Subdued Ms. Supersvelte here …

Starting weight 205 … Current weight 196.6 … Goal weight 155               Loss to date: 8.4 pounds

I lost 1.8 pounds last week. Sounds great, however, net loss since January 1, 2012 after zigging and zagging is 8.4 pounds. The bravado of my first few posts is inspiring. Reality has set in now. I feel completely motivated to blog when I’m on a roll (or should I say, dispatching my rolls!). When I’m in a slump and stalled out or worse, gaining, I don’t want to confess.

So last week I went to the gym three times – elliptical, treadmill and a weight lifting class. I tracked those Weight Watchers points zealously. And it showed on the scale. It sure ain’t rocket science. As my Pa says, “eat less, move more”. Funny how you can be relatively bright intellectually and quite dumb about some life basics.

I have been in a midwinter funk, which I shouldn’t be because our traditionally brutal Saskatchewan winter has been incredibly mild. All of the snow vanished last week after +10 degree Celsius temperatures. The sun has been shining and my gardener’s soul can smell earth again. Brain chemistry is a mysterious thing. I read all the news about the trial of the evil humans who killed Tori Stafford this week, a young girl who was murdered after unspeakable torture.  I could not get the child out of my mind all night, two nights in a row. I kept thinking – stop thinking – and then – no, it’s right to feel this horror.

That night, I went to an evening for parents of adults with disabilities to discuss housing options, or lack thereof. And the sorrow and bitterness of children’s futures changed forever with diagnoses like autism and Down’s and CP and other issues came to the fore. Parents railed against the lack of housing options and some of them had brought their adult children with them. How can you talk this way in front of them, I wondered? About what they can and cannot do? Yet this is nothing compared to losing a child to sadistic killers. All the group therapy meetings I went to 15 years ago when Connor was diagnosed with autism came flooding back. They were supposed to help, but I always left feeling such sorrow that I soon quit going at all. I wanted to feel positive, not hopeless, about my beautiful little boy’s future.

We are awaiting my father’s bone scan results and he is in my prayers to a nebulous universe all the time. We are scared. Once a heart starts cracking open, it’s hard to keep together. My doctor said that hormones at this stage of life can wreak havoc with those who have wrestled with mood issues. Great!!! I cried more last week than I have in the past five years. And how can one not cry over these things?

However, all this keeps the quest to lose 50 pounds in perspective. Worrying about possessing the discipline to lose a few – well more than a few – pounds certainly isn’t earth-shattering (althought the snail’s pace of the loss makes me want to cry too). So I went to Zumba this weekend and loved the pure joy of it. It’s hard to think too much when you’re shaking your considerable booty.

Peace my friends – and hold those you love close to your heart.