Dan Nied's Fortress of Weight Loss: The Lonely Road

I’ve put this off for a long time. If I was interested in doing any research, I’d probably find that the last Fortress entry was about a month ago. Maybe three weeks. But really, what’s the difference?

But I did put it off, because I wasn’t really sure what direction I wanted to take this series. I thought about it for a few days leading up to my three-week trip back home to Detroit. I thought about it while I was in Detroit, and now I am thinking about it during my third day back in California.

In the end, I delayed long enough for Blogcritics to write me off of their features page, which makes a lot of sense after this series seemed to stagnate.

Still, my options are pretty cut and dry. I can either continue this blog, offering you a window into my successes and failures, largely rehashing the things I’ve been talking about for the last two years. Or I can end it and continue on this path alone.

During my trip to Detroit, I caught the Wizard of Oz on television one night and watched approximately three minutes of it. But it just happened to be the three minutes in which Dorothy had arrived in the Emerald City and the good witch was laying out her plan to follow the Yellow Brick Road. After Glenda left, the Munchkins started singing their song (“Follow Follow Follow Follow Follow the Yellow Brick Road!”) and they escorted Dorothy the 30 or so feet to the beginning of her journey.

And then they stayed behind while she went off alone.

I had never thought much of that nuance until this past viewing. And it wasn’t until just now that I realized it was an apt metaphor, if kind of a reach, for my own endeavor.

So yes, like Dorothy, I must go off alone now to search for the wizard while fighting off flying monkeys and a crooked-nosed witch. It has to happen.

So this is the farewell entry into Dan Nied’s Fortress of Weight Loss, and I am both saddened and energized by that. It was a pretty good journey, but I understand right now that I must start doing this for me. If I don’t concentrate on that, I’ll just collapse the first chance I get.

I could have ended this weeks ago, and I probably should have. But once I put it off and found myself in the Midwest, I realized that I wanted to end this on an optimistic note.

Article Author: Dan Nied

Dan Nied is a journalist, of sorts, living near San Francisco. He is a college graduate, but you wouldn't know it by looking at his bank statement.

Visit Dan Nied's author page — Dan Nied's Blog