Every New Beginning Comes From Some Other Beginning's End

The difference, this time, is that I thought--even in just the first week--"This is it. This time it's going to stick. This time, it's going to work."

It's amazing, really--the changes in thought patterns that have happened this quickly. The changes that are still happening. The changes that will happen.

They all feel permanent.

***

I used to tell myself that I didn't have time for exercising, between lab and sleep and cooking and time with the Boy and our friends. But when given a push, I found I could do it--that I could wake up at 4:50 most days of the week to make it to 6 AM workouts. (And that I would enjoy the traffic-less drive in the still-starry night). That I could do mouse surgery during the day and still make it through a Tae Bo workout. That I could--and would--make time to exercise, and that everyone--boyfriend and friends--would live with my time commitment. With minimal grumbling.

And already I can do things I couldn't do before. On Tuesday morning, we were instructed to do a mile on the track. I wanted to run (ok, jog) as much as I could before I dropped back to a walk. And then I ran the whole thing. And again, the next day--because I knew I could. Once you show yourself you can do something, you don't want to turn back. So you keep going. You push forward and up.

You've changed. And you don't want to go back.

***

As of this morning, my scale read "196." I've had this scale since 2006, and this is the first time it's read below 197 since the summer of 2007. Almost three years, and I've finally broken past that plateau.

Last week was a pretty bad week for weight loss, with only a 0.6 lb drop. To 198. And I worried that I would never get under 197, worried irrationally that I could eat clean and workout twice a day for the rest of my life and always be 197. And then, it happened. I could drop below 197. I did drop below 197.

***

Two of my best friends joke at length about my new eating style, Janet commenting on the state of my new "gross" yogurt and Charlie calling it incessantly my "Mormon diet" due to the general abstinence from alcohol that accompanies it.

So I get them back, joke that they are taking my diet changes much harder than I am, they laugh. And when I hassle Charlie, say jokingly "Why do you have to be so unsupportive?"--he surprises me with his answer.

"No, no," he says. "I'm proud of you."

***

At night, I often go to the gym in the late afternoon and leave after it's dark, or come when it's dark and leave after the sunrise. There's always a startling change in the atmosphere that startles me. It reminds me of another change in my life, about the times I visited the therapist here after an 8 month lapse in appointments.

I wrote something about that time in my personal blog, but I think it applies here too:

"You leave. Remembering why you came here in the first place and sure that you will return, you walk out the door. The conditions outside--whether they are darker or lighter than you expected--surprise you. The wind is colder, or the day is warmer. Something is different.

And maybe, just maybe, some of the time, you realize that the change is in you."