I’ve covered my weight gain while on vacation in Ireland and Scotland. I knew going on this trip that I would gain weight; I just didn’t know how much. I estimated that I’d gain around 15 lbs, and sure enough, that’s what the scale said. I had time to think about how I was going to tackle losing it again not from the technical or physical aspect, but from a psychological angle.

I thought a lot about it, and how I had tackled difficult things in the past. When it was time for me to start running, I had to get past a lifetime of dislike for running. I decided to trick myself into thinking I liked it and enjoyed it with great success: I actually do enjoy running now. I needed to take this experience and focus it on the task at hand: losing weight.

I decided that I would do two things to help me drop the pounds:

1. I am using this experience as a learning tool and to remind myself of how difficult it can be to lose weight.
2. I actually look forward to working toward a goal and experiencing making progress again.

For the first item, I find that it’s good to experience the difficulty of losing weight again. It’s been almost three years since I took my first steps toward getting healthy and losing weight, and for the most part, I stopped losing weight over a year and a half ago. For the past year, I’ve been in maintenance mode with my weight fluctuating within about 6 lbs. It was never too difficult to drop a few lbs here and there. Now, I have to lose roughly 15 lbs more. This is a much more serious number, and closer to what many people actually look to do.

To the second point, I actually enjoyed the process of losing weight when we started nearly three years ago. While it was a bit difficult in the beginning to get past the cravings and the flu-like symptoms, I enjoyed watching the lbs tick off on the scale, being into a new decade of numbers every month. It seemed surreal, and the continuous success was exhilarating. I’m looking to recreate that excitement this time over the next month or two.

I started over this past Sunday, and my weight was 187 lbs. This morning, I was at 182 lbs. My goal is 165 lbs, so that’s another 17 lbs to go. I am not as bummed or upset about it as I thought I would be. To the contrary, it’s like being accepted into a game or tournament, only I am competing against myself. I hope to see some successes, but I know the reality is that weight loss is not always a linear process. I will be reporting here honestly and truthfully on what I’m doing and how it’s going, both good and bad.