This blog features two types of posts.
One catalogs the needs of a particular community in the Ethiopian highlands a few hours drive from the capital Addis Ababa. I visited over a year ago and was humbled and impressed with their diversified approach to providing for the community’s residents young and old, male and female. Building on support from conservation organizations interested initially in their wetland area as one of two homes for an otherwise unremarkable ground nesting bird, the White-winged Fluffftail, this community and its partners fashioned a program that provided health, education, micro-credit, and livelihood services. I’ve tried to provide a glimpse of their struggles and ingenuity in meeting those challenges.
The second type of post has been about my effort, a contrivance really, to help motivate myself to get in shape. I set out to lose weight and convince fiends and family to make per pounds lost pledges that would be donated to this community. I started at the beginning of May 2008 and set myself an end of December 2008 deadline. Summer and the early fall showed some gradual but appreciable success in losing weight as previous posts and the right column counter has documented.
Then October and work and travel kicked in. The gains from what can only be defined as sublime food in Barcelona were not sufficiently balanced by Delhi belly the next week. The results on the weight loss front plateaued and eventually starting falling back. I had reached 27 pounds lost at one point which is a lot by many measures but little more than a good start for someone who started this effort in the high 200s.
And sadly my most recent weigh in (the first in over a month) put me ending the year at just 17 down. I weighed in December 29th at my mother in-laws in Ringe, Denmark. While it is appealing to highlight all the temptations spending two weeks in Germany and Denmark with friends and family, that would be a temporarily satisfying but ultimately counterproductive dead end rationalization. Same for the “I’m too busy (or tired) to exercise” -- comprehensible but unconvincing. And counter-productive on so many levels.
So like so many others as well as my own previous bouts with weigh loss (for it feels constantly like a fight), pounds lost come with pounds gained back. I’ll be in touch with all of you who have so kindly pledged support to figure out whether to continue what really should be two life-long efforts: supporting communities in need and taking care of one’s own health. I have appreciated all the kind words and support throughout.
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4 comments:
Hey, doing the math, it still puts you one forward. Which is better than at the starting line, right? If you ever need it, know that you've got some cheerleaders over this way!
I imagine Berga has faced a number of setbacks and the folks there keep on kicking it and so should you! Going down, no matter the number, is better than going up.
Remember the Tortoise, "Slow and steady wins the race." Even if you fall back a bit once in a while, the important thing is just to keep going. And you're still ahead of where you were! So persevere, and all your supporters will stay right with you. When you're tempted, remember those kids faces in Berga.
Hey Geoff - I am really impressed. You know, 17 pounds is nothing to sneeze at. By my estimation, if you kept that up you'd weigh little over 60 pounds in less than a decade. And then we'd have to talk to you about how dangerously skinny you would be. And you'd have to change this blog to "Gaining Pounds for Berga" or something like that. So keep it up! But not at the same rate for too long. It sounds like you're doing great.
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