Today represents the danger zone, the tipping point, the day on which I need a good healthy slap around the kisser.
I mean as it happens, I don't, but it's the point of danger. It's the point at which you register the initial kickstart of progress, and at which it's phenomenally easy to say "Oh there you go, things aren't so bad..." and break down your perspex walls (or whatever methodology works for you) and have a chip supper.
Week one done, this morning's pre-walk weigh-in: 18st 9lbs. Five pounds gone. The post-walk weigh-in was actually down to 19st 7.25, but where I can I'm going to try and maintain weigh-ins under the same conditions. Not always going to be possible, but this morning I was lucky. So there you go: one week of taking it seriously, and five pounds gone. Oddly enough today have had two challenges thrown down for me. Firstly, Sian, my whippet-thin ultrarunning martial artist nutjob friend heard the five pounds figure and said "...So. Possibly a stone off by the end of the month then?"
And secondly, my pal Tig popped up from recovering from surgery and said she wanted to lost a stone (or technically 15lbs), so we could race - first one to a stone, with mutual encouragement all the way. I agreed in principle, but told Tig "I'm actually not aiming to lose more than 2lbs a week - medically recommended whatnot - but you always lose more in the first week, cos your system goes 'Bugger me, he's serious!'" and you lose your stored water.
To Sian, I actually recalculated when I should pass the first stone marker. According to my calculations, I should hit 17st 13 on 22nd July - five weeks today. Given the initial booster, some further recalculation was called for, so I kept on going. At 2lbs a week, every week, without fail, I should now hit 16st 13lbs by 9th September. 16st 1lb by my birthday on 22nd October. 14st 13 just ahead of Christmas, and by d's birthday on the 5th January next year I should be down to 14st 9lbs. After which, everything is pretty much uncharted territory in Disappearing terms. By the 10th of February, I should be down to 13st 13, which will surpass by half a stone what I achieved initially on this journey.
The thing about that sort of forward planning is it encourages montage thinking. It encourages you to think it's going to be easy. After all, week one was reasonably easy, and look at the results.
It's not going to be easy of course. There will be setbacks, there will be plateaus, there will be evil weeks and weeks when I feel like it's not worth the effort. Along the way, I'm going to have to change the routine, vary it, shake it up significantly to keep my metabolism guessing - what works right now won't work at some point, and I'll start to creep back up. The things on which to keep a firm mental hold is that 1) yes, it really will be worth it - and I know that now from having gone there before, and 2) it's got to be at least 1.5 stone easier than it was the first time, because I don't have that much extra to lose.
It's also of course worth remembering that fantastic as getting to 14st 9 felt the first time, it was by no means the achievement of my original target. I'm supposed to be something like 11 stone, given my height, weight sex and age. So off into uncharted territory is where I really need to begin the adventure. Everything before that is pretty much just a long walk back to control.
So I'm not going to go particularly cock-a-hoop over today's result - it was expected, it's mostly water, and I can't let it distract me. I'm still about seven stone overweight. Game on, head down, and on we go.
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