“The important thing is not where you were or where you are but where you want to get.” — Dave Mahoney
Do I know who Dave Mahoney is? No. He could be one of several people, including a former CEO during the Nixon years, a former football coach or a misunderstanding of Dave AND Mahoney, who’ve run a successful radio show for a number of years.
Doesn’t matter, though. This is a post about “the journey.”
I kind of hate the idea of “the journey” because it’s so cliché. It’s a journey that leads you down rocky paths, and sometimes you reach the top of the mountain, but you have to go through the valley to get to the next peak, etc. etc. ad nauseum ad infinitum.
Point is I’m starting over.
In 2013, after getting my fifth or sixth cardiac stent — I forget which (I have 10 now) — I was “scared straight,” and decided to follow a strict vegan diet according to research by Caldwell Esselstyn. I followed this diet fairly strictly for the next 10 years. I probably allowed myself more sugar than I should’ve, but I was eating plants — nothing processed, nothing I wasn’t making in a kitchen with raw ingredients.
When I started my weight loss journey in 2013, I weighed about 350 lbs. I lost 130 lbs. in just over a year just by nutrition alone…and the occasional walk. I hovered around 235 lbs for the next eight or nine years, and when I started exercising regularly, I rarely visited the hospital again.
After the pandemic, however, the wheels came off…slowly at first, but then all at once. Today, I’m 335 lbs — still under my heaviest weight, but still quite heavy. And I’m not focusing on the heaviness just because I don’t like the way I look. My Body Mass Index (BMI) is 41, which is “Extremely Obese.” With my risk factors and my genes, I’m in danger health-wise. There’s no other way to look at it.
And so here I am again, starting over.
While writing on a blog probably seems completely unrelated to nutrition, it does have a lot to do with my mindset. To be a writer, I have to write — not everything all at once, but post by post, graf by graf, word by word. Eventually, I’ll look back on a complete body of work, but today, I’m that toddler in the picture, looking at all the steps in front of me.
I’m trying to remember that Mahoney quote today — whoever that guy is. It’s not important where I’ve been or where I am right now, it’s where I’m headed.
Cliché or not, I’m on a journey. This is still the beginning.
Photo by Jukan Tateisi on Unsplash
Leave a Reply