January 13th, 2012 (Thursday): Down a pound. 11 lbs. total lost. Weight = 339 lbs. Treadmill last night = 30 minutes. I’m not even trying that hard on the treadmill, which is cool because I don’t get sick at the thought of it. In fact, it’s even kind of enjoyable. I made a playlist for my iPod that’s all live music from concerts – Van Halen, Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, etc. I pretend I’m just at a bunch of different concerts chilling out. As I lose weight, I’ll increase speed and incline accordingly, but why make the treadmill something to be feared, when it’s merely a tool? I made the playlist, including Tom Petty, because I was having a hard day on Tuesday, and “I Won’t Back Down” came on the radio and I was instantly motivated again. I know that soon enough this daily challenge will become natural – that’s how the brain works. I feel that feeling coming on. Plus my pants are a tiny bit looser today. I feel motivated going into Friday and the weekend. This weekend is another milestone, and I’ll start posting weekly progress photos. The hardest part of a weight-loss challenge, or any addiction challenge, I think, is that it’s self-imposed. We are all probably extreme people and we battle our own extreme demons, which are far meaner than anything we face outside of our own mind. We can stop fighting anytime we want, nobody’s forcing us. All we have to do is ring the bell, and we’ll get all the cold milk and fresh chocolate donuts we want, but we won’t because that means we’ve given in to those inner demons.
January 12th, 2020 (retrospective): How can I help my family, what good am I to them, if my hips are shot, my knees buckle, and I can’t even breathe at the top of the stairs or fit into rides at Disneyland? What good am I to them if this horrid fat causes me to vapor-lock one night in bed and wake up dead? These were legitimate things to think about. I had these constant conversations with myself. Most skillful demons are highly adaptable and flexible. If the demons couldn’t convince me to quit the process based on the sight and smell of food alone, then they would come after me with the “you only live once” attitude. If that didn’t work, the bastards would come after my family – and that’s what they were trying to do. They would try to make me look at William and Sam and say to myself – “they’re really growing up fast, and all the time you spend at the gym is time you don’t get to be with them. But alas, there is no sense going camping or having picnics or going to the movies or going out to eat – it all just revolves around food. Camping is just eating in the mountains, a picnic is eating in the park, a movie is about eating popcorn drenched with melted butter, trying to pick off the Mike and Ike’s candy stuck to your teeth, and going out to eat just means someone else does your dishes after you eat. So we stay at home. And that means I ruin it for the rest of my family.
I had been there before, 11 years ago when I quit drinking I had to re-learn how to go camping without a minimum of 50 beers in the cooler. I had to re-learn how to cook things on the grill while sober, and fishing, well, fishing while sober really isn’t even fishing, so I still don’t do that much. Point being, as I tried on this new lifestyle by dropping old habits, it sometimes just seemed easier to barricade myself at home and quit trying to pretend I enjoyed activities that I used to love.
The astonishing irony of the modern human mind is its ability to imprison the user within the gray matter of the cerebral cortex, while also giving free will to the user to unlock itself at any time. Yes, the key really is right in there with you. Once in awhile you let yourself free, but then you lock yourself back up again. All my troubles, all my demons, were all of my own invention. It seemed I literally created monsters just so this might turn into a war of biblical proportions, when all I really needed to do was not eat so fuckin much.
