If you publish a blog, it’s pretty customary to do a year-end post where you reflect on the past year and offer some thoughts about what you hope to accomplish in the new year. So bear with me…
2009 was a pretty insane year for me personally. I had a major business failure that left me with a personal financial situation that got increasingly worse over the year. I was so broke that I had to move in with my mom for several months. I sent out countless resumes in a very slow job market and heard very little in return. For most of the summer, I was really broke and life looked pretty hopeless.
As strange as it might sound, one of the bright spots of the year was Medifast. I had already started blogging about my personal experience with it so everything was already set up. But with extra time on my hands, I started to experiment with ways to get the most out of Medifast. These experiments ranged from figuring out how to cook the scrambled eggs to using the Rocket Blender to improve the Medifast shakes. Even though life was pretty crazy, I managed to lose 13 pounds in July.
Our Medifast Recipes section has expanded at a pretty impressive rate. Thanks to everybody who has added their own recipes to our collection. I’m determined to make this section of the site as comprehensive as possible and am updating it all the time – whether it’s reflected on the home page or not. But I have been going to lots of parties, drinking lots of beer and wine and eating pretty much anything put in front of me.
As a result, I am currently weighing in at 225 pounds. Not so cool.
The people I have met through this site and more indirectly in the Medifast community have definitely been a highlight of the year for me. I truly appreciate all the comments, e-mails and tweets. They always seemed to come through at a time when I was feeling low and they really helped me make it through the day.
Towards the end of 2009, things started to improve. I got a good job and moved back to Austin. I found a great apartment. Life is looking pretty good. However, my eating has not been so great. In fact, it hasn’t been very good at all. The holidays and just being back in my social circle have not been conducive to a healthy diet.
I am not trying to use this as an excuse. It’s just a fact. I’ve fallen off the wagon big time and am exhibiting the kind of behavior that got me into this situation in the first place. I think some of this has to do with the fact that I never went through the transition phase. This is a step I will not skip this time around.
When I made the conscious decision to get into shape, I weighed 259 pounds. So I haven’t completely erased my gains. However, I can’t help but think that if I had stayed on target, I could be at my goal weight of 190 pounds by now.
Now that my life has settled down a bit, I am committed to getting to my goal. As of today I am back on program. My goal is to be at my goal weight by April 19th. To do this, I only need to average around 2 pounds lost per week.
I will be documenting this process in quite a bit of detail here. Hopefully it won’t get too boring. Really, I’m keeping this blog for myself more than anything. It’s a way to be accountable to myself as much as to the community here. I will also be working hard to build out other sections of the site including a series devoted to home workouts.
In closing, I just want to wish you all a Happy New Year. Thanks for reading and thanks for commenting. Also, I would love to hear about your health and fitness years for 2010. The comments section is waiting for you!
