Time to get those scales out!
Today’s topic is Weigh-In Day, but I have to tell you I didn’t originally plan on the first four posts of 2024 being #CelebrateEveryDay category posts. My original thinking was that I’d post about days that had relevance to backpackers and hikers, outdoors people and nature lovers, environmental advocates, hiker trash and dirtbags. Honestly, that’s still my plan. I simply didn’t realize how ambitious an undertaking I might be starting. Likely the pace will slow down as the year progresses, but for now we’re at 4 consecutive days.
Weight loss doesn’t begin in the gym with a dumbbell; it starts in your head with a decision.
Toni Sorenson
I’ll have to admit, I’m certainly not going to show up anywhere are a poster child for “weigh-in day” or for weight loss in any manner, shape, or form. At my heaviest I weighed over three-hundred pounds, I think the exact weight was 307, not good. When I started dropping weight I didn’t pair the weight loss with exercise, so I probably lost as much muscle as fat. That’s a mistake, it’s a lot easier to maintain physical fitness than it is to regain it once it’s gone to hell.
Fitness is like marriage, you can’t cheat on it and expect it to work.
Bonnie Pfiester
It’s Weigh-In Day
If you’re trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I’ve had them, everybody has had them. But obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.
Michael Jordan
I mentioned earlier that my heaviest was just about 307 pounds. Since that time, I’ve worked my weight down to something in the 265-270 range, so I’m making progress, but I’m certainly not done. Like many things in life, weight loss is a lifetime commitment. If I ever were to get down to my target weight, I’d still have to maintain that weight, and that’s harder than it sounds.
The last time I considered myself to be truly in shape was 1987-1988, when I lived and worked at the Grand Canyon. At that time I was hiking a couple of miles to work most days, and hiking in the Grand Canyon and environs at every opportunity. The hike up out of the Grand Canyon, on the Bright Angel Trail from river level to canyon rim, had something like 5000 feet in elevation gain, that’s damn close to a mile straight up.
Our bodies change. Our minds change. Our hearts change.
Emma Stone
Even then, back when I climbed up and out of the canyon on a regular basis, I weighed in at 220-230 pounds. My girlfriend at that time (Denali Nancy) told me I had the worst body of any man she had ever dated. I would have been crushed by that kind of appraisal, but I knew she had a fetish for triathletes and that her everyday lover when she lived in Anchorage, AK, was a world class mountain climber.
At the same time Nancy told me about my body essentially being slumming for her compared to the world class athletes to which she’d become accustomed, she told me I was without a doubt the best lover she had ever experienced. I was 25 years old, she was 50.
The One Where Monster Hits Rock Bottom
We are all broken and wounded in this world. Some choose to grow strong at the broken places.
Harold J. Duarte-Bernhardt
I’ve had three back surgeries, the first one was an absolute bear, the staples in my back were terrible. If I tried to lay on my back, the staples dug in; if I tried to sit up with support, the staples dug in; if I tried to sit unsupported my back was absolutely excruciating. Recovery was slow, but I pretty well recovered to my old self for a year or two.
The second surgery almost killed me. I developed a post-op MRSA Staph infection within a week of my surgery, an infection that quite obviously was picked up while I was still in the hospital. I’ll spare you the details, simply know that I started to go into septic shock. I was in pretty bad shape.
It took a third emergency surgery to help clean out the MRSA. Recovery from this surgery was hell, I woke up in the worst pain I’d ever felt in my life, it was 9.95 on pain scale to 10. They simply could not give me enough medication to cover the pain. The last shot knocked me out, I was peaceful and pain free for just a moment. Pulling me back, I woke to three nurses standing over me screaming at me to breathe, my lower back still felt like it was on fire.
When my surgeon came to my room post-op he honestly looked relieved. When he blurted out that because I had survived the surgery I now had a 95% chance of living, I was left dumbstruck! I was afraid to ask what the percentage of survival was before the surgery…
Weigh-In Day for Mind-Body Wellness
Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.
Lou Holtz
Yesterday we discussed Mind-Body Wellness, which I believe is critical for backpackers, hikers, and mountain bikers. This post about Weigh-In Day dovetails well into that conversation, the body part of that equation. Carrying excess weight is hard on the body: it is tough on our joints and it’s hell on our spines. I might never have needed those three surgeries if I’d concentrated more on mind-body wellness and my weight, the time I spent working in politics I forgot all of those things, and gave up on myself.
Being conscious of my weight has played a significant role on my road to recovery. I’ve still got a ways to go to get back to my old backpacking weight, where I’d been in 1987. That’s my goal. I’m close to halfway there, I’ve lost almost 40 pounds, but that’s just math. And, I’m thinking that was the easy half. Muscle is heavier than fat, so as I build my muscles up for more hiking, I’ll likely have to work harder and harder for each pound I lose for each successive and successful weigh-in, but I’m sure I’m ready. Ya, I’m ready…
Oh, put me in, coach, I’m ready to play today…
John Fogerty
