I know this is here – this little blog to my failure. This monument to my inability to get the job done.
I think “I should go blog about being fat”. But really, what is there to say?
I avoid scales, I don’t avoid good food. I don’t think it will be much of a surprise when I get on the scale that I’m equal to or greater than my starting weight.
Sigh.
I wish I could feel something. My brain thinks of all the reasons why I “should” do this. My heart can’t feel it. Maybe it will be one of those poetic stories of really finding the motivation once it’s too late. One of those cautionary tales that people relate to fat people all the time trying to motivate us through the misfortune and shortsightedness of others…
Patti, one of my blog readers, suggested I just do it. Don’t wait to feel it, just do it. I thought that was the dumbest thing I had ever heard in my life when I read it. (hang in there Patti it’s coming back around) I am an artist don’t-cha-know! I only do things that MOVE me. I am not one of those poor left-brained bastards that you simply program and send on their way into the world…
Maybe it’s time I was. Maybe there IS something to just doing it. (Don’t you hate it when some marketing jugernaut takes a saying and completely ruins it – every time I type that phrase, every time I THINK about typing that phrase I think of tennis shoes. Stupid marketers mucking up my blog post with their implanted ideas)…
Where was I – oh yes. Just doing it.
I’m experimenting with tele-commuting. The company that runs the parking garage under the Gateway has many misguided notions about how to treat fellow human beings (that is to say “they suck”). I’m not giving them another dime.
Plus I was driving to a cubicle (with a fabulous view mind you) but nobody on my team was there. I still communicated through texts, email, conference calls. Why am I spending money to do this? So my boss agreed to a trial of me working from home…
My point? Well I suppose I should get to it.
With this big change in my life comes 3 hours a day that I’m not spending driving/parking on the freeway/parking for real. I have some time. It’s like a $5 bill you find in an old pair of pants – the mind boggles at the possibilities…
So maybe I just start doing it. Maybe I spend some of this found time focusing on what will eventually make me happier. I have no doubt it will – just wish I could feel it now. You know?
That’s a LOT of typing for a guy who wasn’t sure what to say
The last Biggest Loser I watched is the one where they ran the Biggest Loser Marathon.
Did you see that Samoan guy from last season? He’s put on 80 pounds I’d guess.
Did you see that kid from this season, he’s back home for a month and he’s recording footage of him bingeing at 1:00 in the morning because of stress, and he’s put 2 pounds back on in a month. (the same month he ran tons of miles to train for the marathon – you have to eat a ton of calories to counter that kind of running, and he did it!)
So six months of working out 8 hours a day is enough to change the outside, but not enough to change the inside. I still maintain that if I figure out how to change the inside, the outside will take care of itself. If I can find the secret key to turn inside my head, if I can link stress relief to another form – or if I can feel like I’m in control of my life by doing something else besides eating… if I can figure out how to want to be active and feel great about life when I’m doing something other than working at a computer…
But that key is elusive. I spent about $700 on Isagenix. I knew going in it wasn’t going to work for me, but I thought if I went through the pain of spending that kind of cash…
No dice. My inside is the same – and my outside is still fat.
I see my reflection in the glass storefronts of where I work, and I end up eating cookies because I feel so out of control…
Man, this is messed up.
You know what, I think this is the MAIN thing that disturbs me. I don’t know how to change the inside. I have had people tell me just do it, just change the outside and the inside will change. My feeling is that isn’t so, and from what I’m seeing of fat former biggest loser contestants, I think they are proving I’m right.
Filed under: Nutrition, Thoughts and Observations | Tags: binge, eating, much, my, sabotaging, success, too, way
I’ll admit it. I’ve never had it.
I’ll be playing racquetball and I’ll get to where I’m ahead 12-4 and I’ll just coast. I’ve lost more games where I was ahead 12-4 because all of a sudden my opponent gets mad, competitive, whatever, and comes roaring back – I’ve lost my momentum and by the time I’ve got it back he’s doing a little victory dance.
I had that killer instinct for a while as a freelance artist – but one day I realized I was causing stress and pain in my life and my families lives by stressing over details my clients didn’t even realize were there. I was so focused on “perfection” that I was adding stuff to my work that made no difference to my clients. So I went to this mode of “work-feedback-work-feedback” and when the client says they love it, I do three or four more things (that the client knows about) to make it even better, and call it good.
As I’ve aged I’ve become more comfortable with who I am. If my lawn isn’t offensive, that’s good enough. I no longer need to feel like I’m working to have the best lawn on the block…
So I find that I’m completely off the wagon for weight loss. I was at IFA (Intermountain Farmers Association) last night pricing chickens and buying seed for the garden. As I’m checking out I see Boston Baked Beans and Circus Peanuts – large bags of them – next to the check out. I’m overcome with a wave of nostalgia and buy them to share with the boys after we’ve finished our garden planting for the night.
The Boston Baked Beans never made it to my house. When I finished the bag I looked and realized I’d just eaten 1400 calories as I drove home.
Yesterday after lunch I HAD to have a cookie. So I got one of those Grandma B Sugar Cookies – like 520 calories per cookie.
See, I’m completely out of control.
On my way to work this morning I realized that it all started when I realized I had lost weight at the doctor – the very next day I was eating more, exercising less…
Just like racquetball – once I get ahead I start to coast?
It occurred to me that I’m sabotaging my success. Something in my still doesn’t want to be in shape, healthy. As I type this I think it might be true. What is it I’m afraid of?
It’s a disturbing thought. Wonder how I proceed…
P.S. I have to give myself props for at least being aware of the calories, of being aware of what I’m doing.
Filed under: Humor, Nutrition, Thoughts and Observations | Tags: binging, eating, like, no, so sick I can't even sleep from being such a pig, there's, tomorrow
There’s a place out by the Great Salt Lake, it’s east of Saltair, and I know it as the “Temple of the Birds”.
It’s a concrete structure that has been there forever, and it’s covered in all kinds of graffiti, and is a favorite among many photographers in the Salt Lake area. It’s a great location. When you get tired of the building, you can shoot in the burned out remains of an old trolley car that sits right next to it.
I agreed to meet a couple of my friends out there on Saturday morning to do a shoot – they wanted to learn more about lighting on location, so that’s where we decided to do it.
Britanny, Alec (my daughter and our model for the shoot) and I pulled up and found the gate to be shut and locked. No problem, we’ll just climb it. I got out of the car and walked across the road to access what we were up against, and I walked into what felt like a puff of powdered sugar. It was almost imperceptible except for the burning sensation around my hairline and my ears.
I had walked into a cloud of “no-see-ums”. I don’t know what they really are – but I do know they are vicious. They are some kind of gnat that is roughly the size of a pinhead, and made entirely of teeth. Iv’e run into them before, I got a dozen of them in my helmet once when I was riding my motorcycle in this same area – it was painful then – it was worse now…
Soon they had worked their way through my hair and my entire scalp was being eaten. The girls were under attack too, so we ran for the car.
They were in the car too – well to be fair, they probably rode in on my head! I’m smashing my head with my hands trying to get the little buggers to stop eating me. How could such tiny things cause so much pain?
Finally I just decided that I’d let them eat their fill, and then fly away. I took about 20 minutes for the little guys to fill up. We moved down the shoreline to another location for our shoot – my mind was soon preoccupied with lighting and technical issues – but later I realized, when I washed my hair, just how painful this was going to be. Here I am on Monday and the tops of my ears and most of my head is so tender to the touch I just can’t believe it.
Here’s the connection. On the weekends (well the last two at least) I eat all food that is not good for me like those no-see-ums ate my scalp. Ferociously attacking anything thing that is sweet, salty, or fried. I lay in bed at night and can’t sleep as my stomach struggles to finish digesting what I’ve done to it that morning/afternoon/evening/night and I think of those no-see-ums, seeing me as a giant food source and attacking and feeding on all they can. Gorging themselves on the available food while it’s available.
On the weekends I’ve been just like them. All teeth, no brain.
I hope they had a hard time sleeping that night too.
Filed under: Inspiration, Thoughts and Observations | Tags: biggest, exercise, hurts, loser, when you're fat
Ok, that’s not totally honest. I don’t watch a TV any more – I’m consuming all of my video programming over the internet. Hulu.com – ever heard of it?
Here’s my beef with the Biggest Loser. They edit it.
Well, I don’t really want to watch ALL of the footage, but they cut some pretty crucial information from the show.
Have you noticed that we have no idea what these people are eating? My guess is it’s an astounding amount of calories – if they are working out as much as I think they are working out, and for as big as they are, they might be eating 4,000 – 5,000 calories a day. That’s going to mislead a lot of people, lead to law suits, I get that.
Have you noticed we never have any idea of the lingering pain after the work outs? We see Jillian and Bob just wailing on the poor fat people in the gym, screaming “last chance workout” a lot, and then we cut to non-sweating people talking calmly to the camera. You have to watch very carefully to catch the clues to what’s really happening.
For instance, watch whenever they show a full body shot – like when they are walking to the weigh-ins. They usually do it in slow motion, and cut fast, so look quickly! So many of these people are wearing ice packs. Knees, ankles, elbows, if you watch you can see – these people are in pain.
For a fat guy I consider myself in pretty good shape. My blood pressure is great, no diabetes, none of that scary stuff they have on the BL.
In fact, I can pretty much guarantee I can beat you pretty handily at racquetball. I move pretty good, and I’ve got a great aim.
But after racquetball, it’s days before I can walk right again. Treadmill walking/running is just brutal on my knees and ankles. I wake up and they are swollen, the tendons are tender, it hurts. I wish I had trainers around to ice me down…
So I’m just saying. This process I’m going through hurts. Besides hurting my back lifting incorrectly, my joints that take the beating hurt just about all the time.
Even riding a stationary bike, although much better than a treadmill, will leave my aching and having a hard time going back down the stairs at the gym.
I’ve tried to cut back on the whining on my blog here – realizing that victim mentality I had moved me to a new place mentally about all of this. But at the same time I think it’s important to let you know – this hurts.
Hurts so good. Feels like I’m getting somewhere finally. That rocks.
Filed under: Nutrition, Thoughts and Observations | Tags: biggest loser, calories, counting, diary, food, forming, habits, new
Ok. One more week closer to the end of the Biggest Loser, and I heard it again. In fact, of the whole show I remember them being so inspirational to the participants in the 5k, and this one quote…
“You have to count every calorie that goes into you”.
Bob was talking to a woman that needed to lose five more pounds to get to her goal, but it seems like every time I watch the show, I hear that phrase in one way or another.
Generally I’ve found in life that when one certain thing keeps making itself “heard”, keeps making itself manifest to me, it tends to be an answer to some question I have, or don’t know I have yet…
Did that make sense?
Well my delete key is broken, so I’m not going to edit it. But what I’m saying is I think the fact that I keep hearing “count calories” in my life, and I’m on this quest to find a way to lose this weight… well I’m taking it as a sign.
I think I’ll go back to http://www.myfooddiary.com/ and pay the $9 a month. I don’t love it, but I hate everything else I’ve tried. In the past it’s helped to regulate my food intake when I’m keeping track of everything going into me. At least I can go back and see my history and where I need to do better.
I know what you’re thinking – c’mon Doug, can you really count calories for the rest of your life?
I hear you. The way I see it is I need to really slow down, take a look at what I’m doing, and start to form some new habits. Once the new habits are formed, I’ll take off the training wheels and try to live like a big boy again.
Until then, I start logging what I eat.
Now what would really be interesting is if I could take a Facebook approach to this. That is publish my food diary for the world to see. I wonder if I’d think twice about those pop tarts when I knew that all four of you that read this would see it –
I suppose I could just add it to the blog, but that would be a pretty intensely boring blog I must say…
Off to log my calories for the day…
Filed under: Inspiration, Thoughts and Observations, Weighing In | Tags: belt, holes, losing weight, notches, weight
I dropped by the shoe shop yesterday. For the last three weeks I’ve been living in fear of my pants dropping around my ankles. It was time to upgrade the belt.
I have the guy just put more holes in it, so I can kind of watch the progress.
I mentioned to him that I wasn’t sure if my body was smaller, or the belt had stretched bigger. He asked how many new holes I wanted, I told him five.
He punched the holes, I paid him my dollar and put the belt back on. I cinched it up to the fourth new hole – probably a three inch difference. He asked if I wanted more holes – I decided that I enjoyed the process of coming in to celebrate my body changing.
He mentioned as I left that it’s hard to stretch a piece of leather three inches. Then he grinned at me – I appreciated that.
The scale still is locked at the 392 number, but I am starting to feel different. When I move it seems easier, like I’m lighter. It’s hard to explain, but I’m digging it.
Filed under: Thoughts and Observations
A few weeks ago I interviewd Kit about her struggles with anorexia – I posted it on my other blog People Story Network.
She said something that I’ve been thinking about. She said when your body is losing weight it gets cold – that she felt cold all the time when she was suffering from her disease.
I think about that as I sit here in my cubicle with a sweater on. I used to drink ice water all the time, now it’s just water. The ice water makes me so cold I can barely type or use my mouse. Since that’s how I make my living, I kind of need to stay warm enough to at least mouse!
So I wonder if that’s what I’m experiencing? The scale indicates that I’m not losing weight at all. But I’m cold a lot more, and my body is certainly changing shape…
Filed under: Thoughts and Observations
My son came home a week ago – he’s been in England for two years on an LDS mission. Guess how we celebrated.
Food. Sigh.
Then I flew to Pittsburgh on Monday to film a video. Guess what the best part of travel is (especially business travel).
Food. Sigh.
We work hard all day, and head into the unknown to find a place to eat at night. I try to make good decisions (salmon the first night) but when I’m tired my resolve dissolves.
Sleeping in a hotel just doesn’t work well for me. Actually, knowing I’m in a place where I have to show up in order for a $1500/day crew to be able to work – that weighs on me all night. I set two alarms, but I still wake up every 45 minutes – two hours wondering if I’ve overslept.
So by the third night – I’m trashed. I stopped by a convenience store and bought diet coke, chips, and snack cakes for dinner, and at them ALL. Fell into a dead sleep because I didn’t have to be awake until noon to catch my flight…
So now I realized that being tired is bad for my self-control… my commitment to be different.
Still lifting hard. Love that feeling of muscles that have worked. That quivering shaky feeling that happens until I get some protein into me. So I’m enjoying my time at the gym more now.
Oh yeah, another problem with travel. Hampton Inns don’t have any kind of exercise, and after being on my feet for 12 hours going for a walk to exercise just didn’t appeal to me for some reason…
Filed under: Inspiration, Thoughts and Observations | Tags: breaking through, empowered, enough, epiphany, good, holding me back, vicitm mentality
Biggest Loser had a pretty profound effect on my last night.
There’s a girl on there, she’s blue. See how great I am with names? I looked it up, her name is Victoria. The show shows her running sprints one day – she kept grabbing the edge of the treadmill and jumping off. Jillian wasn’t going to let her go until she did it correctly. It took her two hours to finally do it.
Next day. Jillian tells her she’s going to run sprints next to every person there while they run sprints. She has to do 35 sets of sprints where the day before she could barely do five. Know what? She did it! She broke through and did it physically. But after she was done she was almost morose, almost pouting. I couldn’t understand it. Neither could Jillian.
Jillian pulls her aside and says, in essence, “You should be celebrating a huge accomplishment in your life, but you’re acting like you’ve been punished, like you’re in trouble. You’re acting like you’re a victim here”.
BAM! Tears are running out of my eyes. Victoria is telling Jillian how she never feels like she’s good enough, at anything. That hits a deep chord with me – a huge chunk of what makes me tick right there in one sentence. I never feel like I’ve done it “right”, that I’m good enough to be loved, to be admired, for people to look up to me. It affects my life as a father, my spirituality, my career, as a husband – well, you get it. My whole life I’m fighting this sickening fear, this whispering underneath all the confidence and accomplishment–”you’re not good enough”.
Of course, last night, sitting on my bed with my laptop watching Biggest Loser on Hulu, I don’t really know any of this. I just know I’m crying. Something has hit something deep within me.
I woke up this morning realizing the “why”.
The corollary to this is the realization that I’m going to the gym, that I’m eating every meal in “victim mode”. Like I’m being punished for my past sins of gluttony. Sackcloth and ashes riding a stationary bike, doing penitence for my sins.
I woke up this morning and realized that’s bullshit. Sorry. That’s what I thought.
That coupled with my chat with the skinny/strong lady at the gym, and Bob saying that we find our barriers, we break through, and we set bigger goals feels like my breakthrough.
I started strength training. I’ve been avoiding it because it adds weight when I add muscle. Let it be. I LOVE lifting heavy weight, feeling my muscles screaming as the lactic acid builds. That shaky feeling when you finally drop the weight and blood flow is restored to the muscle. It’s so great!
I love it. I deserve to do stuff I love. I’m doing it.
Then on the bike, every time my legs started aching, instead of shifting to a lower gear to release the pain, I pedaled harder. Listening to Nickelback, pedaling to the beat. Seeing my muscles aching as a barrier to break through, to smash! I kicked my butt! In twenty minutes I went 7 miles – mostly uphill. A new record for sure. I’m breaking it tomorrow.
I’m not a victim. I’m taking back my life! I’m not robbing myself of food that tastes good, punishing myself, I’m eating food that will enable my body to regain that life sooner. I’m doing those things because I CHOOSE. I am in control here.
It’s been a good 12 hours.
And while we’re at it. Screw the scale. If I feel better, if I break through new barriers every day, if I lift heavier weights and feel my body getting stronger–it is enough. The scale will comply to my goals in time.
Doug Losing Weight 