There you are, weightloss! I've been looking for you!

Last week I took two days in a row off from the gym.

I know, I know. "That's not a bad thing. You go five days a week. You're allowed to rest." But the thought process that happens is deadly. That third day, when I'm heading to work with my gym bag in hand, I start to think You know, it wasn't the end of the world to take those days off. I could take today off, too....

And there begins the spiral. Last time, that spiral ended with three months off. Then came injury, then came fifteen more pounds. It was bad enough when I was only 100lbs overweight. Now, I was nearly 120lbs overweight. Literally twice what I should weigh if I were an active individual with a sensible diet.

If I want this time to be different, I need to cut the excuses. I needed a little inspiration, so I hit the web looking for words of wisdom from professionals. I found them. Felicia Romero wrote this great blog a few weeks ago and it was exactly what I needed to hear:

I recently saw a quote, “It takes 4 weeks for you to notice your body changing, 8 weeks for your friends to notice, and 12 weeks for the rest of the world to notice. Give it 12 weeks. Don’t QUIT!”

I've hit the gym hard the past few days, killing myself with cardio and following my workouts with my favorite protein and fast carb combo, the delicious chicken with garlic sauce at the local Chinese place. And finally, five weeks into this, I've seen results. My body must have been storing them up, because as of today I'm down five pounds from my weigh-in on Oct 13th.

I try not to be too self-congratulatory; there's a long way to go. It's going to suck, except for when it doesn't, and I'll hate myself once in a while. Every day, this routine gets more normal. Can't ask for much more than that.