210..... 190... 180... 170... 167.... 166.....

A couple years ago, someone challenged me with the question, "Can you point to a time in your life where you completely kicked a bad habit or accomplished a major life change goal?" Now, I am the king of unfinished projects. I started a blog two times before this one and quit within a month each time. Just looking around me as I type this, I can think of a half dozen personal projects that I have stuff sitting here to work on but have not gotten around to.

Now, I think I am improving on this, but I still tend to set my sights higher than my time constraints allow. However, in January 2005, I determined that, if it killed me, I was going to accomplish one major goal and not quit until it was done. That goal was to reduce my weight from 215 pounds to 165 pounds. If there is one project I have started and quit more than any other, it is serious weight loss. But, because of a rash of diabetes diagnoses in my family and my dad's doctor's warning that he (who has almost exactly the same height and metabolism as I) needed to lose weight or would be at serious risk of heart disease, I gained a new-found determination to make the weight loss actually happen.

Losing 50 pounds, I found, is not the easiest task, and the process has taken me longer than I initially thought it would. However, for once in my life, I stuck with it. And now 17 months later, when weighing myself this morning, I weighed 166 pounds! Just one pound to go! It seems the last 5 pounds or so have been the most stubborn, so it is very exciting to find myself so close to my goal. And the process has taught me many lessons that I will hopefully be able to implement in other areas of life.

When I lose this last pound, maybe I will celebrate with a party at Old Country Buffet.