A helpful review

I just took a few minutes to skim through and reread some of my older post. I can't believe I've been blogging since Aug 2009!!

I just wanted to repost a goal I set for myself for the summer of 2010 that I never achieved: tree-top trekking.

I would like to make this a goal for myself once again for this coming summer. I'm closer to the weight limit now and have less to lose. As I keep chipping away at this weight, I know I'll get to fly along the tops of the trees soon enough!

A punch in the gut.

So I had this information when I posted my last blog post earlier this week, but I chose to instead focus on the positive gain I made. And let me tell you, I needed that concrete positive achievement to help refocus me.

So here's my confession: I got news this week that I'm too fat to insure.

I'm talking about life insurance...we in Canada thankfully don't need to purchase health insurance. I have extended health benefits through work, some of which includes life insurance. I DO have life insurance through both my work an my husband's work, however I applied to purchase some additional optional life insurance to increase the benefit. Turns out I was rejected. When I called, no one would tell me over the phone why my request was declined, so I had to wait for a letter to arrive via snail mail to find out why I was uninsurable. Turns out I'm too FAT! My weight to height ratio is undesirable. Great. (Note the obvious sarcasm). My initial reaction was, "Huh...so apparently I'm so overweight and such a risk for death, that I'm uninsurable". Not a good thought, but also not something I can ignore. My insurance company has informed me that I'm welcome to reapply for this coverage once my weight is reduced to 242 lbs, and maintained for 12 months. *sigh*

I'm not going to lie. This hit me like a punch in my gut. It hurt.

The good news is that I'm already 26 lbs down and planning to get well below 242 lbs, but this still felt a little like a setback. Needless to say, I needed that "win" later that day with my new time for 500 steps.

Just another reason to never give up and keep moving forward until I reach my goal. The cost it too great if I throw in the towel and walk away.

So close...

I'm getting closer to hitting my goal of doing 500 step-ups in under 20 minutes. The last time I posted about this goal was back in October 2010. My best time at that point was 500 step-ups in 33 minutes and 19 seconds. Today I blew that time out of the water! I completed 500 step-ups in 22 minutes and 13 seconds! Woohoo! Amazing to cut off over 11 minutes. INSANE! I'm pretty impressed with myself actually. This helps to elevate and motivate me. I've had a rough week and gained 2 lbs, so I was feeling kind of defeated...feeling like, here I go again stuck at this number on the scale. I've been working hard to counteract these negative automatic thoughts, but they come up pretty frequently. Tonight is the first time I've felt positive about my progress again in over a week. This is just what I needed. A nice reality check to show that, even if the scale doesn't show me what I want, I AM making progress towards becoming a healthier person. I'm so glad I track my progress, so I can remind myself how far I've come. It's easy to forget where we've come from when the progress is slow and essentially make up of babysteps. This reminds me of the Buddhist proverb:

If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep walking.

Weird thrills

Today on the treadmill, I hit a new 1 mile time: 16 minutes, 03 seconds. A new personal best for me, and one that I'm thrilled with! Back when I started trying to jog my first 1 mile time was 19 minutes, 50 seconds...and believe it or not, that was WORK for me. I am happy about this new time, and trying not to undermine it with negative talk about how slow it still is. Every once and a while those negative, automatic thoughts pop in and I try to jump in and interrupt them. This quote comes to mind today, as I respond to a thought that was undermining my new achievement:

"If you run, you are a runner. It doesn't matter how fast or how far. It doesn't matter if today is your first day or if you've been running for twenty years. There is no test to pass, no license to earn, no membership card to get. You just run." -John Bingham

Today I just ran :)