It's a long journey.

Yesterday I hit a major hurdle.  One of the things I love about my new job is the emphasis and rewards you can get for being healthy.  Basically if I continue what I've been doing the past few months, I get be rewarded with more than just a warm fuzzy feeling that I sometimes get after a good workout.  Last night though, I weighed myself, and I didn't like what I saw.

I don't know what's happened over the past few month's, whether I've been reading the scale wrong, standing on it wrong, or if it's just completely off, but for some reason, the scale I stood on last night gave me a very different number than I've been seeing.

I was really excited because last time I weighed myself at White River Club I was at 312, and I thought that this could be the month that I get out of the 300's for good.  That's definitely not the case.  The scale at the gym at work wasn't able to compute my weight at all.  I didn't know what to make of it, but I tried not to think about it.  The trainer tried again yesterday before work and it still wouldn't give a number, so we agreed to meet, after I got off, at another gym in Indy.

When I got there and weighed myself, the number wasn't good, and I didn't take it very well.  The new number I'm starting at, instead of 336, which, I thought, was the heaviest I'd ever been, is 366 pounds.

I was in shock.  Last night I tried to tell myself, as did Kelsey, the trainer at work, that the number does not define me, but I couldn't even formulate the words in my head, let alone speak them out loud.  I was confused, and angry.  How in the world did I get that big?  How did I get that big and not realize it? What have other people thought when they could tell that I was fatter than what I was saying I was, and then saying I wanted to run a marathon?  A lot of questions were running through my head, mostly starting with the word "how".

So, I have a new starting point.  I'm not sure what to make the the 20 pounds I've supposedly lost over the past few months.  Maybe the scale at White River was off on those too.  I certainly don't feel like I've lost weight, and I don't think I look like I have because my clothes are still fitting the same.  If I have lost 20 pounds, I don't like the thought that at one point I weighted 386 pounds.  THAT'S ALMOST 400 POUNDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm really fighting my cynical nature and tendency towards negative thinking right now.  There so much I want to post that I'm not because of my post last week about trying to think more positively about myself.  And because I don't want this blog to be a pity party, but a source of encouragement and inspiration for others, as well as a place that people can encourage me to not give up.

In the past, when I thought something was impossible, I've turned to food for comfort, and that's another thing I'm fighting.  Maybe God was protecting me 4 months ago when I weighed myself for the first time, because if I saw 386 as the number, right then I would have thrown the towel in and said, it's not possible to get fit, what the point of even trying?  Even now I'm fighting that train of thought and fighting the urge to put a frozen pizza in the oven and eat the entire thing with a beer and watching TV.  That's exactly what I would have done 4 months ago.  I want to do that now, but I'm resisting.

Thinking healthy thoughts.  Or trying to at least.

Taking things one day at a time.

Thinking about what I've already accomplished, measly as it might be, it's still an accomplishment, and not focusing on the long, hard journey I have ahead of me.

Most of all, I'm trying to lean on God in this time of weakness.  There's no way I can do this on my own, but with His help, and people and things He provides to help me along the way, anything is possible.  Even for me.