I am about eight weeks into my recent weight loss endeavors. In all honesty, it feels like I’m finally doing it right all the way for the first time since I finished on Biggest Loser. I’m logging my calories, exercising hard, dealing with my mental baggage – the weight is just a symptom and if I don’t deal with the roots it will come back or manifest in another way, and I have all types of accountability. Between being part of a challenge with some other friends, and checking in with Cheryl Forberg (Biggest Loser’s nutritionist for seasons 1-12) and other former Losers in the same boat, I am all over having others involved. Here are some of my observations …

The fifth and six week were once again almost my undoing. For whatever reason, however I’m wired, that just always seems to be the point in time when my body and my mind full on rebel. Change is tough, especially change that involves breaking decades worth of habits and patterns. I didn’t gain week during that time, but I didn’t lose much either. On top of my own natural tendency to break at that point, I had a lot of stressful things going on as well (retreats, conference). In a lot of ways it was a waiting game that I tried to will power my way through. I’ve lived through it enough to know that if I could just power through it, I would eventually get back into the zone. Sure enough, this week I have been like a new man.

Five minutes. Just five more minutes. That is my mantra on the treadmill. The first five minutes are always a killer – everything in me is screaming to stop, to skip it, to let it go for today. If I can just get through that first five minutes, my body accepts the workout and goes hard. That buys me time until about the 30 minute mark. From that point on (I generally shoot for an hour, with my heart rate up around 155-165) I basically lie to myself. Every time I’m ready to quit (every few minutes), I tell myself just five more and then I will. Just focusing on a string of small goals gets me through it every time.

Same with the weight loss. I don’t think about the big number. I think about the next milestone; which for me is every five pounds of loss, and every time I can get my actual weight to a number that ends in five or zero. Since I started at a number than ends in two, this basically means I hit a ‘milestone’ every two-three pounds I lose. These are small goals that seem very doable for me. My next one is one pound away – that’s all that got me into the gym today. This has gotten me to 36 pounds worth of weight loss over the last eight weeks. Part of me misses my Biggest Loser days when I was losing a pound or more a day the first couple months (I lost 81 pounds the first eight weeks), but honestly, I’m pretty good with what I’ve done.

Anyway, I thought I’d give a little update since I was kind of loud about getting back on track in January and then have been quiet about it since!