Ch-ch-ch-Changes

Wow. So, yeah.

Not exactly sure where to start, here. I guess you can figure out part 1 on your own; If I've revived my weight loss blog, I probably need to lose weight, right? We'll come back to that in a minute.

Let's discuss where I was during the majority of the time I was writing here many years ago, shall we? Married. A sportswriter for a small magazine. Loving Colorado. Two amazing daughters under four.

And now? Divorced. Working as a Loss Prevention Manager for Lowe's after five years at Target. Dealing with Clarksville, TN. Self-published a book. Oh, I have a beard now! And my oldest turned 13 a few months ago. My youngest is 11. I only see them 1-2 nights a week. Damn.

Ferris Bueller was right. Life comes at you fast.

As for the weight loss part, yeah, I'm back. For the better part of the last several years, I've hovered around 305. That's just where my body liked to be, even though I knew I needed to be lighter. At times I'd spike to 315, and others I'd get on my horse and drop to 268. That number is still the lowest I've been since I hit 377 in 2005. I'm not even sure of my weight today. I already drank a ton of water, ate an apple, and took a quick 1.5 mile walk. I'll start tracking that tomorrow.

What I do know is that I'm not where I want to be. I'm 41, now. Single, and not wanting to be. And while I refuse to let this new chapter in my fitness journey be about some imaginary woman who I want to impress if I find she ever exists, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't at least a little bit of my motivation. If I ever meet her, I wanna look GOOD.

But at the end of the day, I just want to be proud of myself. I want my girls to be proud of me. I want to feel good. And most days, I just don't. I've always felt I could be more than what I am, and now more than ever, that fuels me. So it's time to be more by being less.

I lost 105 pounds while blogging here, and using 5-6 others on the same journey as motivation and encouragement. Thank God I don't need to do that, again. But 40? Sure. That's probably a good enough goal.

So starting tomorrow, I'm re-starting the Four Phases. Four goals of 10 pounds lost. No crazy diets, just cutting back on sugar and bad carbs. I'll be very low carb with a lot of lean meats, beef jerky, apples, and veggies. One cheat meal a week, one cheat snack a week (gotta keep it normal so my daughters don't hate me).

No gym memberships. Walk 4-5 mornings a week until I feel I can pick up sprinting again, toss my 45 pound kettlebell around a bit a couple days a week. Just be more active, and make good choices.

I was talking to Rob, who will be joining me with his own unique set of challenges, and we've spent years trying different diets - Keto, Paleo, Atkins, Starvation - and we've had the formula the entire time. We've both been here before and lost a ton of weight. We didn't need magic, we needed hard work, and the ability to brush off failures, and get back up and try again. We can't outsmart our bodies when it comes to weight loss.

I don't know if any of you are still out there, but I hope you'll follow along and encourage if you are. And if I find new friends who need to make changes, or who want to encourage me as I make mine, you're MORE than welcome to chime in as often as you'd like.

Let's do this...