December proved to be a good month overall in my personal getting fit at last project. As the year came to a close I could only be thankful for the positive change in the direction of my health brought about by my getting fit at last project. I am really looking forward to 2015 and to the goals I have in mind for the next twelve months.
December Weight Loss
While getting fit means more than just losing weight, there is no question that losing excess weight remains as my number one objective at this time. It has been over the course of the last year and will remain so for most if not all of 2015.
As the graph indicates, my weight loss for December was modest, as it has been over the course of the year, but still steadily moving down which is most important. On a personal level reaching the 215 mark has been a cause for celebration. While I am still considerably overweight, this marks the half-way mark in my overall quest to lose eighty pounds.
Christmas offered far more opportunities to overeat than Thanksgiving. For Thanksgiving the temptation was primarily for one day. Christmas, on the other hand was a matter of living for a good two weeks with a houseful of goodies: cookies and candy everywhere! But the truth is, after several months of not eating sweets I resisted the temptation fairly well.
Only on one day did I crave eating a lot, and I did decide to eat a few (three to be exact) pieces of chocolate covered peanuts. On another day I ate a piece of rhubarb-strawberry pie for one of my meals. But in each case I still stayed within my daily calorie maximum count.
December Exercise
Unfortunately, on the exercise front my December report is not so positive. The first half of the month was strong, but the last two weeks were dismal to say the least. In fact, my exercise has pretty well been nonexistent for the last two weeks.
It is easy to blame our circumstances for our shortcomings. These weeks have been more than a little crowded. In our work we have been a bit short-handed. There are a number of other personal and family factors that have affected my exercise routine as well. But I know I have to get back to making my exercise a priority if I want to get healthy, and I anticipate that I will.
As with eating, it is easy for our exercise routine to face some interruptions occasionally. At this point I am not disheartened by this missed exercise in view of the circumstances. The important thing is what will happen in the next few days and weeks, not what happened in the past. I expect everything to be OK. We will soon see.
Other Health Matters
As anticipated last month, as initial steps were taken, getting my teeth taken care of has been an important step toward better health. Since my long time dentist retired several years ago I simply neglected to take steps to establish a new dental care routine.
As reported last month, I was fortunate to find that I had only a couple of problems when I went in for my exam. In December I followed through on my dental needs: one tooth was filled and another tooth received a crown. Mission accomplished. Now all I need to do is keep up with annual checkups which should be relatively easy.
My next goal is to look into my eye health. I admit that I have long recognized that my eyes needed attention, but frankly (as foolish as it may seem) I have put off dealing with my eyesight out of fear. Oh, I never openly admitted it even to myself, but I realize now that my awareness of others losing eyesight altogether from eye surgery has caused me to block out my need to get the care I need. Instead I have just learned to use reading glasses to get by.
As my eyes have gotten worse and worse, however, I recognize that I have not been thinking intelligently about this and need to deal with it more appropriately. After all, I know that in fact there can be many different causes of vision problems and some can become very serious if neglected.
So my January goals include getting the ball rolling on my eye care. There is no value is guessing (even though it is natural to do so); I will not really know what all will be required until I have my exam so the important thing is to get at it.
On the Horizon
As suggested above, while I am working generally on all my health needs step by step I am focused on weight loss and want to continue to do so until I reach my weight goal of 175 pounds. Over the years of yo-yo dieting I have learned how easy it is to get started well and then fade in the stretch.
December was a good month, overall. The year, 2014, was a good year. Now on to an even better 2015, getting fit at last.