The Man Who Set My Number Doesn't Exist Anymore. I Keep Failing Him Anyway.

I’m fatter than when I started. The work is working anyway.

I’m fat. Fat-ish. My wedding band doesn’t fit because I got married ninety-five pounds ago…fat.

In January of 2026, my body complained that my blood sugars were out of control and decided to throw a tantrum. By throwing me down in a swoon. Something had to change.

For seven months, I’ve eaten clean. No processed food. Lean protein. Cruciferous veggies. Complex carbs, avoiding starchy carbs like white rice, potatoes and the like. I’ve also counted my macros and calories, eating at a modest deficit.

I’ve swung a kettlebell like a mad man, a flumpy round man heaving a handled ball of iron in frenzied mayhem.

I walk ten minutes after every meal. I say no to most desserts, candy, donuts and the like. I sleep seven to eight hours a day. And I’d stack my supplement stack against anybody’s. Magnesium. Potassium. Berberine. Nattokinase. Pill nauseam.

After seven months, I am stronger. And more flexible. I have stamina. I can squat down to the lower cupboards and pull out the cast iron skillet. I climb into my truck in one motion instead of the five it took before. Things are…better. Ish.

I started this process at 172 pounds. I weighed myself this morning at 182.

Before you encourage me with “muscle weighs more than fat,” I know that I’ve gained three pounds of muscle and ten pounds of fat. My Hume Body Pod measurements have tracked this progress.

This is not the outcome I expected when I started.

The Data Doesn’t Fudge

I’ll be sixty-two in September. In my lifetime I estimate I’ve gained and lost approximately three hundred pounds, give or take fifteen. I have a decent sense of how long the process of losing weight takes for my body.

This was not it.

Insulin is part of my problem. I’m on insulin and when I take it to control my glucose I know it’s storing fat.

Yeah, high blood sugar or get fatter. I want a third choice.

My problem isn’t that I don’t have outcomes. It’s that my outcomes don’t match my desired outcomes.

The problem with outcomes is that they reflect the truth.

You can’t fudge what the data reveals. And the data reveals that after seven months of steady, consistent effort, I’m right where I am. Which is not where I want to be.

So do I adjust my processes, adjust my desired outcomes, or…what?

I Set The Number

When I started, I wanted to get my blood sugars under control and lose weight. My dominant thought is to compare my current state with my starting state. My blood sugars are stable and controlled. They show normal spikes and recoveries and run at a steady level through most of my days. My highs are not too high and my lows are not too low.

The baseline and range are higher than I want, but compared to an average of 335 mg/dL in January, 148 mg/dL is a good change in the right direction.

In January, I got winded climbing my basement stairs. I struggled to open a jar of pickles. I couldn’t walk my neighborhood comfortably.

Today, none of these are issues.

Yes, I’m still fat. Fatter than when I started. But I can work out with a thirty-five-pound kettlebell compared to the fifteen-pound one I started with in January.

So I’ve made progress. Measurable, positive progress towards my stated goals.

But, dammit! Compared to the time and effort I’ve put into this thing, I expected…that’s the dangerous word here…I expected to have lost fifteen to twenty pounds. Reasonably so.

My expectation was set from my experience. I set it. The data simply held up my number and sniffed its contempt at my choice.

Where The Ads Find Me

So now I feel like I’m searching for that something that will solve my problem. Solve it fast and solve it easily.

Because this process is hard. And frustrating when I think about it. And the changes, the outcomes, are slow.

Sometimes it feels like I’ve got my hand on the table and I’m whacking it with a hammer. Or my car broke down on I-40 somewhere between Albuquerque and Amarillo and I’m walking for help.

I’m hopeful. I’m determined. I’m carrying on.

And I want more. Now!

This is where I am susceptible to the ads that show up in my socials. The articles and videos that speak to reaching your goals faster. Easier.

There’s always someone with a solution. A better way that some Harvard (It’s always Harvard) professor/lawyer/doctor figured out. Here’s the solution followed by explanations of the problems and why the way you’re doing it is flawed and not working.

Curious, I’ll click the link and am presented a damn quiz. Or a sign up for a webinar or phone call. Ugh.

The Monsters Are Inside

I’ve grown weary of the selling. The promises. The “How I Did (fill in the blank) And You Can Too.” We see through the crap until we need our problems solved. Then the hokum starts sounding reasonable.

I get frustrated with myself when I let my frustration cloud my critical thinking. It’s the same mechanism that overcame my reason when I reached for the glazed chocolate donut.

It’s that mental fog that leaves me feeling like a helpless spectator in my life. And what drives me to kick my own ass and do the doing.

My monsters and villains don’t exist outside my door. They’re roiling about in my head. Mocking my obvious lack of progress.

I growl, clomp upstairs and cook another supper with chicken over broccoli and riced cauliflower. And then step out into 83° weather and walk away from the house for ten minutes, turn around and come home.

And tomorrow, I’ll get up, jump rope for twenty minutes, swing my kettlebell, shower then get to work. Because the processes aren’t broken. They’re creating results. Just not what I wanted.

Who Holds The Yardstick?

I suppose this is where I’m supposed to lay out “5 Simple Steps to Achieving (XYZ)” or explain “How I (fill in the blank) And You Can Too.”

But I don’t have those answers for you.

I keep going because the outcomes I have reached are better than where I started. And that’s a net positive. Even though I’m further from my desired weight than when I started.

What’s my solution?

I will continue what I’m doing. Even though I haven’t yet reached what I want.

Yes. I know the description of insanity is repeating the same behavior expecting a different result. But this isn’t that.

My blood sugars are controlled. And dropping in the long trend. Slower than I want, but moving in the right direction.

My weight?

I only started jumping rope as part of my exercise. I’m working my way up to thirty minutes a day for five days a week. I can only do twenty minutes three times a week. So, I will keep at it until I reach the five days and see if that moves the needle.

This is iterating. Or stacking. Or building.

But it’s NOT sitting and doing nothing.

I am in the process of becoming. And today’s outcome, when compared to January’s outcome, shows progress. Not the number I predicted. The actual results.

I refuse to let the number I had set hold the yardstick.

I don’t know where you’re at. Whether in the process of building or changing or creating, and it feels like you’re wasting your time. Or you’re tired of the slog. Check your outcomes against where you started.

Whatever that looks like for you. I believe you can. Do you?