Walk with me: First of 2025

I hope you enjoy listening to this ‘walk with me’ recording. I am glad to be back in gear doing this. If you appreciate my off-the-cuff ramblings about my situation and reflections on things, you can look forward to a lot more this year. of course, I struggle to stay ‘on topic’ so you can expect me to drift from topic to topic.

Big dreams for this year

I have an ambitious target for 2025. If I was able to lose 100lbs through part of 2024, I’m hoping I can manage to lose 200 in 2025. This would take me 80% of the way to an optimal body weight. I’m prepared to throw everything I can at reaching that. I feel in an entirely different situation from last year. No longer shackled by doubt, hopelessness, and fear, I feel wholly equipped to do the best I can to make radical progress this year.

But isn’t that too fast?

This morning, (the recording is from the day before) I listened to How to Track Calories Kindly by Mike Pridgen. He makes the case that you shouldn’t aim to lose weight quickly, repeating the conventional advice that losing as fast as you can is a recipe for backsliding as you put the weight back on.

At the risk of sounding arrogant, I believe I am in a unique circumstance. I am not merely aiming to lose 20, 50, or even 100 pounds to return to a healthy weight, I have an incredibly long journey ahead of me no matter what I do. Mike is absolutely correct that it is very easy to make short-term desperate changes that ultimately lead to relapse. I wholeheartedly believe he is right to encourage people prioritize methodical and consistent weight loss over speed itself.

But not only do I have a long way to go, I also have the luxury of time. My other half is generously assigning this journey as my “full time job” and so unlike many others with other responsibilities, I can ensure that this is my top priority. Through this process, I am still learning what I can and can’t accomplish at the stage, and what I may be able to accomplish soon. Despite the rapid pace of weight loss I am aiming for, I am confident that I am building lasting habits that will help me to keep the weight off.

Becoming mobile again is exciting and wonderful. I have no desire to celebrate this in moderation. I want every step I’m able to take to be what drives me to make a thousand more. I have been confined by this size for too long, and I owe it to the love of my life to give it the best shot possible. I believe getting excited about exercise, learning to cook, and wrestling with obstacles to my health head-on puts me in a unique position to build an entirely different life by the end of it.

I still think Mike’s podcast is incredibly helpful and would wholeheartedly recommend it to others. We all have different circumstances, lifestyles, and attitudes. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this journey is that how incredibly personal it is. Nothing I can say will have any concrete meaning to anyone else beyond what may or may not be helpful in their situation. I love how Mike articulates that the goal isn’t to reach arbitrary targets, but to be the best you can be.

I’m becoming a huge fan of Mike’s work and If it sounds like something you’re interested in, I would encourage you to take a look.

What’s going great

• Scale go down

  I was initially very concerned that I wouldn’t be able to lose weight at all this Winter. In hindsight, I’m doing still quite successfully if I use December as a barometer for how it’s going. My single goal for January is to ensure that I lose more weight through this month than December.

  

• Home gym

  One of the concerns for this Winter I had was what I would do if I felt it was too cold to go outside. I wanted to be able to exercise from home to at least maintain some progress. Currently I have my trusty kettlebell and an exercise mat. I’ve started a new routine that involves a variety of kettlebell exercises. Hoping to make small gains this way to keep my base level of exercise above a minimum.

  

• Reading

  I blitz’d through Casey Means’ Good Energy around new years, but I’m eager to read even more regularly. The hope is to read a great many books this year. I made a stop at a thrift store and I got two new books! The Case Against Sugar and Food Politics. These books are directly related to my goal of wanting to have a much better handle on nutrition, in addition to understanding the broader context of what has happened to people.

Trying to get back on track

• Swimming

  Glad to have gotten back to the pool for the second time this Winter. I’m finding it very difficult to accomplish on top of my personal training sessions. I miss swimming a great deal and I’m looking forward to doing more of it as I push myself to be outside more and more.

• Sleep

  Ever since Winter has started I’ve really felt my sleep habits fall off a cliff. I feel like the progress made improving my circadian rhythm was entirely erased by the reduced amount of natural sunlight in the days.

• Vitamins

  I’ve made the mistake of not being as diligent as I should be on maintaining fibre and micronutrient intake. It’s unfortunately pretty easy to feel the difference. I have to come up with a mechanism to stay focused on more than just calories & protein intake.

• Stress

  One of the things I’ve noticed is that I’ve found managing stress a lot more difficult this Winter. I’ve gotten a difficult reminder that my stress eating compulsions are not entirely conquered. It was a bizarre nightmare of gorging on chocolate after spending a day feeling higher-than-usual cravings for fast food. I am thrilled that this incident didn’t bring me down into caving, which I consider a victory.

• Documenting

  I need to spend more time recording what this journey is like. I’ve struggled to record videos of me doing things and struggling with how I’m feeling. The point isn’t really to publish these, but to keep those for reference in the future.

• Programming

  I’ve totally failed to continue working on my programming learning project. This is a source of some shame and disappointment. I’m starting to feel intimidated to touch it again, but I know I’ll be a lot happier once I begin make progress.

I’m wishing everyone reading this an excellent 2025 and beyond. Feel free to reach out or share what you find helpful with others. I’m excited for the year ahead!