The Numbers Game

I wore size 12 jeans to see a friend's band play last night. (Jim the Mule is the band and they are VERY good.) The jeans were hand me downs from my sister-in-law who had two milestones this week - she moved into size 10 jeans and has now officially lost 100 pounds! That is so awesome, my deepest congratulations to her. (More on her blog.)

But it reminded me of the numbers game. We all play it.

Before we get healthy, it's "just one more". For me it was numbers on a scale. They whizzed by with very little effort as they went up. The final game I played on the rise was, when I stepped up to weigh-in and the number came up 248, I said, "Huh, well, when I hit 260, I will have to do something about that." Three deeply disgusting weeks of food orgies later, I hit that "magic" number. I say magic because, for some reason, that was the one.

Now mind you, I had been at 260 before, in fact I weighed the most (273) in the summer of 1996. Why, this time, that number had an effect is... well frankly, it probably didn't. I have been thinking this through more and more and I believe it was a lot of little things that added up to really making a lifestyle change this time.

As for the numbers, I still try to play sometimes, only now it's with calories. Did those nuts really have 100 calories in them? Or maybe it was just 50. Well, if I don't keep an eye on how many I eat, it's easy to lie. But that is the change, now I know, playing that numbers game is what put me at 260.

So, I try dancing around different digits now - the ones that tick away time on the treadmill or elliptical at FWW - and in this case, unlike my thighs, the more the merrier.

Yours in health, Kate