I remember this day very well; it was November 3rd, 2018. The episode was called “Achieving the Goal,” a two-parter, this being part 1. The goal was to walk two circuits of the Lake Fayetteville trail in one day, and this was recorded on the day that I did it.

I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was happy to reach the goal I had set when I started the podcast a year earlier. On the other hand, I realized that I was all alone out there. Sometimes, it takes some success for me to realize my failures.

This episode was mostly about diet, medicine, and the weather. The next episode will be more about the goal. And as you heard, I had made tremendous progress. But I still was not satisfied. Because I didn’t have as much weight to lose and needed to increase muscle to improve my body composition, I was frustrated. Building muscle takes a lot of time, even working out as much as I was. And I still was not at my ideal BMI.

It is now six years later. I have gained back the weight I lost and then some. I wouldn’t attempt to walk a whole circuit of the lake, much less two. But the frustration is definitely still there. And it’s just as irrational. Back then, I apparently thought I could lose weight and gain muscle as fast as I had done early in the process. Just not possible. And now I think I can lose weight and do all the things I’ve been doing over the last six years. Just not possible.

There was an air of hopefulness about this episode. It was a time in my life when I was going very strong and moving forward in spite of everything. It sounded like nothing was going to stop me, and nothing did for a while.

It is inspiring, which was the whole point of Shattering the Yo-yo. I had gained so much knowledge. But more importantly, I was putting that knowledge into practice. I look forward to part two of Achieving the Goal. Please join me next time.

Photo by Michael Davis