Why losing weights is like putting up Christmas lights

Saturday I put up Christmas lights, and thought I was done. Sunday I woke up, it was still dark out so I put on my robe and slippers and ran outside to admire my handiwork from the night before. My first thought, "what the hell happened?!" All the C-7 lights on the cherry tree and along the walkway were dark. And one strand of the icicle lights on the highest point of the house was dark. 

I checked the the stuff I knew to check, the outlets, the cords, the wires, but I couldn't get them to work. My husband said it was probably the fuses in the strands, so I took off at 7am to find fuses for the C7 lights. I found some, came home, that wasn't the problem. My frustration was growing. I went back to the store and bought some more C7 lights and some icicle lights. 

I'm sitting on the roof, it's barely light out, it's 27 degrees but the news said the windchill is 18, so I'm freezing cold. The roof is coated with a layer of ice and crunchy snow. I take down the burned out piece-of-shit icicle lights, plug in the new icicle lights, get 1/3 of the strand up, and 1/3 of the strand, the middle section of the brand new deluxe, commercial grade lights are dead. The first third works, the second third is dead, and the last third works. I figure I can bundle the burned out section under the eve and get put up the last section. At this point, I don't care about perfection anymore. I just want the blankety-blank lights to blankety-blank work.

As I'm sitting there, about 40 feet from the ground (I'm a little afraid of heights), and freezing to death, I'm thinking I'm a little uncomfortable. Okay, I'm a LOT uncomfortable. I'm really cold, my pants and gloves are wet from the snow, my fingers are numb, the cold is blowing right through me. But I really want pretty, working Christmas lights to I decide to suffer through the misery and get the job done. 

That's when it occurs to me, putting up Christmas lights is a lot like losing weight. There are times I'm uncomfortable, times I'm downright miserable. Sometimes the pain is from hunger, the pain of wanting something really bad to eat and a lot of it, and sometimes it's from exercise. I'm not miserable all the time, just sometimes. The hunger comes and goes, the exercise, sometimes it's a breeze, sometimes it feels like I'm being tortured. 

The end result of a little misery is I can easily pull on my jeans and zip them. All the clothes in my closet fit (except those size 7 jeans from ten years ago...still working on those). I can run up three flights of stairs at work and leave my 30-year coworkers huffing and puffing behind me. I feel good. It's a constant struggle for me to lose weight, I'll always have to be on guard, and I've come to expect some uncomfortableness in my life. That's just the way it is for me.

Some people put up perfect Christmas lights and they just stay that way, they don't have to worry about them. No burned out fuses, strands or burned out bulbs. They can just relax in their warm house and rest assured all is fine with their lights. 

Me, of course not. Just like my weight. I can't lay back and relax. I can't say it's fixed, and now I can go on my merry way. I will always have to work at my weight, just like those blankety-blank lights this weekend. Such is life. I can deal with it.