March 25th, 2012: Spending another day at 291. 5′-10″ tall and 291 lbs. That is horrid. The only thing I can say is at least it isn’t 350. Just repeat it to myself, at least it ain’t 5′-10” and 350 lbs. This is a long road for sure.
Pants. I used to wear Levi’s 550’s or 560’s, you know, the relaxed fit. The last time before I got fat that I even paid any attention to my waist size it was 36, with 32 length. Technically, it would still have been easier to jump over me than go around me. Still that was not a bad shape for me, I just have always had a square build. It was good for football, good for wrestling, ok for boxing, neither here nor there for baseball, and sucked for basketball.
When I was a firefighter, I only wore two types of pants: Nomex cargo pants or running shorts – and just like the footwear, that was every day for at least 8 years. Anyway, after the end of my firefighting days, I only wore those Dockers “I’m on my way to Dad-bod” khaki pants. Pretty soon each new pair I bought would require a larger waist size. Maybe that was the problem – I felt like I could grow into the new size.
One day my dad, a nice guy trying his best, took me to Macy’s (the clothes store). I was 27-years old then, so it was already uncomfortable, but we found a salesman, and my dad says to him, “Do you guys have a department for (and then dad made this gesture with his hands indicating a fat gut – though he wasn’t trying to be rude, he just doesn’t think that I would find it so humiliating) bigger guys?” I was fucking mortified – even though I didn’t even know the salesman or anything. I always just thought my life was a movie being recorded live with no real-time editing available. So the salesman took my Dad and me on my first trip to the big and tall department. To quote Doug on King of Queens, “I crossed over”.
I didn’t leave that department until two weeks ago (as I write this). In between there I graduated steadily from waist-size 42 Levi’s to 44 Levi’s, etc., until I got to wearing those pants that I guess are denim, but they don’t even have a button or a zipper fly – just an elastic waistband. They would fall down if I wore them below my gut, but if I wore them above my gut I looked like, as I’ve said before, Humpty goddamn Dumpty – at age 33. That is not good. Pretty soon I ditched those and only wore sweats everywhere – and by then it seemed I had ceased to give a fuck.
But I never truly gave up. Somewhere within me is a Phoenix, I hope, and I will rise from the ashes. Today I’m wearing size 40 Levi’s, which are the very top of what most normal size stores sell, but at least I’ve crossed back. That’s 10 inches smaller in the waist than the pair I was wearing on Christmas Day 2011. I would like to get down to 34’s. I’m afraid the length of 32 will just have to stay the same, there’s no program out there to make me taller.
March 25th, 2020: I learned that creating, starting, believing in, following, and maintaining fidelity to a program requires skill. This skill is acquired in levels, just as any other worthwhile endeavor. It’s a process of learning: sometimes by trial and error and testing, sometimes by research – and then trial and error, and sometimes by listening – and then trial and error, and over and over again. It’s like making pancakes, sometimes that process is even trial and error. If you stick with it though, you’ll get pancake perfection. Success is all but guaranteed.
Tom Brady has reached a level of skill in football that a 4th grade kid during his first year of quarterbacking a Grid-Kid team is not likely to have achieved. Weight loss is not as exciting as football, but the process of gathering the skill for it follows the same thread as all activities that require skill acquisition – like football. So I learned I couldn’t be the Tom Brady of weight loss 84 days into the program.
I’m still not there and may never be. I work with a stable of personal trainers who make my knowledge of this subject seem not much better than a layman. But – I have learned a few things. So, regarding calories, which is a continuation of a theme discussed halfway technically yesterday, here is some more basic info.
I gave you my RMR as an example of my calorie budget – 2491 calories/day. Put simply, I go over it, I gain weight, I stay under it, I lose weight. At the beginning stages of this, those calories can come from anywhere. I don’t care if they consist of bags of Skittles to total 2491 calories. This is how you start. You start gaining skill by considering how many calories you’re eating before you eat them. You become aware. I doubt you’ll gather your calorie budget with Skittles only, that’d get old and probably give you a belly-ache before long.
Again, this is the intro to this, it’s Program 101 – just learn your RMR and start counting how many calories you usually eat every day and compare that number to your RMR. Now is not the time in a 4th grader’s football career to read the defense while calling an audible at the line of scrimmage, nor is it the time in the Program to worry about the macro-profile best utilized for maximum hypertrophy. Little by little will get you a lot. Just become aware – and that’s Step 1.
