Day 34 of Phase 5: Sent Weigh-in Today for Challenge, Thoughts on Approaching Onederland, Appreciating the Gift of Your Family In "Hug" Range, Watching Buffy TVS Reruns, Psyching Up For WorkOut and Errands...And You and I Are Not, and Should Not Be, Alone In the Fat Fight!

Tanita-san: 217.8



I rounded that up to 218 and sent that as my challenge weigh-in early so as not to miss the deadline. I doubt I'd lose enough in ONE day to make a difference when rounding is taken into account.

And that's 1.8 pounds from one of my milestones. Go, me!

I am still astonished that I'm in the two-teens. I had wanted to be here so bad a year, two years, etc, ago. I'd see other bloggers who started out within 10 to 20 pounds of me get there and I was dithering, stuck, unable to overcome inertia, though I was mentally and physically slowly always making some sort of progress. Stuck can be a sort of fertilizing period, ya know?

But now I'm here and fewer than 20 pounds from ONEDERLAND. Oh, man. I can taste that. I really can!

It's gonna taste good. Better than chocolate...dark chocolate...Valrhona dark chocolate.

Anyway....


I will be busy tomorrow getting stuff ready for my brother's visit to our family in Cuba. I have two brothers there--I've never met them face to face since I was a baby, and I have no memory of those years--and we get stuff together to take. Vitamins, hygiene products, clothes, medicines, cash. They are the two eldest and one has serious heart disease. It's scary that he might die and I'll never have known more of him than family reminiscences, phone calls, and some letters.

I have few photos, and if my brothers walked by me on the street, I'd be hard pressed to be ABSOLUTELY sure it was them. 

I never knew my grandparents. Never met any of my aunts and uncles other than the aunt who came to the US before we did. A lot of people related to me by blood that I never got to know and won't except for  in the "bye and bye".

So, if you knew your grandparents, great-grandparents even, and have your relatives about you, you are blessed. Exiles, refugees, "displaced persons" --we don't often have that luxury of the extended circle of blood relations.

Hug the people around you. Remember that is a blessing.

Anyway, I'm procrastinating today.  I have to workout. I have several errands to run. I'm sitting here in workout clothes doing...blogging. Hah.

Yesterday was emotionally draining and I had to switch away from CNN. I'm watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer reruns right now as I type (one of my all-time fave shows). I love how Buffy is resilient, how she doesn't give up, how imminent (and actual, for that matter) death cannot deter her. And her strength comes as part of her gift, but it's also from her character and from the strong circle of support. Her mom. Her friends (who are like extended family, they are so close). Her mentor.

Nobody can do life alone. I suppose there are those who try, but you can't. We weren't created to be solitary. We can't reproduce alone. We can't build communities alone. We'll always have a day when we get ill or old or weak or simply just lonely and need another person.

Or a hurricane, tornado, earthquake, tsunami, war, famine comes in and you realize just how much you need others to bring you water, food, clothes, shelter, comfort, hope.

Losing weight is, on its face, a thing you do yourself. But I find, and others have, that while the real work gets done inside by each person out to fight fat and externally in their environment and the outworking of strategy, we do it better with help. It's tough. It takes a long time. It takes a lifetime (to keep it off). It's not bad to need help. It's not bad to take support. It's good to give it.

So give. So take.

For those who come by and give me support, thank you. (Someone recently said they gave me a blog award. Can you link me up again? I brain froze on that one.)

And I hope my comments and posts can support you a little (or a lot), too.

Have a weekend that makes you healthier and happier and that fills your life with good things. Hug a loved one...a lot. :)

Later....