280

Of all the milestones that I have reached in this process, there is one that overshadows the others - 280 pounds.  That is what I have been aiming for.  A lot of people have said they are impressed by the weight I have lost thus far.  They are very encouraging.  My mom calls me skinny.  Other people have said I look like a different person - half the man I used to be.  But, honestly, I have not been that impressed.  I've been pleased, but not truly satisfied with my efforts.  I have been pushing to hit 280.  To me, that is the first time that I have actually succeeded.  

Why that number?  It signifies something very important to me.  I have dieted before - quite successfully, mind you.  My body responds well to regimented meal and food plans.  However, I have never had the commitment to permanently alter my lifestyle.  I always found a way to bend my food desires into a diet model.  Eventually, those bad habits won out and the diet wrecked.  In these past efforts, I had a weight that seemed to be the point where I bottomed out.  280.  I have not been lower that 280 in a very very long time.  I honestly can't remember when the last time was.  I have never been a stickler for weighing.  My general goal is to avoid scales because they make me feel bad.  I have random memories of weights in my history.  I was 250 at some point in college, but I can't remember when.  I can't even remember how much I weighed in high school.  But 280 is a weight I remember clearly.

Not long after Heather and I got married, we moved to Orange Park from Tampa.  A whirlwind of circumstances had left us stunned.  We got married in August 2000.  I started having problems with the direction of our church, so I resigned resigned effective December 15, 2000.  We found out we were pregnant with Josiah a couple days later.  I was jobless.  The pregnancy was very hard on Heather, so she had to withdraw from classes at USF.  Finally we moved up to Orange Park with Heather's parents.  I got a job selling furniture at Rhodes Furniture.  Josiah was born at 2:11am on September 12, 2001.  Heather was in labor all day on September 11, as the world seemed to be collapsing all around us.  It was a very rough stretch for us.  Fourteen months earlier I was on a mission trip in Australia.  Now I was married with a child, living with my in laws, selling lousy furniture, watching the world I knew unravel.  

Somehow, though, I was losing a ton of weight.  I had been a desk jockey, more or less, for the last four years.  Graphic design does not lend itself to physical activity.  Neither does college ministry.  Lots of late hours, bad food, sitting around, playing video games.  So, when I had to start walking around a lot for my job, I started to burn calories.  That combined with the fact that Josiah only liked to go to sleep after being walked around by me for what seemed like an eternity.  Before I knew it, I had dropped to 280 pounds.  But it was at that point that I realized that I didn't have to hustle as much at the furniture store as I had been.  I also had made friends there, so I was eating lunch and/or dinner with them more.  Instead of packing PB&J, I was eating Firehouse Subs or Checkers (Rally's) burgers and shakes.  The weight went right back up.  

Years later, I had ballooned up to 330 pounds.  This was due to another desk jockey job, along with an even worse set of food habits.  There were almost always snacks in the office - candy on desks, donuts in the break room, birthday cake every couple weeks.  I was drinking a ton of soda - mainly Code Red Mountain Dew.  Orlando offered tons of restaurants to wreck myself in - Duffy's Subs, Pizzeria Uno, Mad Hatter Pizza, Lazy Moon Pizza, Donato's.  After Natalie was born, I for some bizarre reason decided to start Weight Watchers.  It was a huge success.  I dropped fifty pounds in four months - hitting 280 again.  But, that was where I derailed (as I explained in my posting on my birthday).  Before long, I was back to my old ways.  And the weight came back with a vengeance.  

I have not been below 280 pounds in a very long time - it could be as much as fifteen years.  Every time that I get there, I just yo-yo back up.  So, to me, this lifestyle change was not truly a success until I hit 280 pounds.  I wasn't going to really celebrate losing fifty pounds, because I still was over 300.  I wasn't even all that happy with going under 300 - since that was still so far from the lowest I had been in the last ten years.  I think, in my mind, the real victory would begin when I hit 280.  I would have hit the lowest I had been - and then "the real work could begin."  Everything to that point would have just been getting the car back on the road.  Once the number was 280, then I could start to venture into really getting where I need to be.  Getting down to 250 or 220 was not really attainable in my mind until I got to 280 first.  I think that is why I was so frustrated when things slowed down so much in the last two months - especially the last couple of weeks.  Friends have tried to encourage my by saying, "You had more to los this time to get there."  For some reason that didn't help me much.  It just highlighted how bad things had gotten.  I mean, I had to lose 25 pounds just to get to the level I STARTED at before.  So, even though getting to 280 meant I had lost 75 pounds, it still seems like something I had to do before this meant anything.

Well, today the scale read 280.4.  I thought that I would jump up and down.  But I didn't.  Instead, there was just a sense of relief.  There was a little fear also that I would bounce back up a few pounds like happened when I hit 300.  But it also brought a renewed sense of commitment.  I don't want to bottom out here.  I am far from done.  I want to hit 250 - that's my next goal.  I cannot believe that I am within striking distance of my college weight.  Even at the slower rate I am not at (five pounds a month), I still could reach that by the end of the year.  I would have lost 100 pounds in a year and dropped to a level I had not been in literally half of my life.  Those goals are actually feasible now.  There will be a big breath of relief once the scale reads 279, because that means the boundary has been crossed.  But, seeing that number on the scale meant a lot.  I have another chance to do what I couldn't those other times.  Like some frustrated hero who keeps geting to the same castle, only to get beaten back, I am back at the door again.  This time I will actually see things through.  The big fat dragon will be slain.  I finally am at the door to Darth Fatso's lair.  The next step is go kill that fat turd.