY to fast. I can literally fire through 50 wings before I even register being full. I developed this problem back when I was a teenager. I used to work in a factory where you got 30 min to clean  yourself off, sit down, collect yourself *The work was brutally hard... try shoveling shit for 8 hours straight... I was crazy buff back then due to this*, eat down your lunch, hydrate, and then get ready for the next 3.5 hours of work. Naturally lunches started getting rifled down to maximize social time with others. This translated to what I can do now by way of stuffing my face.

I can literally fire down a large pizza in 15 min if nobody says anything to me. Meaghan is good for letting me know when I'm doing this. Its a disorder and one I fight with every meal.

So I'm going to stop. I'm going to put the scale somewhere out of sight. I'll get my body fat counter, and use that to judge. I'm at the point now where I'm not ashamed of my body anymore. I still have some bulges where there shouldn't be any, and I still have love handles, but everything else dwarfs it so it really hides well.

I wear Lycra now. Proudly. I look decent in it, and I've seen worse wear far tighter. There was a massive psychological block for me when I was heavy. The fact that I did not have the perception of having a typical body to do the exercises I was fully capable of doing would roadblock me to stationary items such as the treadmill *poorly* and stationary bike *terrible workout if you're not HIITing it*.

Over the course of the loss there were a lot of psychological changes that happened for me. I have a better grasp on my emotions. I understand myself more through each competition. I realize that for most of my life I have only pushed myself a fraction of what I am capable of out of fear of failure.

I have realized that ultimately that winning is not everything. Its more about the journey and the blood sweat and tears that you endure to get to where you're going. I've realized that training and digging deeper is how you beat people, not just by looking the part. Though having the right gear helps a lot. Being lighter helps, but you have to get to the race and get on your bike/shoes to compete. That's where a lot of people fail.

Its a new path from here really. Its a fairly large milestone. I've just started on my endurance athlete quest, at 30. I've performed admirably in 3 races, with my 4th coming up this weekend. I've signed up for a triathlon, and have dreams of an Ironman in a few years. I will run one, its just a matter of time. I've realized that winning one of these things will probably never happen, but I'm okay with this. Winning isn't the goal.

Finding myself is, and I find something new about myself every time I crank 1 more time around the ring when that voice inside my head tells me that I can quit any time I want.

And that voice gets quieter every single time.

And that voice has less say in every thing I do.