January 25th, 2012: Same weight as yesterday. 329. The flat part of the stair step. That’s all.
Public dieting sucks. By that, I mean letting people know you’re trying to lose weight. First, let me say that any public eating when you’re overweight sucks. The scenario: someone brings donuts or burritos into the office. You think everyone is watching you to see how many you’ll eat, or where you’re going to be in the line (you think everyone thinks you’re going to be first). The truth is, yes, I do want to be first in line, and last in line. I want every damn donut, every burrito, and the whole birthday cake – even if it’s not my birthday, and especially if it has a chocolate interior with a white buttercream exterior. If no one was watching – there would only be crumbs of the celebration remaining. I do not understand moderation. So what do I do? I don’t have any. Even if I’m not currently working on weight loss, I say, “No thanks, I’m trying to watch what I eat.” I can almost hear them snicker – I imagine them saying to themselves, “yeah right – on a diet”. This is probably mostly in my head, but I know there’s some truth to it. I think I’ve been guilty of thinking it myself back when I wasn’t a fat guy.
So then everyone is always saying stuff like, “here, try a piece of this”. You say, “no thanks”. They say “ah come on, it’s low fat or low calorie”. It’s a damn piece of cake, it ain’t low calorie. They push and push. I am gritting my teeth inside and nearing my boiling point – that’s how serious I am about this. Mostly, I’m laid back – at least that’s the image I project. But with this, I am not laid back. I keep my composure, shake my head, and say “No, no, no thanks. Maybe later.” Oh boy, I grit my teeth, and hate eating in public. Sometimes the chip on my shoulder gets so jagged I don’t even want to be in public.
January 25th, 2020 (retrospective): The point of flashback writing and the constant scrutiny of that former physical me is two-fold. First, I need to remember where I was relative to where I am now. This helped define and delineate the process, a proof-of-concept kind of thing that I needed to witness before I could ever hope to suggest it to someone else if they came to me for help. The other reason is that I need to assess where I am now, and where I want to be five years from now. As I’ve gotten older, five years to the future does not seem so abstract. Five years is fairly concrete, and I’ll either be dead or it’ll happen in the blink of an eye. I can almost see that far, and I see myself still fighting like a badger. I’ll be 49, and I could still kick some ass at 49, provided I remain faithful to myself and my agenda. And now you now why I look back and forth, forward and backward.
I admit I’m missing out on some of the things happening in the present, but this is a sacrifice I’m willing to make. It’s actually a debt because I’ve had enough fun to last 5 guys for 5 lifetimes. I enjoyed all of my 20’s and half of my 30’s right into size 50 pants and a liver the size of a catcher’s mitt, but in doing so, I emptied my bank account every day, and chipped away at my self-esteem. Life is going on all around me, but I don’t feel as though I’m missing much that I haven’t already wanted to experience, and on top of that, I feel there’s a solid mission to be accomplished. Considering the journey more of a mission makes it seem bigger than me and my little bitches and complaints. It makes me say to myself that it doesn’t matter if I want something or not – the process tells me what I get. Sometimes even when I want that cheeseburger, I don’t get that goddamn cheeseburger.
