Listen to the Lyrics: 20 lbs lost!

Today marks the end of the sixth week of my journey to lose 40 pounds. I am officially halfway there. I think though that I like the phrasing tomorrow begins my 7th week as opposed to ‘the end of…’ a phase.

As I was running today, I was thinking about the lessons learned so far. Here are some of them.

First, it occurred to me that I have listened to the lyrics more in the last six weeks than in the preceding 4.5 decades. I started running with music when I started this journey. This is something I’ve done on and off but this time, this effort, I have sustained it. Something is different this time around.

I think it’s probably the phase of life I am in, where I am coming to this point from. I lost a business at the end of last year and it took me through April of this year to get it closed down. This was a significant loss I’m estimating will have cost me over 50K.

I’ve added nearly forty pounds since I retired from the military nearly 7 years ago. I’m struggling with the push pull of working, being a dad (my highest priority) and a rough relationship with their mother.

But in all of this, I made the commitment to engage in self care and part of that was taking this time to run, insisting on it, making space for it and focusing on listening to the music while I run. As I was running last night, it occurred to me for the first time in my life, I’m really listening to the words in the songs…and there are some profound songs out there! I’m also letting…