February 27th, 2012: I’ll stay at 304 today. No big deal. Maybe I wanted to anyway. Yeah right. Here’s the thing, you get a good run and then stall and there’s always a little crystal of doubt – very very small, almost microscopic, but…
I’m starting to be able to get a pretty good idea of how this works for me, so a stall was half-expected. At day 10, a stall would make me say, “oooh, this is not worrrrking. I need to step it up somehow!” But you know what, that’s the offensive player in me talking. I was a linebacker during most of my football days, and I need to apply that mentality to the program because I think it’s really more about defense. Mainly, defending against negative thoughts and defending against the urge to try and hurry this along. With me, negative thoughts lead to negative emotions, which inevitably lead down a road that ends at the refrigerator or Sizzler. So I’ll relax, let the program do what the program will do, and my metabolism (or metabulism – as a guy at work pronounces it) do its thing and just go along for the ride. Gonna be champion – just have to play solid defense. And of course, every damn day.
Which brings me to current events: Front page in our newspaper today had an article about an FDA approval of a new anti-obesity drug. The article also talked about fen-phen, which was linked to heart problems (we all remember that), and another drug that recommended you take some time off work while starting the program, that or bring an extra pair of pants with you to work (yes, one of the side effects was possible shitting of the pants). This program I’m working isn’t designed to make you shit yer pants. I assure you.
I don’t think I’d take this new pill if it came out on the market, and I’ll tell you why. First of all, it just can’t be that easy. It seems like a bailout and as we know with those, there are always many many strings attached. And second, it’s not my obesity that I truly have a problem with – obesity is just the manifestation of a screwy thought process regarding excess. This thought process is really what I need to work on, and I think the program is making me do that. I need to re-train my brain away from instant gratification. I need to be patient and look further down the road. Not later today, not tomorrow, not next month, and maybe not even next year. This has got to be one of those life-long things. I guarantee you if I lost all this weight tomorrow, I would just find something else to enjoy, enjoy it to excess, and then ruin it. It’s an attractive, but dangerous thought. Worse yet, I might find something else to worry about that can’t be solved simply by doing what I’m told and being patient. For example: Oh man, how I would love to win the lottery. But, and I’m gulping out the truth here, only for you guys okay, It. Would. Not. Be. A. good. Thing. For. Me. I bet I’d be dead in a year from excess, and if I wasn’t, I would just find something else to worry about. Seems like in the overall scheme of things, there are worse things to worry about than money and being overweight – two of life’s extremely common dilemmas. There are worse worries waiting like wolves right outside my door. I guess I shouldn’t mind minding my own business and trying to shovel my own way out of debt and working step by step to a healthier body. It’ll keep me out of real trouble.
February 27th, 2020: And you shall be tested every day. I learned that you really have to cease to be concerned about the prize at the end of this, because there is no end, there is no prize, and you can’t really quit forever even if you wanted to. This is until death, I guess. That, I learned, is both creepy and all-powerful. I realized that even if I quit, my vanity or my health or something more powerful than my excessive appetite for self-destruction would sooner or later come back like some altruistic albatross and refuse to allow the quitting to continue. Then I’d just have to start all over again – and that my friends, is a thought too sickening to entertain. I will fucking never go back there again.
