Never-Ending Struggle, But It's OK.

Yep, that about describes the past week or so in a nutshell. But it's OK, really. I'm still here, and I haven't given up which is pretty amazing. So I am giving myself a big thumbs up for that. It'd be really, really easy to just give up, keep letting the pounds creep back up again, gradually (or maybe not so gradually) slip back into all my old habits.

I'm not doing that, though.

I've been keeping myself in the 300-305 range the past week. Not great, but not terrible. The exercise has been my saving grace. I rely on running and walking to keep me focused on something good, and to make me feel good about my body. This is so, so important, maybe more so than anything else. Over the past few weeks I have upped my frequency from 3, maybe 4 times a week to 5, usually 6 times per week. I run 3 times, and walk or run-walk the others. A day just doesn't feel right if I don't get in my morning routine. I'm very proud of this.

And that's why today I am not beating myself up about anything. I pretty much let go on my eating for most of the weekend, although Friday was a totally great clean eating day and it felt good. Now that it is almost the middle of August, I want my goal for the month to be to find myself solidly below 300 pounds. Just once and for all I want to be done with it, no more pussyfooting around. It's time to get down to business again. I'm going to have a look at some of my old food logs and see what I was eating back in the early days and see what has changed, if anything. I would sort of like to take the approach of this whole thing being fresh and new again, somehow. Being more diligent and accountable as I was back then will help a lot.

I guess all of this post is saying nothing new. How many times have I said this stuff already? How many times have I needed to refocus or get on track? Many times, but... really, it's never too many. It's however many times it takes to keep the weight from jetting back up. It doesn't matter how many times I start falling off the wagon, as long as one finger is still holding on, it can be enough to pull me back up.

***

I had quite the interesting adventure on Sunday, by the way! Sundays are my long walk days (one hour+), and to shake things up a bit I decided to go in the opposite direction on the trail at Devil's Hole State Park to see what I could see. Well, I found myself descending some stone stairs well into some amazing, but rather hairy, scenic trails. I wish I had had my camera with me! It was pretty hardcore hiking territory, at least to my eyes. There I was with my running sneaks, totally unprepared to navigate rocky, narrow, cliff-hanging trails. It was something I don't think I'd ever consider doing before, and I wanted to challenge myself a little, and do something that was out of my comfort zone. I was all alone, no one in sight... one misstep could have resulted in minor disaster, but at least I had my cell phone with me.

Eventually I saw a sign that said, "Limestone Cave/Power Authority Access Road". The idea of a road sounded really good to me at this point even though I had no idea how far away from home it was (though I figured probably not too far since the Power Authority is about a five minute drive from the house). I saw the cave, which was a big, dark hole in the side of a cliff with a bunch of graffiti on it and beer bottles sadly strewn about -- scary! -- and then went in the other direction, the trail getting narrower and less trail-like with each step, until finally -- FINALLY! -- I reached the road. Ah, civilization!

I had spent about 40 minutes wrestling foliage and rocks in the "wilderness" and that was enough for me. But now I had to figure out where I was and how I was going to get home. The point where I arrived at the road was at the bottom of a hill, so I had to do some work. Still, it was better than being afraid of falling off a cliff at every step. Soon enough I realized where I was and found myself entering a different type of wilderness and isolation and scariness: the wilds of a crappy industrial area of the city of Niagara Falls. Nothing but run-down abandoned factories and warehouses, and no sidewalks for another half hour or so!

I could have just as easily been attacked or kidnapped in either situation, and no one would have seen anything. All the horror movies I've ever watched in my life (and that's a lot, believe me!) cycled through my head during almost my entire walk. Fortunately, an hour and forty minutes after I first started out I was back home, never happier. Moral of the story? Sometimes it's a bad idea to be adventurous, even though I did kind of have fun.

This week my training brings me up to 2.25 mile runs tomorrow and Saturday, with an easy 1.5 miler on Thursday. I have a great route planned out that doesn't involve wilderness of any kind. ;)