230.8 (stedy as she goes...)

A quick update:

Well, as I said in earlier posts, I'm done with two major things: (exclusively) low-carb, and getting the weight off fast.  This isn't a race.  This is a complete change of life, and while at times speed is helpful, for the most part, true change takes time and effort.  The former I have in spades.  The latter's taken time to root, but I think I have indeed sunk a tap-root.

Wanting to be healthy.  Wanting to not be so limited.  Wanting to not have to eat only certain things.  Wanting to live longer.  These are things that sound obvious, but when you're twice the size you should be, they seem so far away, so pie-in-the-sky.  You want them, but they seem to live on the other side of Mars.  So you wish.  You pray.  You look for things to help, to speed the plow.  But there is no plow to speed.  There's only you.  You and your determination to do the right things for yourself.  The hard things.  The things that takes prolonged, ardent effort.  The things that hurt, inside and out.  True in Dharma, true in weightloss.

One thing that has helped the past few weeks is activity.  Real activity.  Hard work.  My sangha is renovating a 100-year-old church as our new zendo.  It's a TON of work.  Back-breaking, knee-aching, elbow-scraping, finger-smashing work.

It feels so good to work hard again.  To feel that full-body exhaustion at the end of the day, but lay in bed thinking of what I've accomplished, is a gift I'd allowed myself to forget I've been given.  I really treasure that it's back in my life.  That it's helping me drop more weight is sort-of a bonus, but only insofar as it's a reconnection to something.  I like working with my hands.  Even with all the physical limitations due to my disability, I have skills and talents that have languished over the years, primarily due to my voluntary disability.  Obesity had been a fetter--an albatross--that I willingly wore for the majority of my life.  Shaking it off, laying it down, casting it aside is still challenging, and at times I find myself still desiring to comfort myself with food and over-indulgences.  But more and more I'm finding myself saying "no thanks".  That's for one reason alone: a desire for something more gratifying, and more healthy.  The desire to be strong and able again. As able as my limitations allow.

As I've said before, I have nothing better to do.  I have never said anything truer in my life.