May 20th, 2012: I realized I forgot to post my weight yesterday. It was 268. So I gained yet another pound, and I’m that weight again today. One more day on this up-track, and I’m planning to make a pronounced cut to my calorie intake. I can’t exercise any harder just yet – I feel I’m pushing it as far as I can without introducing a stress fracture or some shit.
I tell ya, this battle has days that really test my belief. It’s the human nature of me, or the American boy, or whatever it is that expects results right the fuck now when you feel like you’re giving it your best.
I feel like blaming other people – it’s one of the knee jerk responses. I feel like blaming my parents and grandparents for smiling and patting me on the back for cleaning my plate, and appearing even more proud when I’d go back for seconds. I feel like blaming my mom for making believe that even chocolate chip cookies are fairly healthy because they eggs in them, and ice cream because it has milk. I feel like blaming media for putting ideas like “carb-loading” in my head, or that protein shakes with creatine in them would make me look like an Olympia bodybuilder. I feel like blaming my wife for being so damn good with the culinary arts that I just couldn’t stop eating. You name ’em, I’d blame ’em.
On some days, it’s anyone’s fault but mine. Everybody just put that food down my throat, and now I want all of this fat gone right now!
But, alas, I sigh, and look in the mirror to find out who really did this to me. And I also see that person who has to save me. And I have to learn that tweaks in the diet, which always translate to eating less, take some time before I can see any effect. I’m preparing to send another food-friend packing tomorrow, and I’ve got today to decide which friend that is, and then be ready for some additional sacrifice.
May 20th, 2020: I was blessed with an incredible ability to imagine stuff. I have a whole world going on in my mind, which I believe was conceived as soon as I was conscious of my own conscious, i.e. I realized I was alive.
This ability is both good and bad – and it’s how I navigate life through its storms and sunny days. Without it, I think there is no way I could’ve been fully successful in following the tedious processes that brought me from 350 lbs. to 189 lbs. Within one month of starting, I recall picturing myself for most of the day at 189 lbs. or even 185 lbs. or even 175 lbs. I refused to believe 350 was the end game, or 300 or even 200. Those just weren’t my sizes. I’m not a big guy, my frame isn’t that big, it’s a 185 lb. frame, give or take. And the fat and muscle surrounding it, I imagined, was commensurate with the skeletal framework to which it is attached.
Large pastures of imagination with no fences in sight and good soil for growing dreams are required to be successful on the program. These pastures need daily tending for weeds though. The same ability to grow positive dreams in these fields also allows for the quick and steady growth of thistles and knapweeds that’ll choke the optimism right out of you without conscious effort to maintain your dreams.
When my efforts don’t produce anything right before my eyes, or when I have no motivation to put forth effort, or when I can’t even put my finger on what’s wrong, I know I need to retreat to those fields of imagination – I need to picture myself accomplishing what I’m supposed to, and being the person I’ve set out to be. In the most rudimentary terms of life, i.e., that goddamn scale, I need to imagine myself as that 189-pound guy, and not the 350-pounder. This basic scale goal thang also has to be metaphorically imposed throughout all of my life’s ambitions. My key to gaining and achieving everything I’ve ever wanted lies in the ability to believe that I already have it.
