May 31st, 2012: I’ve gained another pound. I expected this one. I looked back at my weight charts and confirmed that I tend to go through this digression (back up the scale) every 10 days or so, and I’m in the middle of the 10 days or so. This fact, along with a food excursion, is causing some upheaval in my goals and my mind.
Like a well-drilled student or soldier, however, I’m just going to consciously remain calm and return to fundamentals. At 268, I’m frighteningly close to returning to the 270’s. However, this remaining calm thing means that I need to realize I am not, in fact, in the 270’s, still the 260’s, and the program has not failed me yet. I’ve failed it several times, and received, in return, a relatively immediate trip behind the woodshed for some red-ass re-education.
So I’m going to return to fundamentals, and that means some nearly meditative visualization and a look ahead down this road that still seems to stretch out in front of me FOREVER. I have to set my shoulders, take a deep breath, and just start walking in a straight line again. Let the program do what the program does.
May 31st, 2020: I never really finished my thoughts about teammates.
I, of course, have to be the President and Commander-in-Chief of my own life, but every great leader knows that to achieve your goals, you have to surround yourself with great people. I think these people have to have a mixture of personality and expertise that are all parts of this jigsaw puzzle that make up your vision for a better future for either the people you lead, or in the case of my perpetual weight loss war, just me.
This team of mine isn’t obligated to fight alongside me, and other than Juliana, they don’t know even they’re right next to me in the trenches. Some of them don’t even know they’re on my team, and even weirder, I’ve never met many of them and likely never will. Are you picking up what I’m laying down? This team is part imaginary, part real. They are all individuals with their own struggles, and I can’t be pleading with them to drop what they’re doing just to come cover my six anytime I’m taking fire. We’re a team only in imaginary concept, and only in practice so long as I could pay them, request an occasional direct favor, or truly fight alongside them. Don’t ever underestimate the power of imagination, however.
Being part of a team makes me want to be my very best, whether I’m the last in line green-rookie, or the at very front, on point, leading us into uncharted territory through the Mirkwood forest. On my team, I have my wife and kids. Juliana, Sam, and Will are my squad, my tribe, my posse. Beyond them, my parents and my brothers, back when we all got along, are part of my team, because I still activate the occasional remembered lines they spoke to me, or things they did to me, or for me to help me through hard times. My friends are here too, those I still see every day, and those who were always good to me back in the day.
Football coaches, boxing trainers, teachers – all people who I may never see again, they still give me a hand when I need it. I have imaginary leaders like that badass SEAL instructor Patstone, and Chief Taylor is right there with him. I pretend Mike Tyson gives me advice on boxing, as does Floyd Mayweather Jr. Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper from the Biggest Loser encourage me to lose the weight, keep it off forever, and pass on my knowledge as I acquire it.
In a concrete sense, I have my family doctor, my orthopedic surgeons, my former personal trainer who I still try to steal advice from on occasion, my supervisors at my jobs, my clients at the gym, and the kids on my boxing team. I’m somewhere in the middle of them when it comes to age, experience, ability etc. All are people who expect me to try my hardest, allow for times when I’m not even near adequate, and believe that I’m always going to show up, one way or another.
Building a team is good way to navigate life, and I’m convinced that it’s the only way you can ultimately be successful at endeavors as complicated and time consuming as a weight loss war . The team becomes something bigger and more important than you are. There’ve been so many times I’ve felt that I, alone, wasn’t worth this kind of effort. Having my team around, however, reminds me that I’d better pull my shit together and remind myself that “hey buddy, it ain’t all about you”. The Program is often so goddamn hard, you’re going to need something bigger and more important than yourself to which you must give your best effort.
