May 2nd, 2012: So I’m back here at work, counting the days, and it’s time to take a look back to January 2nd. Remember my first post? It just said “Feeling motivated”. I was sitting at this same desk, typing on the same computer. The months go fast, I’m tellin ya. I’m an even 270 lbs. today, so I was 80 lbs. heavier then, and honestly pretty scared.
Although motivated, I was unsure what was going to happen. I only knew one thing, I promised myself I’d stay on this program if I lost 2 lbs. the first week. That’s all I could say to myself. I was scared and I knew the first part of the program was going to suck. Plain and simple. Change is often good, and I knew I needed that change, but I had no idea what was going to happen.
I certainly haven’t forgotten that I have 81 more miles to walk, and I have yet to cross the Mississippi metaphorical mid-point in the journey. Maybe that’ll happen in the next day or two.
The rate of the change has decreased. I now get stuck in weight decades for longer it seems (I haven’t actually compared dates to weights to determine average rates), but my motivation has skyrocketed. “Feeling motivated” is nothing compared to how I feel now as I prepare for the back half.
The program is giving me life, and it’s not killing me to get that life. More than occasionally there’s a gnawing of some sort in my life that I know is related to self-denial, but the time spent clenching my jaw and pondering it with melancholy is decreasing, and all the while my confidence quietly builds.
May 2nd, 2020: Fear is good actually, if you can use it to your advantage, but that doesn’t change the fact that I wish I didn’t have to face it constantly in its ghost-form.
The ghost of fear is demented mostly because it’s a phantom of the future. Most ghosts and shit are some form of dead thing from the past. The past isn’t scary, it’s just a collection of facts to add to the knowledge database; the future, on the other hand…
Real stuff isn’t that scary either. Maybe you’re scared of a bear or a snake or something, but those are tangible items that ain’t likely to follow you to work, or to bed, or ride shotgun in your truck.
No, the real specter is all this garbage you toss around in your brain about what “might” happen, and all the possible ways it’s gonna fuck you up. I learned that for me, defeating this fear (and I’m not saying I’m even close to 100% efficient at it – yet), requires a daily dose of a cocktail that includes a self-evaluation of my self-efficacy, a look back at things I’ve done “correctly” in the past, an imagination of myself as the smartest and scariest motherfucker in the valley of death, a pinch of pragmatism about my truly tiny role in the scheme of things, and then finally, a cup of fuck-it, que sera sera.
When I entered the Thunderdome of the program on January 2nd of 2012, I had none of those above items honestly – none were readily accessible tools anyway. The program helped me lose the weight, but I think the greatest gift of it all was learning the recipe for the No Fear cocktail.
