May 13th, 2012: Today is Mother’s Day. We’re probably going to go out for breakfast or brunch or something, and this isn’t something I’m looking forward to for all the reasons I’ve discussed before. The only people cool with my journey are my wife and kids.
Despite the fact that I’ve lost 85 lbs. as of today (265!!), I’ll still be badgered and bugged about something pertaining to diet. I’ll probably get something along the lines of, “Why don’t you celebrate and be happy for the sake of your wife (because it’s Mother’s Day)?” It’s pointless to argue with the person who’ll say that – because it’s only meant as a jab, and there is no rationality behind the comment. Binge-eating is not synonymous with celebrating. Eating, period, is not synonymous with celebrating. Shit, this stuff is hard sometimes. Just getting people to buy into it enough to stand behind you and not fucking question what or why you’re doing what you’re doing when it comes to your diet.
I’m not involved in an office party tomorrow either, but there was one last Friday that I forgot to write about, and I was just now remembering the first one there was shortly after I started this journey. There were donuts, breakfast burritos, and cake and pie and pizza. No kidding. It was like an all-you-can-eat-all-day potluck.
As I had discussed back then, it is extremely uncomfortable to be the fattest person in the room when the curtain is pulled back on the food table at the office party. You think, and you are correct, that everyone is watching to see the damage you’ll do to the offerings. So what do you do, you say, “Oh, I’m not hungry”, or you just get a little piece and it just pisses you off, and then you go home later and eat a whole large Papa Murphy’s and a quart of ice cream. Why does it have to be that way? Why is it so uncomfortable?
I decided that rather than try to fight this way of thinking in other people, and fight this way of thinking in myself, I would think of situations like this as fuel for my fire. Wood to put in the oven and gas in the tank. Every time I wonder if I should skip a workout or eat crap I think about those oddly uncomfortable times.
I guess you know, you can’t change other people, but you can change yourself. So when the facility manager brought in box after box of breakfast burritos on Friday, I just smelled the wonderful smell (probably gained a pound just from that), and used the whole situation as fuel to push me this weekend. I said to myself, “Never again am I going to be in that particular position. Never again.” I don’t ever want to be the fattest person in the room again at a buffet or potluck or office “food” party again.
All of that last paragraph sound familiar? It’s cause the feelings of anger at myself for putting myself in this position are still here, as is the determination they caused within me. This is good. I continue to have the feelings, and I continue to have the motivation to punch and kick and bite and do whatever I have to do to escape the chains man, and get this monkin’ fuckey offa my back.
May 13th, 2020: I’m a few days behind on this, but I wanted to write about another situation where the program clashed with tradition – Mother’s Day.
I’ve learned that in society, when something gets protested or fought for to a tipping point, traditions and customs tend to morph into new things. Out with the old, in with the new. I resist this phenomenon because I’m just like you, and often find change difficult. However, I’ve also learned that change is inevitable, so being flexible enough to roll with forced adjustment can become critical to your survival. If not physically, then mentally. And you know what else? Sometimes doing shit just “because that’s how we’ve always done it” just doesn’t cut it anymore, and we might find the new much, much better than the old.
On the program, I finally got sick of bucking all the traditions. I had to, because, and I’ve written about it before, it seems that all the traditions, especially holiday traditions REVOLVED AROUND EATING!!! The program doesn’t let me eat like everyone else does, and this immediately makes me stand out from the crowd. At the eating parties, there was always a palpable feeling of being looked down upon for not partaking. It was even more obvious when any weight I had lost, up to that point, was not obvious. These were days when people still bothered to bother me about why I wasn’t eating what they were, or how much of it.
They’ve gotten over it, or I have. It could be that I don’t care what people think at the traditional eating-party events. I’ve fought for and reached the tipping point in my life. My idea of traditions, with regard to holidays, has gradually transitioned into what I consider physically and mentally healthier.
What’s interesting is how that has gradually caught on with others in my life. I can’t exactly say that I’m proud to have been part of the unraveling of the customary plan of cooking and eating $300 of sugar and fat between 4 to 6 people, but I’m stoked with the potential new traditions. As the unraveling of a bullshit reason to eat like an asshole continues, and I witness it, I’m thinking there’s no reason to prevent the new ways from edging out the old.
Juliana didn’t ask me to take her out for dinner, and I didn’t plan it either because I know her idea of traditions has changed along with mine. I’m not saying the Mother’s Day dinner is wrong, or that I don’t appreciate and honor all Mother’s on this day the same as I do the other 364 1/4 days; but eating our way through it just doesn’t fit our new idea of tradition. We do other things that don’t revolve around food, and we find those new traditions just as satisfying. Not ever binge-eating again, or going out to eat again, or eating like an asshole again is not realistic – it’s gonna happen, but I don’t need to do this on a specific calendar date just to satisfy an old-fashioned tradition for old-fashioned people who really don’t give a damn anyway. We’ll binge and fuck-up the diet, etc. on the day WE planned, and on the holidays, we’ll celebrate them by doing something that doesn’t specifically involve eating.
