January 29th, 2012: Got a 3 lb. trip south today! 324 is what that scale told me. Just got to love these days. It’s very motivating, but perplexing. I didn’t do anything different. Oh well, I’ll take it.
My note today is about breaking and bending. One thing I know about myself with regard to the program, the process, and eventually (hopefully) this new “lifestyle” is that I’m at a stage where it has to be all or nothing. I am following this to the letter because I know if I had one slip – even one – that I would likely fall into the abyss of old habits. My resolve would snap like a twig with any deviation. I pretty much hate that about myself and consider it one of my biggest weaknesses. I read a quote somewhere, by someone (I can’t remember) that was something to the effect that self-control has a bigger effect on success in life than intelligence or anything else. I have always battled self-control. I have to keep myself on an extremely short and sometimes choking leash. I wish so bad I could go out and have a few beers or have a normal dinner or have 1 donut or 1 cookie – and be satisfied. To my knowledge, however, I have never drank just 1 beer, or eaten 1 cookie, etc. It seems I’m wired to think that if some is good, more is better, and all of it at one sitting is best.
In the long run, then, that’s my goal. I have to have an all or nothing mentality until I reach my goal – 189 lbs. After that, I would like to see if I could play around with moderation when food is involved. I really doubt I’ll ever start drinking again, I think it’d be impossible to catch a buzz and call it good. I’d likely end up lying in a gutter in Connecticut within a year. But my hope, when we’re talking about food, is that I can to learn how to bend and not break. I want to be able to eat a big Thanksgiving dinner, but then return to normal the next day, instead of saying to myself, “well I just ate a 6,000 calorie Thanksgiving dinner, now I’m just going to go on a huge binge through Christmas until after the New Year” (and then when that comes, I know I’d say, “I’ll just start on my birthday in a couple months”, etc., etc.) Learning to have a dial instead of a binary toggle-switch would be nice.
My daydream today is going elk hunting with my old buddies who always had to wait for me when we’d hike because I carry so much excess baggage in the form of fat. Some hunting trip in the future I’ll get to the top of the mountain long before they do, and when they get up there I’ll say to ’em – “What took you so long?”
January 29th, 2020 (retrospective): I’ve learned some things about willpower in the last few years, and specifically, how it applies to the weight loss process. I’ve learned about the fickle nature of willpower. If the process was a football team’s defense, willpower would play the position of free-safety. I try not to rely on my free safety as the first line of defense, to stuff runs between the offensive tackles. This is the primary job of the defensive line. My defensive line, in the eternal showdown of Fat vs. Ben, is planning. I’ve learned just how important planning is to the process. I have to believe in my plans, and I have to follow my plans, which still presents a problem for me occasionally.
I’m the king of yellow post-it sticky notes. They are everywhere in my house. Since my wife is no stranger to my eccentricities, she’s able to deal with it. If you came to my house, though, you may say to yourself, “here is a crazy fuck.” But I have to get those thoughts out of my head, right now. Most of the notes are about exercise and diet, some have quotes I want to remember, and some are just partial grocery lists. All are about planning in some form, and all of them are positive. They’re what I want to be and do – and if I could put them into one giant plan, I’d call it the process.
