I went into the fall with the informal goal of losing some weight. Over the last two years or so my weight’s been bouncing around 223 lbs. I’ve had a few stop-and-start exercise regimes but this summer I got into a solid routine of walking/running with my dog Indiana in the mornings, and I got my weight down to 218. That’s a consistent 218, which felt like a step back from the brink of 223.
I’m sure everyone has their limits and, as I wrote before, 223 is mine. Going into autumn I felt like I was on track to hit my informal goal of 210 lbs by the end of the season, but that didn’t happen.
It got dark. It got cold. Hell, it even snowed. I started sleeping in, much to the chagrin of Indiana, who still tries to get me up at 6:15 to go for a walk.
Occasionally, I make him happy and we go for a frigid stroll around the neighborhood. More often, I don’t.
Truth be told, I have to stop doing that. There’s simply no other time that works for me to get exercise, and I have to defeat the darkness, embrace the cold, and get my ass moving. I don’t have to run — we all have to be realistic here [he glances at the dog sleeping at his feet] — but I’ve got to something. If the only exercise I get this winter is my weekly skiing outings in January and February, then I’m going to be right back at 223 by the time spring rolls around.
As a wise man recently told me, winter’s about maintenance. If I can make progress toward 210, then great. If I don’t, well, as long as I don’t back slide I’ll count that as a win.
That said … I do have some motivation for getting to 210: The LEGO Milano, Starlord’s starship in The Guardians of the Galaxy. I’ve got the set sitting in my gaming room, waiting to be built the day I hit 210. It’s taking a sizable amount of willpower not to rip the thing open and build it; now I just need to use some of that self-same willpower to get my ass out of bed tomorrow morning.