Well, in looking back over the last month, it would seem that 5 weeks
is about my wall. After 5 solid weeks of decent work out progress, I
tanked. In Week 6 I blamed it on a mix of being tired-ish and mentally
checking out in advance of my vacation. Week 7 was a freebie anyway -
it was my vacation (the first
in 18+ months) and I had no intention of worrying about weight loss.
The vacation was wonderful - much needed, very relaxing, beautiful
setting (Camden, Maine), fantastic food (Lobster season and the B&B we stayed at was owned by a French Chef!). All around a perfect vacation.
Week
8, however, I should have been back in the gym, and I totally feel off
the wagon, onto my head, bouncing off a rock, tumbling all the way down
the hill that was covered in briars, ultimiately landing in the
mudflats at the base of the hill. I had to come back to my job where
I'm not very happy and the stress of having to jump in again just
didn't do me well. Moreover, things happened with my boss that have
resulted in making it even less fun place to be, demotivating me even
further. Week 9 was spent in pure demotivation and really some
depression, as I try and figure out the whole who-I-am-where-am-I-going
bit.
I
did finally get to the gym, though, with the lightest of prodding from
my partner. I spent a solid hour on the elliptical on Saturday -
burning over a 1,000 calories. (I also discovered an excellent
motivator in watching Burn Notice on USA ... a shirtless Jeffrey Donovan is enough to keep me cyclin' for 60 minutes).
So
now I'm in Week 10. I should weigh myself, but I don't want to. I feel
flabby (you know, flabby for 300+ pounds) and generally feel the
results of having not worked out for a long time. So I will see the
damage at the end of this week
posted 8/20/07 @ 09:15am | 0 comments
tagged:
challenge
progress
failures
I lost track of what week I was in about a month ago. The facts are these:
- I was doing really well at this fitness plan thing for about 6 weeks
- After
6 weeks, I somehow managed to fall off the wagon, whether it was
because I always tend to fall off at six weeks, or if it was my
mentally checking out for my vacation at about that time, or something,
but in any case, I stopped.
- I managed to get to the gym only
once or twice. All the healthy eating patterns I was trying to
establish fell apart after vacation.
- The difficulty in
readjusting to normal life after a vacation was compounded by a pretty
solid hit of depression and a lot of job stress. As a compulsive eater,
I used food for comfort and stress-ate myself silly. My partner and I
have subsisted on a variety of take out, fast food, deli-made food and
other assorted nasty treats for the last couple of months.
- I've gained back everything I lost and possibly more.
Meanwhile I see people like
Half Man
kicking ass in his weight loss goals - he's half way to where he wants
to be and its only been 10 months or so. Steadily losing 2-3 pounds per
week, he's making steady, sane and safe progress. It's inspiration,
along with a billion other things I could think of, but yet I still
can't get myself down to the gym. My partner and I recently had a
pretty frank talk about it all, and it just puts the issue square in
front of me that this is my monkey to deal with, and I just need to
deal with it.
I have started again. This past weekend was a
pretty full one for us but I did go down the gym Saturday morning, we
played golf Sunday and I managed to wake up early this morning to go
down the gym. It's baby steps for me, but I'm basically starting over.
I have found that around the 315 mark my body really takes a beating -
it's harder to move around or even get off the couch, my feet and legs
hurt significantly more, the feeling of being fat is exponentially
worse than even 10-15 pounds lower, my clothes fit more awkwardly and
I'm generally a blob. This is the point where I determined to just do
what I needed to lose, and no holds barred from there.
I don't
really consider this yet another restart. For me its more of a
continuation of the same journey I started 4 months ago. I just need to
pick up the pieces and get going again. But there are
some new developments, like:
- A
new job. My job stress, which has plagued me for over a year and a
half, was killing me and I've decided to get out of a less than healthy
environment. My new job starts next week. It's a different kind of
stress, but hopefully the change will motivate me for the rest of my
changes in life.
- I'm going to try to eat less overall, but
also not worry about the structure of my eating plan, either. Instead
of focusing on all the calorie count and other assorted nonsense of
food plans, I just need to get into healthy habits to start with, and
then I'll worry about the science of it. Eating is always the Achilles'
Heal of my weight loss, so I just need to go with the flow on it. To
that end, I am going to eat a
lot less, and a lot more often during the day, but I'm going to be
snacking rather than formal meals. A yogurt or oatmeal for breakfast,
and some fruit and veggies during the day, that sort of thing.
- I'm
actually going to weigh myself regularly. Screw the attempts at timing
the scale, I just need to haul my ass onto the thing. End of story.
- I
need to find additional support. I want to reach out more to the
community of people who are on this similar journey, particularly in
places like SparkPeople and other bloggers. This is my own journey and
my own albatross but going at it completely solo has only failed dozens
and dozens of times now
- I'm going to try exercising in the
morning. I've gotten new shoes (my old ones were killing me), and I
think getting up earlier will help me set the tone for my whole day.
Plus I've found I really enjoy my evenings with my partner and that
makes it harder to leave for an hour. It's better to go when I know
there's just a snowball's chance in hell of him actually being awake.
So,
here we go. Today hasn't actually been great - I did make it to the gym
for a half hour but I wasn't prepared food-wise and gorged at lunch.
I'll be ordering some groceries tonight and filling the fridge with
good food tomorrow. Little by little, though, I'm going to get back on
track. And some day, I will be thin.
posted 10/8/07 @ 03:26pm | 0 comments
tagged:
struggle
Ugh!
No, wait - that doesn't quite capture it. Try this:
That's a little better.
I
managed to get up early again this morning to go to the gym. And just
as I was about to pull my freshly laundered gym clothes from the dryer,
I saw the beast sitting there on my bathroom floor. Since I hadn't
ingested anything, wasn't wearing anything, and knew I needed to face
the music early on, I dragged its beastly ass from the corner, turned
it on, and climbed aboard.
Three hundred eighteen and six tenths pounds. 318.6.
Obviously,
I've had a terrible morning ever since. But really, I'm not that
surprised by it. Sure, it's an 11 pound gain in a little over 2 months,
but I could feel myself cross my threshold a couple weeks ago - the
point where everything seems to fall apart at once. My pants were
suddenly getting pretty tight. The new shirts I'd bought at Big &
Tall were suddenly having trouble buttoning. Trusted shirts that should
always fit (or be stretchable to fit) were suddenly appearing "short"
(in the words of my partner) because my belly was pushing them so far
they almost didn't cover me. My body was achy, my breathing different,
and a general feeling of imbalance. And now all of that has a number.
318.6.
My
highest recorded weight ever. It's a pretty demoralizing thing to see,
but then it also gives me a dose of reality that this
is where I am, and it's where I
cannot
be. In any case, we finally got real groceries last night so I managed
to bring good foods to work today. I hope to be less than 300 by
Thanksgiving (so I can promptly put it all back on in a day ...),
though I realize that is a somewhat aggressive goal (at least 3 pounds
per week for the next 6 weeks). While goals are good, this is a day by
day thing. And today, I have good food. I worked out. I have to paint
my bedroom. I'm being active, I'm taking control. At least, I'm trying.
posted 10/10/07 @ 10:13am | 6 comments
tagged:
struggle
clothes
fitness
weigh-in
Yeah, yeah, my "Restart" was a full month ago. But at least this time
not all was totally abandoned. I still managed to make it to the gym a
few times over the last month, and I've generally been trying to eat
better. In theory. Okay that's a crock. The last month has been a good
one, though, in many ways related to my health, even if I eat for shit
and barely work out.
You see, one month ago, I started my new
job. In the time since then, a lot of balance seems to have been
restored to my life. Sure, there aren't enough hours in the day, but I
don't wake up in fear of my job anymore. I can sleep through Sunday
nights without dreading what terror Monday will bring. I have more
responsibility but greatly reduced stress and anxiety. My new boss
isn't crazy. I've definitely felt myself slowly leak out the stress and
insanity that had built itself up over a year and a half or more. More
than a few people have commented that I look so much better, more free,
and I know they're not saying a thing about my (seems to be still
increasing) weight.
I think getting out of that bad job helped
break the last of my depression bout that threw me off track a few
months ago. I'm meeting new friends, really enjoying life with my partner, and the last six weeks have been the most
active six straight weeks all year - it's like we've had something to
do, people to see, or places to go every weekend and several times
during the weeks. But even as I find my center -- and which way is up
-- again, I've done a pisspoor job of getting back on track with my
physical health.
I've been looking for inspiration, looking for
answers, talking to some people who are on this journey or have been on
it recently, and doing a lot of introspection. I don't have any easy
answers. I did, however, start Weight Watchers Online this week. Today
was Day 2. To be honest, I really haven't figured out the WW program
... I'm still learning it. I know about POINTS and staying under them,
so that's where I started. Honestly, I already feel good, though that
could also just be good feelings as a result of knowing I'm doing
something to take care of myself.
I also think that constantly
thinking about it, rather than allowing myself to ignore the issue,
helps in staying on track. That may seem obvious but it's really rather
simple to simply "forget" to blog here, or to track points, or to get
back to the gym, or any of it. But blogging about this journey -
thinking about what's happening and how to write about it - keeps the
entire issue right at the front of my mind, and that helps. And it's
self-motivating.
I find myself seriously considering the issue
of community. I consider opening this blog up to my friends and my
partner deliberately, rather than just those who happen upon it on the
Web. That would (will?) be a pretty big thing for me to do, though. The
vulnerability involved in having people who know me, who's opinion
matters most, be able to see that ridiculously high number on the right
side bar is daunting. No, not daunting, it's frightening. So I'm not
sure about that one yet. But tomorrow is my next weigh in. Since I tend
to do it on Wednesdays anyway, that's what I set up with Weight
Watchers and I have to enter a number.
I may be slow to start, but I do know where I'm going ... day by day.
posted 11/13/07 @ 11:53pm | 0 comments
tagged:
strategy
challenge
progress
Weight Watchers
So on account that I completely and utterly blew apart the first phase
of my weight loss journey at the end of the summer and well into the
fall, it made little sense to continue my Saturday updates. Hell, I
lost count even. But that's okay, because I'm restarting with renewed
energy and focus and strategy.
Since starting this journey, I've always weighed myself on Wednesdays (well, at least since I bought the scale and started facing the music).
I discovered that I may have a tendency to slide a bit on Thursdays, so
Friday might not be a good day to weigh in. Same goes for Saturdays and
therefore Sundays. But on Sunday I tend to refocus and cleanse form the
slightly-worse-than-average tendencies of the previous several days,
making Wednesday a good day to feel depressed weigh in.
So
when Weight Watchers asked me to pick a weekly day to enter my weight,
I went with Wednesdays (normally you'd do it at your meetings, but I
don't do meetings). Now my Weight Watchers week (or WWWeek for those
wondering if I stuttered in the title) is apparently Wednesday to
Tuesday (surprise! just figured that out by chance a few minutes ago)
so I figure Wednesdays are good days to blog progress.
My
progress, by the way, sucks! But that's okay. Sure, my weight creeped
up slightly from my "restart" weigh in a month ago, but I was eating
for shite, and I'd like to think that maybe a couple of days of
controlled eating helped me fall back down a pound? It doesn't matter,
this is really just the start. I've had a couple of days practice, I'm
finding the Weight Watchers system really quite simple to handle, and
now I'm on the road again.
I haven't quite gotten to the gym
yet. I've had plenty to keep me busy on a daily basis, but once I get
moving in a gym routine, I don't usually have much of a problem keeping
up with it. Food is my problem, so I don't mind if I take a little
extra time to get used to the whole 
new
eating plan. My partner will be travelling this weekend, though, so
I'll have a little more time to myself to kick my own ass in the gym.
And speaking of kicking ass in the gym, take a look at this guy on the right. I found this picture on another blog
today and thought, "My God ... that just ... ow!" I think he's doing a
pull-up/upside-down bench press combo thing ... eesh. I would kill
myself if I even tried it. I look forward to the day when I can do that
exercise.
posted 11/14/07 @ 10:55pm | 0 comments
tagged:
healthy eating
progress
weigh-in
Weight Watchers
My biggest problem over the years is choosing foods. I've long been
addicted to carbs, simple sugars, and whatever I can order on the phone
or drive through (I used to live right next to a Taco Bell and Jack in
the Box ... it was a dark time of my life (health-wise), let me tell
you). In New York we don't drive through for food but it's still just
as easy to eat poorly here.
Last night I went to have dinner
with a friend, and I was concerned going into it. It would be the first
time since starting Weight Watchers a week ago that I would be eating
food I couldn't necessarily quantify into points. Sure, Weight Watchers
has points values for a lot
of foods and many restaurants, but this would be a test of my memory,
their site, and my ability to not overeat just because I'm at a
restaurant.
We
went for Indian, I had Tandoori (since I have no idea what goes into
curry) Chicken, some rice, naan, and something called a Samosa. And
best of all, I controlled myself. I didn't eat all the chicken, only
had about a cup of rice, and a little bit of naan. I was rather proud
of myself. I did use up all my points for the day. Then went over when
I had my leftovers for a snack ... which was really stupid, but I
worked out this morning so points-wise it was okay. But overall, I
survived my first Weight Watchers restaurant experience.
But
when it comes to every other day in the week, I think my food choosing
issues may stem from not really knowing how to cook. I can
cook, I can actually cook pretty well, but only after I've spent a lot
of time searching for recipes, planning, prepping, and cooking. By the
time I finally get home from work, I don't really want to go through
all that - I just want to have dinner and relax. What I want to be able
to do is see 5 ingredients and come up with an insta-meal. So something
I've started to work on is learning to cook.
Which brings me
to planning for Thanksgiving. I can't believe that it's already
Thanksgiving! When did that happen? More importantly, what the hell am
I going to cook? My partner and I like to have friends over for
Thanksgiving, and I love to cook big meals like that, so there's a
little pressure to make it good. I'm also looking for ways to make it
healthy. To help myself out, I'm watching Food Network all day to get
some ideas. I'm getting some good ideas but as I listen to some of
these recipes I find myself thinking "Oh that sounds so good but by god that's got to be 60 POINTS® in the stuffing alone!"
So I may end up using my weekly points in one meal, but hey, it's Thanksgiving!
posted 11/17/07 @ 12:33pm | 0 comments
tagged:
food
eating out
restaurants
Weight Watchers
holidays
thanksgiving
So this past weekend my partner was off to see his sister get married.
And its a long story for another blog as to why I was not there as
well, but nevertheless I instead spent the weekend at home. Since
Thanksgiving is this week (something I'm dreading from a diet point of
view but really looking forward to entertaining for), I spent the weekend scrubbing our apartment in expectation of guests.
And when I say scrub, I mean scrub.
Down on all fours, sponge and spray bottle in hand, dustpan and brush
on deep dustbunny expedition, up on chairs, down under tables, wax on,
wax off - clean! Our home wasn't this clean when we moved in
let alone any time in the year we've lived here. I'm really quite
impressed with myself. And now having been on weight watchers for
nearly a full week, as I was bent over in the tub scrubbing away I
found myself nonchalantly musing, "Do I get Activity Points for this? I
should totally get Activity points for this!"
Well, as it happens, one does
get activity points for active cleaning! That made me happy and despite
it being an all weekend experience, I only claimed 4 (about 45 minutes
worth) since it was someone spread out across the day in between
History Channel breaks. But I was amused at myself for my apparently
internalization of the program which I'd been on for just a week (in
fact, I only started it last Monday). Already I'm thinking in terms of
POINTS® and how eating one thing now means I can or can't eat something
else later.
But let me back up a bit. I think Weight Watchers
has been around for most of my lif; at least, I always remember hearing
about it growing up as ladies from church would talk about the meetings
or I'd see ads on TV (I think I did anyway). I never really knew much
about it other than the fact it was largely focused on women and sorta
kinda had to do with racking up points, which seemed silly and
time-consuming at the time, not to mention it cost money.
Now
that I've learned about it, here's a quick summary. Members are
allotted a certain number of POINTS® per day (a POINT® is the result of
a formula based on calories, fat and fiber) that they may consume. From
what I've been able to tell, the daily allotment is based on weight,
and the total amount of points would be just a little bit under the
amount of food it would take in a day to maintain that weight. So that
when you eat a little bit less than that, you gradually (and safely)
lose a couple of pounds a week. In addition to a daily allotment, there
is a weekly reserve one can save for special days of the week, and
Activity Points which are earned and can be used as extra food points
on any given day. It's a glorified - and yet simplified (and somewhat
more sophisticated) - version of calorie counting. The real kicker for
the Weight Watchers system, however, are the weekly local meetings. At
these meetings one is expected to commune with fellow fatties about the
trials, tribulations and successes of their journeys, and conduct the
weekly (private) weigh-in.
The meetings appeal to kvetchy
women, which is why the program has been so successful (and the stock
price stayed solid). However, I don't do meetings. Men, in general,
don't do meetings. So recently Weight Watchers has been launching
online, meetingless versions of the program and even more recently
tailored the program for men.
I always shied away from
something like Weight Watchers; yes, because of the meetings (and I
don't do meetings) but also because I wasn't keen on paying for someone
to tell me how to count calories, or getting into monthly fees that I
expected I would just waste along with my gym membership. Yet in recent
months my attitude has been shifting.
First off, I've seen the
program work with my own eyes. I had a buddy in college who was
overweight and somewhat of a sloth. Towards the end of my time in
college, though, he had begun dieting and working out. Turns out he was
using the Weight Watchers system combined with a pretty regular
activity and work out plan. Not long before I moved to New York I was
sitting in our nearby Starbucks staring absently out the window when I
saw a guy about 100 feet away jogging - shirtless (this is Los Angeles,
after all) - towards the shop. Always intrigued by a good looking
shirtless man I watched for him to pass the window only to see -
somewhat in horror - that it was my friend! Then when I went to visit
old friends a couple months ago I ran into him again, and he was even
thinner and more buff than before. So it was clear to me the program
can work.
Moreover, if I were to tally the amount of money
wasted on gimmicks, diet pills and wasted gym memberships, it would be
pretty shameful - and probably total a few years worth of Weight
Watchers Online. Lastly, when I found myself seriously considering one
of those mail-order food programs like Jenny Craig or Nutrisystem, I
knew I was in a spot to actually spend money wisely. So I took another
look at Weight Watchers, and signed up, and then got all set up.
My
POINTS® level was actually pretty damn high, I thought. I tinkered with
settings a bit and discovered that I think my Weight Watchers-set
starting food allotment is about as high as it goes. And actually,
after seeing how much food that actually was for a couple days, I
discovered that's too high for me. So I scaled back the official limit
by about 10 POINTS® and I still shoot for about 5 less than that. My
biggest concern was satiety - would the amount of food that matches my
allotment be enough?
In short, it is. It may be partly a mind
game with myself - knowing I can only eat so much tells me to enjoy
what I have and feel full, 'cuz its all I get. Another part of it may
be the fact that I'm choosing better foods, which my body can process
better and get more energy out of than the breads and other simple
sugars I was eating. It may also be the fact that the system places an
emphasis on fiber; fiber is a reducer in the POINTS® formula, so foods
with more fiber have lower points, which means you can eat more of
them. Yet fiber makes you feel fuller, longer, so the end result is you
can eat more of what satisfies you, if you even want to.
Over
the last week I've adjusted to the program pretty well. As I mentioned
in the beginning of this post, I've begun to internalize the system.
I'm thinking about food in a different way, eating better, planning
meals. I know the all the POINTS® values for my Thanksgiving meal I'm
cooking (it's high, but I'll just work out early that day :)) It's much
easier than when I tracked calories and individual nutrients, and the
Online tracker is readily available whenever I have a moment to enter
my meals. All in all I'm very pleased with the program - and I feel
better and healthier already. My next weigh-in is Wednesday (before
Thanksgiving, thank God), so we'll see how my first week of Weight
Watchers has really gone then.
posted 11/19/07 @ 09:50pm | 0 comments
tagged:
eating
strategy
food
healthy weight loss
Weight Watchers
In the last couple of days I've experienced a strange phenomenon, so
strange that I think the idea of the ideas I had made me a bit ill. I
was surprised at myself and a little bit aghast that I would ever dare
think such things.
I was looking forward to my weigh in.
Like,
really. Maybe I'm just having a manic period where the holidays are
making me feel giddy about silly things, or maybe I really am
de-stressed in my new job compared to my old and can find pleasure in
life again, but whatever it was, I knew my weigh in was coming and I
was looking forward to it. I had no real reason to look forward to it;
losing weight for me is hard and happens slowly. That's fine and
healthy and everything but it's also frustrating. So part of me felt
like I was looking forward to disappointment. Maybe I'm a masochist,
maybe I was looking for a way to invalidate my new program. Or maybe
I've been feeling changes over the last week and a half and wanted to
see what they meant in cold hard numbers.
Well the facts are in,
and this week I lost nearly 7 pounds, weighing in at 313. That's
actually a lot for this program and I wouldn't want to do that every
week, but I wouldn't mind a few weeks of that early on!
So I'm
kind of excited this morning. I'm pleased with myself. I've stuck with
my program pretty solidly for the first week and a half and I've done
right well. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I'm a little concerned about
it, but I'm headed into it knowing what I'm facing in terms of
POINTS® for all my food, so there are very few unknowns.
I
haven't been to the gym as much this week, mainly a couple days on the
weekend, but I'm looking to be better about that after tomorrow.
Overall, I feel much better about this journey. I still have a long way to go, surely. 313 is not really a good weight ... but it's a happy first week way station!
posted 11/21/07 @ 07:24am | 0 comments
tagged:
progress
weigh-in
Weight Watchers
I wonder, sometimes, if I really want to be thin. I wonder if sometimes
if there is some part of my subconscious that wants me to be fat. I
wonder if I all the times - hundreds of times, maybe - that I've failed
I've actually sabotaged myself. But if that's true, then why? Why do
such a thing when it's something that would vastly improve every aspect
of my life, from my social relationships to how I'm perceived at work
to my health and even life expectancy? Why would some part of me not
want to be thin?
Maybe it's because I don't know how to live as
a thin man. Maybe even if I were thin, I would still be a fat man in a
thin man's body. When I back that statement up a bit and think about
who I am, how I process the world around me and how I choose to act, I
think I realize that nearly everything about me
has evolved from being overweight. I am who I am because I am fat - and
always have been fat. Nearly everything about how I process the world
comes from that preface to one degree or another. If I were no longer
fat, who I would I be?
I'm an introvert. I gain energy from
personal time, alone time, quiet time, introspective thinking about
life time. I'm also a good listener, but not a big talker. I deeply
appreciate people in my life, but have very few friends, only a couple
of which are close, and apparently none that I trust knowing of this
blog. I'm highly observant and readily capable of connecting the social
dots between people - I notice a lot of stuff most don't, live outside
the circle and am somewhat intuitive about the world and how people
tick, and yet I have great difficulty in letting people into my
thoughts, desires and dreams. There even more facets to my personality,
btu I wonder - is our personality really wholly genetic or the way
we're wired? Maybe not necessarily.
I learned at an early age
what it meant to be fat in our Euro/Anglo/American society. I've been
fat my whole life. And really, the attitude is reflected in a recent blog post by a friend of mine.
In this post he talks about making fun of some fat woman and her
stretch pants, and he just as easily could me making fun of me, and
that hurts, a lot, actually. I don't wear stretch pants, mind you, but
the principle is there - fat people are an object of mockery without
guilt.
To couterbalance my inevitable fate as a target, I
quickly learned how to not draw attention to myself. I sat in the back
of the classroom. I didn't raise my hand, no matter if I knew the
answer ... I kept my mouth shut. I was quiet, a good little boy. I did
my work, I did it well, and no matter what, I avoided the spotlight.
When I joined a touring concert group, I spent one year on stage only
to be positioned behind the tallest people in the cast. Soon after I
became an A/V tech where no one would see me (and a damed good one,
too). I took up photography, where I would never have to be in front of
a camera. I learned to make websites, where I could come home and work
by myself, where my friends were online and my work could be judged for
itself, not for the ugliness of the worker.
Even as an adult, I
find myself hushing my parter in public from time to time. On the
subway, walking down the street, I avoid anything that would draw
attention to me, lest anyone say anything to me. In New York we deal
with some some posse of young people who sell candy, and it's bad
enough to have to dodge them just to get where I'm going, but when they
start to insult me for being fat and of course I would want candy, it
just twists that knife all the more.
Part of me - or at least
part of the fat me - would be happy to never have to go anywhere. I'd
be happy to never be seen and live in my own mind, life, and privacy.
That is, of course, impossible and the sane, modern, well-adjusted
majority of myself fights those urges. But that brings me back to why I
consistently fail at losing weight.
Could it really be that I
have no idea how to live thin, if I ever will be thin? Sure I have all
these goals that I list here, but what of them? Will I even know how to
enact them? What would life be if I were thin? Maybe a part of me fears
that I would have to start over in my personality if I were thin, as if
every comfort zone, defense mechanism and private place I've ever
constructed for myself would be useless, torn to shatters or useless in
a new, thin life.
That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's a
scary thing. As uncomfortable as I am in my own skin, I still find it
comforting because its what I know. I don't know the thin me. I never
have. I want to, I think. And, I would hope that my life as Fat Me
would influence Thin Me. I'm sure it would, but first I have to show
myself that Thin Me isn't scary, and that I'll be okay with whatever
unintended consequences come as a result of losing over a hundred
pounds.
But in the mean time, it's a day by day journey. I'm
learning that no matter how thin I hope I will be one day, today I need
only think about today. My subconscious will just have to deal.
posted 11/23/07 @ 12:20am | 1 comment
tagged:
weight loss
fat
life as a fat man
personality
Out of That's Fit yesterday was a mini-feature on Bear Grylls, star of Discovery Channel's Man vs. Wild,
outdoor adventurer, French Legionnaire trainee, British Special Forces
officer, and youngest Brit to scale Everest. All around an impressive
fellow worth looking up to for health and fitness goals. Turns out for
weight loss too.
After completing his service to the
British Special Forces and getting married, Bear gained two and half
stone! Not familiar with stones? Well, each of the British survival
expert's extra stones equal a whopping 14 pounds! That's quite a lot.
35 pounds to be exact.
Bear is ripped now. How did he make the
transformation? He decided to! Bear says that he just was sick of being
a loaf and changed his ways.
"Just deciding to" resonates
with me. No great event has happened in my life to trigger my need to
lose weight - no heart attacks, near death experiences or otherwise
scary perspective changing wake up calls. And unlike others who lose
weight for some goal out there like joining the FBI or getting married,
there's nothing ahead that's motivating me in particular. Aside from
knowing my partner would like it, but loves me anyway, I've just
decided to. I'm tired of being the way I am and want to change it.
Of
course I've got a lot more than 35 pounds to lose (which I'd also say
it's somewhat insulting for fitness writers to write to about being
oh-so-overweight at a whopping 2.5 stones over, particularly when their
readership is 11 stones or more) and I don't expect to be training deep
in the heart of Africa or have any desire to scale Everest. Yet, I
still gain inspiration from seeing others who have overcome their own
fat demons and gone on to really live a successful healthy life. If it
can be done in 35 pound chunks, then I'm more confident I'll make it to
the end, someday.
posted 11/25/07 @ 10:46am | 0 comments
tagged:
weight loss
inspiration
No, not a naked Christmas, not this year at least.
This year my partner - who loves
clothes - wanted to know, "What size clothes should I get you?" He
wasn't even done asking before I instructed him, "Don't buy me clothes
for Christmas," so quickly his head spun a little bit. But really I was
just reminding him of an old, old rule - don't buy me clothes.
I
instituted this rule many, many years ago. In part, it was due to
fashion moving faster than my grandparents could keep up. In larger
part, it was because as your size goes up, its harder to reliably find
clothes that fit. Different clothiers size clothes by different
standards, especially at the larger sizes. And how well clothes fit
depends greatly on the type of fabric and cut. So really, as I got
older - and bigger - it was becoming very difficult to reliably predict
what clothes would fit; I had to try them on to be sure, and dealing
with crowds, clothing stores, and returns is just not my cup of tea.
Hence,
my rules about not buying me clothes, even for my partner. The reality
is most of my clothes these days come from Big & Tall, and that's
not something I readily like to admit, even to my partner. As much as I
want to, I can't shop at convenient stylish clothiers yet (remember my
Macy's Nightmare?), and I'd rather keep my clothes-shopping hell to myself.
But
there's hope on the horizon. When we were on vacation, we went to a
town full of outlet stores, where I found myself a nice jacket that fit
well then. Since I bought it I ballooned in weight again and while I've
been wearing it, I haven't been zipping it up because it would outline
my bulbous physique a little too well, if you catch my drift. Well
tonight it was raining on my way home, and I thought I'd give it a
shot. Sure enough, the coat, while not loose, per say, did fit
reasonably well zipped up - meaning I've been making progress. I'm
nervous for my weigh in, since it wasn't a picture perfect weekend, but
I have little bits of hope!
posted 11/26/07 @ 08:48pm | 0 comments
tagged:
clothes
progress
life as a fat man
christmas
Drumroll...
This week's weigh in? 310.8!
Or minus 2.2 pounds from last week. Not bad, considering Thanksgiving,
only a couple sessions in the gym, a generally okay but not spectacular
weekend in terms of eating, and a generally poor job at staying
hydrated. But loss is loss, and I lost!
This week I'm aiming to
stay hydrated, stay on-plan for food (no more than 32 POINTS® per day)
and rack up at least 16 Activity Points (for me that's about 4 days for
at least 45 minutes or so). I really want to be below 300 pounds by the
end of the year, and I think if I stay on track, I should be able to
make that safely.
posted 11/28/07 @ 09:14pm | 0 comments
tagged:
progress
weigh-in
So often in the weight loss world we focus on finding motivation from
the future. Goals! Visualization! Rewards! These are all fine and
dandy, and for a lot of people they work (like my friend training for
the FBI, or even my own Goals). But for others, sometimes motivation
comes from the past; more specifically, people may find their
motivation from who they no longer wish to be (or who they want to be
again). Some may go so far as to not only find motivation from the
past, but stop themselves from even going backwards.
In the NY Times a couple of weeks ago, Freakonomics co-authors Stephen Dunbar and Steven Levitt wrote about bariatric surgery as a commitment device.
Upon
entering one battle, Han [Xin, the legendary Chinese general] assembled
his soldiers with their backs to a river so that retreat was not an
option. With no choice but to attack the enemy head-on, Han’s men did
just that.
This is what economists call a commitment device — a
means with which to lock yourself into a course of action that you
might not otherwise choose but that produces a desired result.
Basically,
the idea of a commitment device is something that stops you from ever
going back. It could be something as drastic as bariatric surgury, or
something as simple as a constant reminder of what you don't want or
don't want to be (a photo of your fat self, or as in the article, the
physical reproduction of what 5 or 10 lbs of fat looks like).
But here's another idea in the form of a service launching in the next month:
Lose weight or cough up cold hard cash. Users of
StickK.com
will commit a certain amount of money per week and if they don't meet
their goals, such as losing a pound or two, they lose the money (it
goes to charity). By the way, it's a legal contract that binds you to
your commitment, so one way or another, you best lose that weight (and
the service has mechanisms for making sure you're not lying ... hey,
its for you're own good, right?). Users will be able to specify any
amount, from a few dollars to thousands. For the few who beta test the
system, the risk is quite the motivator.
Mr.
Ayres said he first used the system to lose some pounds, and he now has
$500 a week at stake to maintain his weight. He calculates that he has
put over $21,000 — or $500 a week for almost a year — at risk through
this system. But it makes more sense than traditional weight loss
systems, he said. "What's interesting is that Weight Watchers costs you
$500 a year and gives modest results. I put $500 at risk every week,
but it's cost me nothing because I've met my goals so far."
I'm
not sure that such a device would work for me. Maybe a few dollars, and
maybe I'll try out the system if I start to find myself slacking off
again. To be honest I'm not sure what's motivating me right now.
Probably a mental commitment device of some kind - I don't ever,
ever
want to be this heavy ever again in my life. But also I have a clear
picture of what I want to look like (okay, I have a lot of clear
pictures of what I want to look like, but that's a different matter),
so some of my motivation comes from the future as well. But in the end,
motivation can come from the now; right
now
I'm motivated by the icky feelings of being fat, the good feelings of
weight loss already, and the desire to be thinner for my partner as
well as my own general happiness.
posted 11/29/07 @ 09:03pm | 0 comments
tagged:
motivation
bariatric surgery
commitment devices
stickk.com
So you know those plans I had last week
to make up this week for that somewhat squishy holiday week/end?
Y'know, using none of weekly points, getting 16 or so Activity Points?
Yeah ... total bust. Didn't do any of it. Went over my daily points
rather spectacularly, didn't even touch my gym key. And totally expected to make no progress for the week and maybe even fall backwards a little bit.
But
what I did do during this past week was be conscious of what I was
eating. In the old days, if I had a bad day, or a bad weekend (in terms
of eating properly), I would just give up for the whole week. But this
week, even while I knew I was blowing my points for the day and week
nearly in one sitting, I was stil making halfway decent choices about what to have.
For
example, my partner and I went out for dinner on Friday night. A nice
date, it'd been a while, and we stumbled upon some random southern
Italian restaurant with an obsession for fine cheese and fine wine, and
of course pasta. Combined, diet killers. Oh - and they have the best table bread in the city,
I am convinced. By our second basket of bread I knew my points were
done for, but I decided it would be my splurge night. Even so, I still
feel like I made good choices. Instead of pasta, I had steak and a
smidgeon of mashed potatoes. Thankfully the portion sizes were well
under control.
Then on Sunday we went to brunch with my father.
And while I had a high protein, high starch/carb breakfast, I managed
to not have very much of anything. Very well-controlled portions and
eating just until satiated, and I was pretty well set for most of the
rest of the day until we made a nice, healthy, chicken shish-ka-bob
dinner. Saturday we went to dinner again and Monday I went to dinner
with a friend visiting the city (four restaurants in a week - major
diet trouble), but managed to have just a salad each time.
Even
with my measures of self control at restaurants, I did find myself
occasionally slipping into my old binge-eating mode when bored or
stressed this week. But overall, I did okay in balancing not only what
I ate -- making the right choices out of a sea of tasty looking bad
ones)
-- but when and how much I ate.
Still, I expected to not make any progress. So my weigh-in today of 308.8 pounds - or a two pound loss for the week - is pretty damn impressive. I'm happy with that progress, and this week I'll see about getting to the gym and eating even better. After all, I still really want to be under 300 at the end of the year.
posted 12/5/07 @ 07:22am | 0 comments
tagged:
food
progress
weigh-in
