 What a week…ATX 100 meeting Saturday, Houston Saturday night to visit with my Mother. And I was in Dallas Tuesday and Wednesday on business. Tomorrow Michele and I leave for Cleveland to see her parents for a four day weekend.
The trip to Houston and back to Austin was made easier by taking four My Fit Foods snacks with us…no stopping in LaGrange for kolaches. Well there was a rice crispy treat. Dining out Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday was a challenge. However the end result for this last week was -1.6 pounds. Not too sure if I didn’t just get lucky or if every little bit helped when it came to making choices in the restaurants. Trying really hard to limit salt and drink more water. Now if I can just limit how much of that good home cooking that is waiting for me in Ohio…only time will tell.
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 I will take the draw thank you very much. That is what I think of a +0.6 gain. The last few days have been really great. Yes I would have rather seen another drop in weight but I know that the drop will come. Right now a draw doesn’t seem like anything out of the normal for me. I have had a history of ups and downs in the last few months. So, after the -5.8 loss the weigh in before, a +0.6 just doesn’t seem unusual. The ATX 100 group has continued to grow. If you aren’t up to speed, you can check out the ATX 100 page on this site. The group has grown to 65 members as of today. 65 people who are all showing the courage to make a change in their life. Seeing the progress these individuals are making has helped me want to do more and push further. There are so many areas of my life that are improving…I am getting healthier. There have been people who have taken the time to share with me their struggles and successes. There have been several comments about experiencing some of the same challenges I face. Another story came from a person who has lost 300 lbs and just wanted me to know that it can be done. This person took the time to meet with me personally and share that it took 2 ½ years to lose the 300 lbs. This story alone reinforced in me that this is a journey. That it takes time and effort but if you stay the course change can be accomplished. So yes I gained 0.6 lbs and it is just another step along the path. PS: My golf game has also improved. I know probably not that important to some. But in my everyday world, everything is measurable. I am hitting the ball further and straighter…Why because my legs and back are stronger. And I am little bit smaller, so I can turn on the ball better. This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.
 I was watching football over the weekend. I don’t know how many times the team on offense gets a penalty and now it is 1st down and 20 yards. The announcer always says something like…”The important thing here is to not try to get it all back at once. Get it to where the down and distance are manageable.”
So after the last weight in +4.0 lbs I was determined to at least cut that gain in half. Leave myself a manageable amount to lose to get back to where I was… So I ate a little less, walked a whole lot more and the result…weight loss -5.8 lbs. Oh well so we completed a pass over the middle for a first down. I could not believe it. The scale is a harsh mistress. I am happy that I lost the weight but I have to keep telling myself that I am getting healthier in so many other ways. Not the least of which was the 3.46 miles I walked last Sunday. There are going to be ups and downs. The important thing is that my net overall weight keeps going down. Net loss of - 43.2 lbs. I just need to stay focused on the day to day accountability. You are probably getting tired of reading…Stay Focused & One Day at a Time. But that is what I need to do. I can’t let one week of gain or several weeks of slow weight loss take me off track. Nor can I start celebrating over a loss. This is the rest of my life I am working on here. Thanks for email and comments about the ups and downs. Special thanks to D and Larry B for the supportive comments. I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to visit my website. The month of September had 1,800 unique visits. I am not too sure I know the difference between that and page views which is a larger number, but as I understand it…if one person looks at three pages, that counts as 1 unique visit. Not important, except to say thanks for taking the time to look and read.
And to comment! I recently received a pretty harsh and borderline obscene comment that was posted. The harsh part didn’t bother me, but maybe what my anonymous guest didn’t realize, is that everyone can read the comments that are posted. With that in mind, I have learned how to review comments and then release them once approved. So if you make a comment…you can say anything you want that you feel would be constructive for myself or others. If it takes awhile to show up don’t be alarmed. This blog was started to help me be more dedicated to living a healthier lifestyle. Writing this blog has been my public commitment to myself. Going public and getting help from Paul Carrozza of RunTex led to the idea of getting others like me together to form a group with similar needs. You add in Mario Mendias founder of My Fit Foods and James Russell of the RunTex Foundation…and that is how the ATX 100 got started. Today there are close to 50 people who have joined with a common goal to lose 100 lbs. 50 people who have the courage to take the step towards living a healthier and more active life. Then the response was so great for the ATX 100, the ATX 50 was started. As of today there are over 40 people who need to lose at least 50 lbs that have signed up for the program. Point! My purpose for starting this blog was to put myself out there publicly and make a commitment to get healthier. If that helps other people with similar challenges, great! And now as my anonymous guest wrote (expletives deleted) …”skip the computer and exercise!” I am going to take a short walk around our office park. PS: Thank You to the following…Kathleen Jennings for story on austin.culturemap.com. Ricky Doyle YNN Sports for putting us on the air. And last but not least, Pamela LeBlanc for the great article in the American Statesman.  I have been out of town the last two weekends, so yesterday was the first time I have been able to get back to an ATX 100 meeting. My first reaction was how positive and outgoing everyone is. Next, I am impressed with how much progress everyone is making. In fact, I felt like I am behind their pace. Most of them are walking between 2-4 miles.
I have been telling myself I am not ready to walk a 5K or 3.1 miles. James Russell who heads up the ATX 100, keeps telling me I am ready to go 5k. He explained that I need to quit mapping and charting everything I am doing. .. He says I am over analyzing everything. Wow! That sort of stung! You might as well tell me to quit using Microsoft Excel. I still believe that most of life’s problem can be fixed with a spreadsheet. So what I am supposed to do? He said just get out and walk. Don’t try to figure out how far before I take off, just pick a destination and walk there and back. Then figure out how far I walked. So I kind of did just that. Today I said I am going to walk to the City of Kyle pool and back. I had no idea how far that was from my house. Then I turned the ½ mile notifications off on my Nike Plus app so I wouldn’t be getting distance updates and headed out the door…well almost. I couldn’t help myself and set the app for a goal of 3.3 miles. That way if I pull this off I would at least have a record of the walk and accomplishing the 5K goal. To The Pool and Beyond! I made it to the pool and the app notified me I was half way to my 3.3 goal. I turned and headed towards the house. I couldn’t do it all without stopping. Or the bench in front of Kyle City Hall was too big a temptation. I sat down long enough to wipe the rain from my face, clean my glasses and text Michele (my loving wife) that I was okay and heading home. On the way I cut off through the neighborhood just to make the walk a little bit longer. The ATX100 group inspired me to want to go farther. And as much as it pains me…you were right James… 3.46 miles. When is that Capital 10K?  It has taken me some time to collect myself and write this blog after last week’s weigh in. It took me 4 weeks to lose 1.6 lbs and only 1 week to gain 4 lbs. This is one of those times when I feel like I am failing to hold the line. Last week I finally reached my 10% goal. We spent a long weekend in Dallas and I come back and I have gained 4 lbs. I think the feeling I am dealing with is more a sense of being lost. Everything I ate I wrote down. There were days I went over my daily allotment, but I did not use up all my extra points for the week. I didn’t walk as much as I have in the past, but I played golf two days and I made an effort to walk more on the golf course. I passed up food choices I would have jumped on in the past. I ate bites of things I would have never shared in the past. I just can’t believe that a few days of not being perfect led to plus 4 lbs. I have to say I feel like I lost. Four weeks shot to hell in one weekend. Is this the way the rest of my life is going to be…struggle for weeks and never be able to have a time to relax? Oh how I hate having to work to undo poor choices. Nothing left to do now but to suck it up and re-focus. This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.
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Joe Bacon
Happily Married to Michele and living in central Texas. Archives
January 2020
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