May 24th, 2012: You just aren’t gonna yield that easily, are you fucker? All I really wanted was 16 oz. gone from my life, but all I got was like 7 oz. I don’t feel like doing the conversion right now, but the damn scale bounced back and forth from 263.4 to 263.5 and back about 4 times, kinda like a roulette pill hopping from 00 to 0, and eventually settling on 00 when I’ve got my life savings sitting on 0. So guess what, another day at 264.
I went straight from the bathroom scale, opened the fridge, removed the two chocolate muffins in there, and threw them in the garbage. Then I added some green Dawn dish soap. There’ll be a little gnawing sadness tonight. I should replace them with something a little less caloric, just to soften the blow, but I can’t think of anything, so I’ll just embrace the suck.
I’ll once again turn philosophy into actual practice by choosing to feel better in the morning, rather than at night, so when I wake up tomorrow I can chalk one up for the win, even if the win is only in my mind.
Usually that’s all I get too, because there’s a lag time between when I cut calories and when the scale acknowledges it. Buckle up and believe, it’s all I can do.
You wouldn’t thing something so small as giving up a chocolate muffin would be so hard on a guy would you? But spend most of your life eating whatever you want and too much of it, and you’ll understand right away that it’s damn near as sad as seeing a friend you hung out with for all of your elementary school years move away after 6th grade.
May 24th, 2020: Tragedy. Here is another “is”. Tragedy is in the eye of the beholder, and the measure of its effect on you is directly related to how close you are to the epicenter.
If you love deeply, it hurts worse, but don’t think that trying not to love as much makes you immune to it. If you’re cursed with the disease to love a person or a pet, then like everything else, you’ll have to witness them turn into dust in the wind at some point, unless of course, you go down that road first, which has sometimes seemed like it would’ve been much much easier.
So how in the hell do you go on with your life at all, when the epicenter of it sometimes seems like it was partly inside of you? Further, and seemingly so much more trivial, how are you supposed to maintain your own health? And why in the fuck would you even consider continuing the program? What is the point? What is the program? Who am I? Where do I go from here?
And all of these questions answered in order are: you just do, you just do, because you should, because you were gifted a life, it’s a system of belief in yourself, you are you, and you go forward to the next minute, hour, or day.
Just like vacation and binge-eating are not synonymous, holidays and binge-eating are not synonymous, and illness and binge-eating are not synonymous, neither are tragedy and binge-eating. And get ready for people to present to you some very good food, and lots of it, in the innocent way of people to help you through the tough time.
I am coming from a place of experience. I have lost loved ones while on the program. I was once informed, while I was BETWEEN SETS OF BICEP CURLS that a loved one had unexpectedly died!! This is no bullshit. I can tell you I did not finish that workout. I can tell you that the body-shot it delivered damn near KO’d me from the program. I can also, years later, and with pride, tell you that I carried on, and did not miss a day on the program, or binge-eat through the snot and tear drops.
I think it was the right thing to do. And as I’ve said before, I’ll say it again, I have to keep going no matter what – even if the rocks melt and the sea burns.
