Dear Reader,
In January I set some goals for myself, like I do every year. I was so very ready to put 2024 behind me. It had been the roughest year of my life. 2024 had started with my Dad going through chemo for his esophageal cancer. Then my Papa got pneumonia and passed away in February. Then in April my Dad had a successful surgery for the cancer, and for a brief moment we thought everything would be fine. Unfortunately, due to complications while recovering in the hospital, he ended up in a coma for a month, and then he passed away. A few days before that happened, a close family member announced they had cancer. For the next six and half months, I did my best not to eat for the wrong reasons, and kept myself on my plan of walking and OMAD pretty well. Still, I ended the year at a seven-day average of 152.54.
Since my maintenance goal is to keep my 7-day average in the 140s, I decided to set a simple goal for myself. Decrease my 7-day average by 5 pounds, down to 147.54.
When I set my goal in January, I did some rough figuring:
- 1/3 lb of loss per week. (This was my average back in 2017/2018.)
- 15 weeks to lose 5 pounds. (.33lbs x 15 weeks = 5 lbs.)
- Be down to a 7-Day Average of 147.54 by April 16 (January 1 + 15 weeks.)
Piece of cake. Or so I thought.
This year hasn’t turned out like I thought it would.
In January, my sister’s winery burned down. It was a shock, and a tragedy. No one was hurt, but my Dad had helped build it, and it was a time of loss and mourning all over again. A month later, our car’s engine seized, and so we needed to go out of pocket to buy another one (we do the Dave Ramsey thing and do our best to avoid debt.) A couple of months later, my sister-in-law passed away suddenly.
In other words, it’s been another rough year. My target date to achieve this goal was 5 months ago. The old me (pre-2015 Kayla) would’ve thrown in the towel at this point (probably on April 16) since I hadn’t done what I set out to do perfectly. Thankfully, the new me knows what a terrible strategy that is for actually hitting goals.
I have made progress this year:
But still, I’m not where I want to be. My plan? To keep at it, day in and day out. To keep weighing. To keep holding myself accountable when I veer off course. I still believe I can hit this goal before the holidays get here. We’ll see.
Oh, I’m also behind on my reading goal. I should have read 38 books by now, but I’ve only finished 30. I’m doing my best to find snatches of time here and there. And while I am not caught up yet, I have made some progress. A few weeks ago, I was 12 books behind, not 8.
All that to say this: if things aren’t going like you planned in January, don’t despair. Keep plugging along. We still have a good chunk of the year left. So I say, let’s make the best of it.
Sincerely,
Kayla Cox