February 5th, 2012: I didn’t weigh yesterday, but I did today and learned that I had gained two pounds. It couldn’t be true, could it? That I thought about food so much that I actually consumed enough mental calories to gain back two pounds? 321.
I know, I know – couldn’t possibly be true – but one must never underestimate the power of the mind. One part of my brain is sometimes like a fire hose – and another part of my brain is like the firefighter who is supposed to control the nozzle. The firefighter must have dropped that nozzle, and the entire length of the hose is now flailing wildly out of control.
What I did do differently is 1) not sleep, 2) didn’t eat any vegetables, 3) failed to get any exercise. That’s probably enough to confuse my metabolism a bit and cause a two pound trip back north. No worries, the trend continues downward and that’s all that matters.
I have to daydream when I gain weight. I have to think bigger and think into the future. Today my dreams go like this: I will own horses again someday. I still have my shitkickers (cowboy boots), but when I put them on they look like hooves on me because my body is still so big. I look like a cow with hooves. A cow riding a horse doesn’t work, so in my daydream I am at goal weight, I own four horses, and I take my family riding into the mountains on a beautiful summer day. I could elaborate on that all day, but putting it succinctly, it looks and feels right. Being on a horse and the horse is mine, and the horse is carrying me with minimal effort. Somewhere out there is a horse that is going to be glad I stuck with the program.
February 5th, 2020 (retrospective): The most sinister battery of all comments when I reached my goal weight: “Wow, you are really skinny! Are you sure you’re not sick or something? You just don’t look like you’re eating enough.” My mom’s favorite one is to say, “you’re getting so skinny, I hope you’re not doing something unhealthy”. I had to remind myself to MAKE NO MISTAKE – THIS IS ONE OF THE DRAGONS IN THE FOREST, and it’s coming from someone who, in all other ways besides your diet success, loves you. You are not sick, you are not doing something unhealthy, and you’re getting enough to eat, trust me. Your body is not eating itself, and you are not starving. Here’s another one I had to beware of: “Now that you’re down to the weight you want to be, you can start eating normal again.” Dammit, I’M EATING NORMAL NOW! It was before that I wasn’t normal! I made it past these, but I’m not gonna say they wouldn’t make me stop and think for a second that maybe I should add 3 or 4,000 calories to my diet every day, just so I didn’t appear sick. Laughable right? The process is a lifelong war, this is not a single-instance engineering problem I could solve and just move on. I have to deal with this every day, even when I’m sore, and even when I’m tired. And this is a two-part problem where one part is relatively simple and black and white because it just comes down to thermodynamics (eat less and move more); and the other part is technicolor because of the beautifully dangerous complexity of the human mind and its psychology. Trying to pin down a runaway brain on any given shitty day has proven to be a challenge.
My wife and kids are just totally awesome, and my friends are usually great about it too. I try to tell people as little as possible and keep it basic, avoiding the professing of anything I think I know, and boiling it down to the black and white. The twisted wires and labyrinthine structure of the mind is what I’m still trying to untwist. This is the truth, and that’s all anyone wants anyway. All I know is that I have to be cautious because even friends will often scrutinize everything I eat. If not with a verbal comment or question, then with a side-eye, and even if they aren’t scrutinizing, I think they are anyway because of so many scars. Unfortunately, this caused me to go through a period when I wouldn’t eat in public at all. The comical ironical here is that I developed this unconscious pattern of thought that eating was literally a devious activity. Think that’s crazy? I bet I’m not the only one who had to get over that. When you’re fat, but already spread the word that you’re on a diet, eating in public what you shouldn’t, or more than what you should, feels as criminally insane as if you had just put on a clown wig and clown makeup and began to calmly urinate on the salad bar at Ruby Tuesday’s.
