Persistence or Stupidity? Let's find out. loseit

I keep a spreadsheet on my refrigerator door. It tracks my weight back to 2004 (though I've been dieting 20 years longer than THAT). During that time - thirteen years now! - I've weighed as much as 303 (last weekend) and as little as 202 (in 2007). It shows my best efforts, like the 18 months when I managed to stay below 225, and my worst, like the recent years when I've remained stuck in the 280s and 290s, month in and month out. Anything encouraging on this spreadsheet seems more than cancelled out by the rest of it: not only have I failed to maintain substantial weight loss on the relatively rare occasions I've achieved it, but the weight losses I did temporarily achieve were never even enough to move me on the BMI chart from Obese to Overweight. A rational person would not predict future success based on this spreadsheet's hard data.

But yet, I keep stepping onto the scale daily and writing my weight down on the refrigerator 3 times every month (10th, 20th, last day). And every so often I summon up a surge of will power, clean out the kitchen, and try to be more conscientious about using the elliptical machine. I'm not even sure why, because I honestly have a hard time imagining that (or how), at age 53 (more than twice as old as any number of you on here!), I'm going to be able to achieve and maintain the kind of weight loss that has consistently eluded me since the Reagan administration.

But yet, I never quite give up. Maybe it's the fear that if I ever listed the elliptical on Ebay and gave my running shoes to the Salvation Army, then sooner or later my weight would cross the mark where I'd turn into a recluse and someday I'd be on the news when the EMTs had to cut a hole in the side of my house to get me out! Or maybe it's the simple vanity of still hoping that someday I can reach and maintain a weight which wouldn't be the first thing people noticed about me.

So, I'm persistent. Or, possibly, too stupid to learn from three decades' worth of experience. But I'm giving it another whirl, and I thought I'd try hanging out here with you all while I do.

Submitted May 28, 2017 at 04:45AM by VeitPogner http://ift.tt/2qnGoMn loseit