I am not, and
never have been, a skinny man. The
following is a list of words that have never been used to describe me: Fit.
Lanky. Scrawny. Bean Pole. Tiny. Lightweight.
With that being said, I’m also not necessarily a huge man. I’ve never been considered morbidly obese but
I have been considered overweight and very unhealthy. The highest I ever hit was 240
something. You see, the digit in the
“ones” place in that number could have been 3 or 5 or 2, but it didn’t matter
because the proceeding digit was 4. 240
something. My actual reaction was “what
the crap, Heath?” At the time I was
working in a restaurant part time and doing school full time. And I actually slapped myself. I had let myself go.
I dropped some of
that weight when school started back up, and I got into running and weight
training and actually at one point got down to 200. I lost 40 some pounds. It felt great. And then the “real world” came in an socked
it to me again. I graduated college and
no longer had a free gym to go to nor a beautiful campus to run on.
Over the next few
years I found all that weight I lost. I
found it in some really odd places, I mean who would have thought I would have
left it at McDonald’s? I found some at
Pizza Hut too, and I even found a good portion of it inside the soda cans I
bought from the grocery store. How did
it get there?
I went through
“normal” life routines. I got married, I
got a better job, I became a father, all the while saying “I’m going to lose
this weight, I’m going to drop back down, I’m going to be healthier” which was
ironically always followed by “after things settle down.” I got back up to 235. That was as close to 240 something as I was
going to allow myself to go. That was
right around October of last year.
My wife and I
went insane. We started only eating
healthy foods and working out and running and all kinds of crazy stuff. And it worked. She dropped weight (and still is) and I
dropped back to 205! Holy wow! It was awesome, and we did that in just a few
months!
BUT. That’s one of my least favorite words:
but. It always implies a counter to what
someone just said. Kinda like “you’re a
great guy BUT I’m not going to date
you.” Or “you know, you’d probably do
really well at this job BUT it’s going to go to this other
guy’s son because we’re into nepotism.”
In this case, however, it’s “I’m losing weight and feeling great and
doing it like a boss but I really
really like cheeseburgers. And ice
cream. And donuts. Etc. ad infinitum.” So over the past two months I packed back on
10 pounds (it really didn’t help that we went on a cruise, which isn’t an
excuse it’s a reason) and got back up to where I am now, sitting at 215.
“Heath, what’s
the point of all this?” The point is
that discipline can be an emotional and physical roller coaster. You go up when you have victory and down when
you fail. And you can go up and down
several times very quickly and completely lose sight of your goals and
progress. But you have to remember a
very important fact about roller coasters:
you only get hurt if you try to get off before the ride is finished.
This is the same
comment Dave Ramsey used to describe the rise and fall of mutual funds. You invest long term and they go up and down
and up and down but as long as you stay seated eventually the ride comes to a
complete stop and you walk away with more money than you started. The same idea goes for discipline.
One morning I ran
well over a mile, felt great and was incredibly proud. Later on one morning I ran about half a mile
and nearly died. Is it because I’m
failure? No, it’s because discipline
follows the natural ups and downs of life.
But the point isn’t the ups and downs, it’s staying on the ride until
it’s done. Getting off in the bad parts
means you’ll never be able to experience the good parts and you’ll never see
the end results.
I’m writing this
because I’m learning it myself. You see,
I’ve gone from 240 something down to 200 back to 235 and down to 205 and now
back up to 215. It would be incredibly
easy to get discouraged and even depressed because I have failed and gained
weight back. But I have to be
honest….215 still feels a heck of a lot better than 240 something. And overall, the numbers are still going
down. I just need to stay on this ride
until it comes to a complete stop on the other side of 200. Then it won’t matter what the “ones” or the
“tens’ digit is, because they’ll both be proceeded by a 1.
-Heath
PS: Drawing for Jon Acuff's book Quitter is open until August 1st. Share my blog on facebook or twitter and email me at commoncentsnn@gmail.com to let me know about it and I'll enter you into the drawing! I'm probably going to start doing this regularly, so stay tuned and keep sharing! Hint: sharing multiple posts puts your name in the drawing once for each share.
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