The fitness check this week is… good? I’m not really sure what to put here as a check-in when it isn’t a number, and the goal is “better health”, so, you now, what is the progress indicator other than I feel good? I don’t know, I’ll work on that. But I do have numbers, in a moment.
I definitely feel like I’m continuing to make progress, and that’s the whole deal here. I know I said I wouldn’t bring up my weight measurements until something happened just one week ago, but hey, something kinda happened. Nothing huge, but I think I might be under 260.
My weight fluctuates very frustratingly throughout the week. It fluctuates to the point where I can’t trust the measurement even when I try my best to control for standard factors. It’s a pain in the ass. I also think my scale might not be great, but I’m not in the market to replace it anytime soon, so we’ll just have to deal. Anyway, on Wednesday I had a check in with my cardiologist, and the nurse that brought me in clocked my weight at 258. I think that scale may have been adjusted to deal with clothes, and I was uncharacteristically dressed quite lightly, so maybe I was a little under. However, in previous visits to the same office, the scales had me a good bit heavier, and also matched fairly closely with my home scale. Also, while the recent home weigh-ins didn’t match that number, things do add up to indicate the away scale is at least plausible. Nothing for certain, though.
What I am certain is that what I’m doing is working. It might not be taking the weight off me at a rate I would like, but as I keep stating here and reminding myself, that’s just an indicator not the real deal. I feel, frankly, pretty damn good. I mean, there’s the underlying pain and discomfort that are always there, exacerbated by the health problems of the past few years, but man. I’m out there, able to get regular exercise again, and that’s rad. And my fit check continues to improve. I recently bought some shorts off the internet and had to guess at my size. When they came in a few weeks ago, they were very tight. Unpleasantly so, to the point that I would not wear them out. I figured it would take months of dedicated weight loss to squeeze my fat ass into them. But I was able to slip into them this week and was surprised to find them loose enough to require a belt. I’d call that a win.
But wait, there’s more. I don’t much like looking at myself in the mirror. Not sure if you can relate, but the guy I see in the mirror is not the guy I want to see. I wouldn’t mind the aging aspect of it all, in fact I rather enjoy the grey creeping into my hair and beard. But my face and body have been so very big and out of shape that it’s been tough to just see the state of myself. I’m a stranger to myself, and I don’t like it. Given the effort I’ve been putting in over the past year, it’s not just demoralizing, it’s downright soul crushing. I’ve had to keep watching my stupid shitty body get bigger and less defined every day, even as I cut calories and add exercise. And then I also have to see my stupid face, distorted, distressed, and depressed. Nothing like the man I see in my minds’ eye. But not this week. This week, at least a little here and there, I saw my actual face. The feeling was uncanny. It was exactly the boost I needed.