I use the app Evernote to record my journals, my gratitude, my tasks, my accomplishments, poems, quotes, beautiful words and phrases that light up my brain and information that I just find darned interesting.
I have Evernote-books with such varied titles as, "Places to Retire To", "Vermicomposting", "Yoga Nidra", "Microbiome", "Character Studies", "Books to Read" and several unpublished novels (most of which have obese characters since I relate to them so well) that I play around with usually in November when NaNoWriMo rolls back around.
As Spark People draws to a close, I created a notebook called, "Spark Blogs" and I have spent time copying and pasting my many Spark Blogs into my Evernote app. As I copy and paste each blog along with comments, I delete it on Spark.
It was enlightening and sometimes painful to travel back almost a decade and see the struggle, the elation, the heartbreak and sheer god damned amount of work I put into losing weight. The tracking, the measuring, the weighing of food and myself, the exercise, the 5Ks (which I hated to run), the self recrimination, the cheering on of other victors and the defeat over and over and over and over again.
And then there were the gaps.
The gaps in time when I just gave up on community as a solution to weight loss and just went on my merry way until I could not stand it any more and had to jump back in with renewed hope and vigor.
Obese people are seen as slothful, lazy and somehow possessing a character flaw that skinny people don't have.
But is there any harder working person than one who fails over and over and over again but still keeps trying? Still keeps looking for solutions? Still keeps hoping?
But I'm here to say I'm glad I did not give up. I'm glad that I opened myself to yet another possible solution and that miraculously, this solution seems to fit me to a T.
Take breaks if you need to, but don't give up. You never know what might be waiting around the corner.
And record your journey.
Markings endure longer than memory.
