Lesamy Week 8 – Motorway Driving

Firstly apologies for not writing sooner. Weighing day is Monday and so it’s almost Lesamy week 9. There are reasons for missing the first couple of days (celebrating M’s birthday and wanting to get a competition story in on time) but after that I just got lazy.

Secondly apologies for not writing any non-Lesamy in such a long time. I do plan (famous last words) to do a review later today.

Motorway Driving

I managed to make it to my mid-twenties before starting to learn to drive. It took two years and four tests to pass and then, because I decided that a computer was a better waste of money than a car, I didn’t drive again for six years. At that time I’d just got a new job and was about to move ‘down south’ and I figured I’d need a car. So I got one and took a couple of refresher lessons. Fortunately it all came back pretty easily.

However on the day I was due to actually move I got up at 6am. Why? Because I wanted to make it out of the city before the traffic got too bad, and also to get as far as I could before the motorway traffic got too hectic. I remember joining the motorway for the first time, it was deeply scary. Everyone was going so fast and there were huge lorries everywhere. But I eventually calmed down and got used to it. After a while I was zipping along, moving in and out of lanes as needed. Motorway driving it turns out is easy.

And on my regular trips back up north I experience a small version of that first experience. The first few minutes are a shock to my system (the rest of the time I pootle around town and make runs to the supermarket but not much more) but after that it becomes easy again. In fact it becomes boring. It’s usually a trip of at least four hours and ninety minutes in you can guarantee I’ll be thinking, ok I’m bored with this now, I just want to be at my destination. To keep myself busy I’ll mentally calculate my average speed and my expected arrival time based on that.

And this – I know you were wondering – is where it is like Lesamy. Initially I had some fears and some issues – look back at my first post about results and how I agonized that I was going to miss comfort eating – but then it sort of became easy. I got into a routine, I was exercising and enjoying it, I was getting to recognise that feeling ‘full’ was not the same as feeling so stuffed like you couldn’t eat another thing. But, it’s a bit boring. I can walk down the supermarket aisles and not worry that I’ll falter with all the things that are nice but that I can’t really afford (calorie-wise), but there is a sense that I’m just faithfully carrying on, day after day, focussed on targets, constantly re-calculating expected dates of reaching such-and-such a weight, or expected weight at Christmas.

Many Miles to Go

I’m sure part of this is the same as with the driving. I’ve still got a long way to go before I get there. Getting there, means something different with Lesamy anyway as I’ll then be faced with the challenge of maintaining, which while I’m not quite sure what it’ll look like yet, will I’m sure still involve some walking past nice food a lot of the time. Another thing is that whilst I cherish my spreadsheet there’s a lack of visible progress. At least to me. I have lost more than 10% of my bodyweight, had to go down a few of belt-notches and abandon at least one pair of trousers, but I look in the mirror and I don’t see much difference. M. says she does, and that should mean something because she doesn’t see me every day.

I’d love, though, for someone who doesn’t know I’m doing this to stop me and ask “have you lost weight?” Hasn’t happened yet but I think it will. It’ll probably happen when I start to have to seriously down-size my wardrobe.

But lest I seem too pessimistic I know I can do this. It’s just a question of keeping going, not giving up. I have given up on a lot of things in my life, but I never once turned around, left the motorway and came home.

This week I lost 1.1kg, 2.4lbs. Total loss so far 15.6kg, 2st 6lbs. Current weight 128.5kg, 20st 3lbs.