This is Not a Repeat of 2018

Good thing no one reads this blog.

Hello world, three and a half years later.

Well, what can I say? The last time I posted, I had been rehabbing my knee, nearly a year into it. It was a long recovery. If I recall correctly, I had slowly started getting into the swing of things, and probably got a really bad cold just after. Same cycle, get sick, get out of the habit, don't go back for a while...

...and then I had begun starting to work out again, around January-Feb 2020.

We all know what started happening around that time.

 Gyms were closed, I slacked, I was not feeling great about myself either and Iprobably backslid a whole lot. I don't even want to think what my weight was, though I was probably pushing 220.

 Fast forward to May of 2021. I joined Active and Fit Direct through my insurance. I made this decision because my old, "luxury" gym:

1. cost a lot
2. found me generally sitting in the hot tub/sauna and not much more. 

Yeah i would go to the gym, and I might swim a few laps, but generally speaking it was social hour or two. That was getting me nowhere fast. Thus, I made the decision to use Active and Fit to find a gym, or gyms, near me for a lot less, where I would not be tempted by the jacuzzi.

 Since joining, I have been going about three times a week, nearly every week, for almost a year now. It's been almost pure lifting, not much cardio.

The results, while seemingly mixed, have nonetheless been stunning.

I'm currently sitting at around 204, which doesn't seem that great, considering earlier blog posts indicate I had dropped to at least 196. However, this clearly doesn't tell the whole story.

• The fact is, I know I am losing weight. I have jeans that are basically falling off, 34Ws that were never this loose before, even at 196. I mean quite literally they would fall off without my belt.
• That belt? I punched another hole in it, and others, because I while there were markings on the first hole from before -- and some of these belts might have even been too small -- I had moved beyond the last hole.
• I definitely feel a lot stronger.
•  I saw myself in the mirror the other day at the gym, and for the first time in a long time, I felt pretty good about myself. The gut is definitely fading,
  

 So serious progress is being made -- just not on the scale.

 What all this leads me to wonder is if I need to change my success metric. 30 LB would be incredible now, and I still want to strive for it, but clearly I've put on more muscle mass than before, and I definitely want to be below 200 again.

 I guess it means I just keep working out. I will find a suitable metric for my goal, or maybe even keep what I have. But it has been a year back, and I really enjoy it. Not even a mostly mild case of COVID of my own, which kept me away for two weeks, blunted the momentum, which frankly, was a worry of mine. To be honest, maybe slow and steady progress is better than the fairly rapid progress I was seeing before.

I don't enjoy the fitness bikes at my current gym as much as the old place. Weight loss would probably be easier with them, but I am starting to like where I am at right now, in terms of progress, anyway.

 Things are pretty great. Maybe I should start thinking about those tattoo designs again...