Of course, that does not happen very well when I disappear for nearly 6 months. I suppose it doesn't work very well when it's not always about success. While it hasn't been horrible, I have found about 3-4 pounds a month creeping back on. Those are not the kind of results I want to report, are they?
There has been a major change in life for me that has had a tremendous impact on the whole diet and exercise thing. I had been working at Sprint, and while the pay was never tremendous, the commute to work had opened the door to fitting in a regular exercise routine that either involved decent walks to and from the light rail station, or what became a fairly regular routine of riding my bike to work. I do have to say that I liked the look of surprise people would have when I'd say I was doing a 17 mile bike commute.
That did change when I got a job offer to a much better paying job. There is much that I love about the new job, as it has taken be back into the variety that I've enjoyed so much in previous jobs. As a field technician for a telecom company, I get to move around more and not be sitting in one place doing the same thing all day. However, the transitory nature of the job means no longer getting to walk or ride my bike to work as I have to drive to different businesses.
However, there is a clear trade off. While I don't get the exercise of walking or riding to work, I spend the whole day being much more active, especially a lot of days where the work involves a LOT of walking back and forth at a customer site or a lot of climbing latters. I come home sometimes pretty well dead tired, in a good way, from that work. So perhaps in that respect, it's either a net positive change or a pretty even trade off. Of course, I've not really been tracking the actual amount of exercise like before, so I cannot really say for sure.
I think the real difference is what the change has done to my eating habits. With a more stationary job, I found that it was easier to work around my impulses by packing a lunch and not bringing cash with me. Since starting the new job it's been easier to slip into the old habits of going through drive throughs and eating in a much less disciplined manner. In fact I'm sure that has been the difference.
My wife has asked me if I would ever consider going back to consider surgery again. I've always said that if I reached a certain point where I don't think I'd keep the weight off that I'd lost before, I would really need to look at it. Right now the remaining option would be a gastric bypass rather than the lapband, and in my mind I've been incredibly hesitant to consider that, as it is much more permanent. In light of recent gains, maybe permanent isn't a bad thing?
That said, here it is the day after Thanksgiving, and I'm coming to a conclusion that I do need to get back onto the road a bit and at least see what I can do here. I'm still significantly lighter than I was before the surgery... I just don't want that gap closing any more than it has.
So at this point, where I stand is a commitment I've made today to start tracking everything at least for the month to come. Food, exercise, and creating a bit more accountability to myself to start reporting all that again. Just for a month, I think I can commit to that. Longer than that, knowing me, would possibly be setting myself up to fail. Don't think I want to do that to myself right now eh?
Maybe, by doing that, it'll help renew some discipline and passion for keeping healthy that's sort of slipped away the past few months?
