I’m almost at my goal for the month of losing 5 lbs. I’m not trying to do a drastic weight loss. My aim to do it to where it’s easy to maintain. Starting weight for this month was 242.4. Current weight as of today is 237.8 lbs. That’s a 4.6 lbs difference.

I’m very excited that I made such progress, since I was worried I wouldn’t make any at all. At that, I even am keeping up with my walking streak of 43 (without counting rest days).

This weekend I want to try to get one of the special achievements on my step tracker. Which is to walking 15k steps on both Saturday and Sunday straight. Aka on both days, back to back, need to walk 15k steps.

And hopefully after that I can raise my daily step goals. This month I raised it from 4k to 5k as a minimum goal. Anything past that was a bonus. So based on how I do with the Perfect Weekend would determine if I add another 1K to my minimum step goals.

I know I can walk 6k a day, but there are the rare days I struggle to make 5k. I’m glad this pass few days was successful. Which gives me hope I can start having a 6k minimum.

As you can see, I’m building up to walking 10k daily. Which is what many google searches say is the RECOMMENDED daily steps for weight loss. When I tried that route I quit every single time. It’s not that I couldn’t walk that amount, but it was a huge mental challenge.

For goodness sake, my record for the most steps I’ve taken (since tracking) was 34,751 steps in one day. And this is before I had my watch to track when my phone wasn’t in my pocket.

Mentally aiming for 10k is an impossible task. But mindlessly walking around and not keeping track I could easily walk 10k. It’s crazy how my brain deals with numbers.

I have to trick myself to just aiming for low numbers to be able to reach high ones. It’s like a huge confidence boost when I achieve more than I was aiming for.

Which is why I set a low calorie deficit goal. That way I don’t feel sick when trying to reach my calorie goals when including the calories I burned from exercising. It’s why I set a low minimum steps, so I can easily focus on just moving and walking.

But it does bring great joy when I surpass my expectations. It’s like every time someone has told me I’ll never be able to live on my own, because of my mental condition, and yet here I am proving them wrong.

It brings me joy when I prove the people who looked down on me wrong. I have been told I’ll never be a good storyteller, and yet I been told by others they love my stories. I been told I’ll never get through college or work in my field, or even manage to care for myself.

Yet! I completed college and worked in the field I studied. Sure I wasn’t able to hold down the job, and I’m currently working on changing career paths. But point is still the same. I got a degree and worked in my field right out of college, which I’m the only one in my family that did that.

My sister who did, finally, get a job in her field of study got in YEARS after she graduated. I got mine within a few months of graduating. At that, me and her are the only 2 of 4 kids who graduated college. Which says a lot. My other 2 siblings got GEDs and got work through a family member.

There’s then the fact that I was told I’ll never be able to live on my own and if I did I would get evicted because of my “hoarding” habits. Yet! Here I am, IN ANOTHER STATE, living on my own and have been keeping my place maintained. At that, today marks 1 year of living in my first apartment.

And based on rumors, my fam is struggling to keep the house I grew up in. But that’s a whole situation that’s not my problem. So, I’m very proud of myself for providing the bullies, that were my family, wrong.

While using such a success to prove to myself I can achieve a healthy lifestyle. Even if it takes me years, I will be a better me. Especially because I’m better than the me from yesterday and I’m definitely better than me from last year.

I’m also looking forward to sharing my health progress with my doctors. It’ll be like a huge boost to my confidence to showcase to my doctors that I improved so much. Especially since the last time I saw her , she congratulated me on losing a great deal of weight compared to when we first met.

I’m not accustomed to praise, in case that wasn’t clear. I’m trying to get better at giving myself praise. But it’s nice to hear from other people that I value their opinions of.

I’m very proud that I’m not so deep in self pity and hatred that I began to accept compliments. Which is the strangest thing ever to me. But I’m a work in progress, and I become more appreciative. It’s also nice to finally be recognized for my accomplishments and hard work, instead of being overlooked.