February 19th, 2012: Hopefully I’m on a steady roll into new territory. One pound down to 312 for a total of 38 lbs. lost since I started the program – 49 days ago. I guess this program could almost be thought of like a set-it-and-forget-it oven. You just do what the hell it tells you, and go along for the slow ride (the weight-loss part, that is). Sometimes you go up, sometimes you stay the same, but mostly you go down. Hopefully the ride avoids the unpleasant event of turbulence. The exercise part is different, of course. Then you drive the bus. It’s up to you how physically fit you wanna be.
So today I noticed that I can officially pull a pair of jeans up to where they’re supposed to be, which is a total non-scale victory. When you’re a fat dude, you have two choices for where your jeans ride: 1) below your gut, which makes it look like you have no ass, just a back attached to two legs. That is, unless you bend over, at which time you reveal the fact that you do, indeed, have an ass-crack. You must constantly pull up your pants. Take two steps, adjust your pants; exhale, adjust your pants. You end up wearing suspenders with your favorite football team or the brand logo of a beer or liquor on them. Then when that doesn’t do the whole job, you wear the suspenders and a belt; and you can never trust a guy that wears suspenders and a belt. 2) The other option is to pull the jeans up above your belly button, at which time the jeans are no longer jeans, but actually elastic-waistband stretch pants that resemble jeans. You can only get these at the big and tall stores. This scenario makes your body look like an egg, or humpty-goddamn-dumpty. Usually when you get to this point, you have officially, but temporarily, proclaimed “Fuck it. What should I get on my large pizza?”
Well, I am no longer that dude, as of today. The pants are Levi’s jeans and they ride where they’re supposed to. They’re baggy, but they’re comfortable and though I still need to lose 123 more lbs., I no longer look like either a dirty redneck or Mr. Ostrich Egg Body Man.
I think it should be illegal to quit dreaming when you’re still trying, so here it is:
I take my German Shepherd Dog out for a run on a fine summer evening. No foot pain, no ankle pain, no knee pain. I am 123 lbs. lighter, and man it feels like I’m floating as I jog past wheat fields with the sprinklers tap-tap-tapping. Sometimes the sprinklers hit out on the country road, and running through them in the warm July air is totally refreshing. I was going to go three miles, but I think I’ll make it six tonight.
February 19th, 2020: I have written before about how I have a nasty little secret crush on change. Life has caused this in me. I would never fuck with anything if I didn’t have to, including my diet, I just know that even if I tried to mind my own business, it’s impossible. In other words, if I don’t choose the time and place and degree to which I’ll mess with something, then life will take that role, and it seems like when I wait and let life fuck with it, I’m inevitably disappointed, have very little say in the matter, and am left playing a game of adaptation to change that I didn’t expect. I’m not alone, and I’m so extreme in my consideration of this that I will go so far as to maintain that I don’t even want to let life decide when I’m done living – read into that what you want.
So for example, when I was in the main part of the process, the straight-up weight loss process, I found that I really enjoyed Birdseye Asian Blend frozen vegetables, so I ate a bag every night for part of my dinner. And then they stopped selling them everywhere except at Wal-Mart, where I could only sporadically find them. When your life revolves around your meals, this is a big deal. I looked forward to steaming that bag of vegetables every night, putting some salsa on it, and consuming it while I read the news on the computer. Eating a bowl of steamed vegetables takes a while, and so it was part of the wind-down process too. One of the simple pleasures in a life full of complex battles. And then, well, I was forced to change. So I just started getting frozen broccoli bags then. God I hope they don’t start making them hard to find. And it got simpler and simpler from there. Bananas, ain’t going anywhere (I hope). Oatmeal – that shit’s as old as the Bible ain’t it? Meat – as long as I’m a hunter I can always get that. You get the idea.
And when I want results from a nutrition plan, I take about the same amount of time to finish my meals as my German Shepherd dogs do – five to ten minutes, max. It’s all business. But, I have never been able to hold to that for more than 3 or 4 months before something creeps in that, before I know it, has gone into my mouth and made me look at the boring diet I live by and want to – here it is – CHEAT! Food adultery. And then I do it and do it again and do it again until I get caught. And I get caught when someone says to me, “looks like you’ve been doing some weightlifting” (which is a gentle euphemism for “you’re getting fat again”), or my pants don’t fit. And then I’m embarrassed for myself and have to atone for the food sins. Without getting caught, though, I would never ever quit.
If I lived alone on a desert island where I could eat and drink whatever, whenever, and how much of whatever I wanted, I would literally eat myself into the grave. Health has always seemed secondary in this process, as my vanity remains in place for a couple more years. If nobody was watching, though, I would founder on sugar every day. Thing is, what I eat in private today, I wear in public tomorrow – and that knowledge has motivated me for 8 years.
You don’t have to eat like a dog. I just think if you want variation, you’re gonna have to be smart about it, plan ahead, pay attention to details, and regularly double-check your willpower.
