Went to the doctor – they told me to get on the scale. I told them I was avoiding them. She said “get on the scale” all menacing-like. She was five feet tall, I was intimidated, I did what the girl said!
384.
Down 18 from the first of the year, down 1o from the last time I got on a scale.
I’ll take it. 🙂
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: General Whining, Thoughts and Observations, Weighing In | Tags: depressed, hopeless, sad, this isn't working and it will take me forever to lose this stupid weight
I have to admit, I’ve judged my fellow human beings harshly.
I’ve seen many people have their inner plumbing altered in one way or another in order to lose weight. My thoughts have been harsh – “just man up and get some self-control and stop putting stuff in your mouth” I think. The weight comes off, everyone tells them how great they look. But in my mind they’ve cheated. Taken the easy way out.
Now I think I might understand.
Now I really really want to lose this. I’m so tired of feeling crappy.
I had a business trip to San Francisco last week. My time there, at this conference my company sponsors, is pretty intense. I have to stay in these expensive hotels where food is expensive, and it’s questionable whether my company will reimburse me. The conference provides food as part of the deal, but often it’s hard for me to get over to the convention center at the right times to get the food.
This all ends in me not eating very much. I’m on my feet constantly, hauling stuff around, interviewing people and recording people and the event with still images, and I’m focused. For about 4 days straight I am completely creatively focused on what I am doing.
The week before the conference I was very good at sticking to my two shake, one meal, one healthy snack regimen.
So when I came home and saw the scale was fixed at the gym, I was looking forward to a lower number, to seeing how much weight working out, sticking to my regimen, and spending a week on my feet with very little food (comparatively) would translate to weight loss.
My weight was the same. I hadn’t even lost one pound. Man that’s depressing to type, to admit to the world (or all three of you who read this).
So now we’re in April, three and a half months into the year where I’m going to lose 140 pounds. I’ve lost 8. At that rate it will take me 4.4 years to lose the weight.
But it’s not even that. I lost 8 pounds in one week – then life happened I guess. It hasn’t been a slow and steady progression, it’s been one stellar week and then nothing.
And I suppose that’s what the real challenge is here. If I could go to a ranch somewhere and just focus on getting my habits fixed, fixing my relationship with food, I think I could lose the weight. I have no faith that I would be able to keep it off once life started back up for reals again.
I have people in my life tell me that I should feel good, that 8 pounds is great. I have a hard time seeing it that way.
So now I start to understand the mentality of those that go in for surgery, who go in to have parts of them removed, or their plumbing re-plumbed so they can keep eating whatever they want and the body just doesn’t absorb it. I can see how after years of “trying” I could come to the conclusion that surgery is the only way out.
As I sit here now, I don’t really know what to do next. There’s canisters of shake mix in my pantry, but I have no motivation to replace meals with them. All those shakes I’ve gagged down (there are recipes that make it less nasty, but they rarely tasted good to me) and I haven’t lost much. My body just doesn’t seem to buy the fact that a drink is a meal – I still want to chew something. So I do.
Back to those habits.
So I have a hard time thinking that this approach is going to work for me.
I know I could sit down and devise a plan of what to eat in the whole food realm, working out every day, eating lots of raw and whole foods – I know what to do…
But then life will happen. I’ll get busy, I’ll try to squeeze in some interviews for my People Story Network after work, I’ll take a freelance gig to help someone out, I’ll get motivated by some creative vision at work and work late for a couple of nights – and there I’ll be out in the world with my body completely out of food, nothing around me but highly processed, highly sugared food…
And I’ll stay up so late working that getting up at 6:00 am to workout won’t happen…
And the wheels come off the track and there I’ll be… in front of my computer blogging about how hard it is.
So how do I do this?
The scale said 292!
I’ve lost 100 pounds in a little over a week! I’m so excited!
Or the scale is still broken.
One of those…
Filed under: Weighing In
The scale at the gym is broken. No number again this week.
If you want a lesson in what a government run anything works like compared to a private enterprise – drop by Marv Jensen on 104th South Redwood Road in South Jordan. Really great people trapped in a archaic outdated system that doesn’t give a flip about it’s customers.
But I digress.
I’ll hope they get it fixed by Monday. I’m not at all confident that it’s going to be good.
It’s hard to think it’s not going to be good, AND be home with all this food – wife is baking homemade bread even as I type.
Filed under: Family Relations, Weighing In | Tags: biggest, eat whatever the hell I want, expectations, fight, fighting, loser, losing, melt down, regret, too much sugar, tv show, weight, weight loss, wife
I watch the Biggest Loser. I kind of live what I hope to accomplish in advance by watching them… did that make sense? Everything I see them do is what I picture in my future. And when they have breakthroughs about their self-worth I realize how much I’ve suffered in that regard too, feelings of being ashamed of what I am getting in the way of me living life with joy and faith…
And I cry. Yep. Right there in front of the laptop (I watch on Hulu) I just let the tears run down my face. As they realize they are great it reaffirms it to my soul too. I am great. Sometimes I forget.
But the show has a downside. They lose HUGE numbers every week. So I get it in my head that I’m going to lose double digits every week.
So I get on the scale on Saturday and I’ve lost 4-5 more pounds. I’m devastated. So overall that’s 13 pounds in two weeks. Not bad. Actually kind of great. But that’s not how my brain saw it.
So Sunday I find myself facing fish sandwiches, pizza, a bag of candy, and more pop. I know I’m not supposed to, but for some reason I just can’t seem to shake this craving. I mean CRAVE. I eat it, I feel sick. The sugar in my system is draining my energy, I feel sluggish and heavy. And I don’t care. I want more…
Now this was kind of triggered by a pretty major emotional hit, my wife and I certainly not agreeing on a particular topic that is at the foundation of our lives. So I grab my camera, take off to find photos, and end up stopping at every convenience store I see for the next five hours…
I know, I’m not happy about it either.
Then yesterday, the machine in the break room is calling my name like some beautiful voluptuous siren. Pop tarts yesterday morning, cookies in the afternoon, then pie at home for family night refreshments last night.
So I’m thinking all of this through on the way to work today. Thinking about it while I work. How can the wheels just come off like that?
Here’s my working theory. Four pounds. I had big expectations, I came up way short, I voted myself off of the ranch. Subconsciously I think if I can’t be a hero why even try. So my mind releases all of the brakes that hold me back from what I know I don’t want, and I run into the mine field of Wendy’s ready to do myself some seriously great tasting harm.
It didn’t taste that great. I didn’t get much out of it in the way of enjoyment. Just the punishment of it all.
Man that sounds warped.
But I’m still going to the gym.
Still replacing two meals a day with shakes.
Still taking supplements.
Still feeling much better everyday.
Gotta keep those expectations in check…
So it’s been what, three weeks since I worked out? Are you keeping track? Neither am I really…
But I got this amazing head cold. Oh the gory details I am sparing you! But it’s finally in the clearing stages, I hope, and I woke up today pretty motivated.
You see, I’m getting on an airplane in five weeks. My annual business trip is upon me, and I woke up just sick that I’m still fat and will have to overflow my seat into some other person’s seat, and who knows, if it’s Southwest Airlines maybe even be asked to leave…
It’s not a thing I look forward to. I keep thinking, it’s only in San Francisco, maybe I could drive…
So I wake up feeling pretty good and feeling really motivated to do the best I can for the five weeks I have remaining until I board the plane, so I get up and have a delicious Isagenix shake (peanut butter and chocolate is the best – easy on the pb!) and run down to the gym.
Now the gym is my “official” scale. I’ve been to so many doctors in the past three months, and all of their scales are all over the place. One has me at 415, another has me at 390, that’s a pretty big range.
I wasn’t really worrying about food intake, I was worrying about feeling good. I found that eating helps the achy feelings – so I feel like I’ve been eating a lot. So the thought of getting on the “real” scale was, um, let’s just say I wasn’t looking forward to seeing how far I had slid.
392.
Last time I weighed myself after one week of working out and Isagenix I was 391. So basically I’m still there – I don’t have to start over again.
That’s a nice surprise indeed.
Filed under: Weighing In
392 – 9 pounds in the first week. So I only have to do this for 16 weeks, right? 🙂
I’m a video guy. I work in motion graphics primarily. I tell people that if they’ve watch TV in Utah over the last 15 years, they’ve seen my work. I’m famous, it’s just nobody knows it.
One of the companies I’ve done work for over the years is Isagenix. I was working on a one minute piece for them that is a montage of doctors talking about their success losing weight, and the people that they refer to the program are all losing weight too. Then I go to the Isagenix web site.
They have a 100 lb., 200 lb., and 300 lb. club for people who have lost that much weight. I read their stories, and I’m inspired.
My client comes in and sees what I’m doing instead of working, and he mentions that Christine, an editor that I had met in December was a huge fan of Isagenix, and that I should call her – then he told me to get back to work. That was fair…
I call Christine and she tells me that she’s been thinking about me too – there was some connection there when we met – I was sick, and had been for weeks, fat, and miserable. She wanted to help, and thought Isagenix would be the thing…
You know how things feel when they are right – things just kind of come together. The universe aligns for your good. This felt like that – Isagenix just felt right.
Then my stupid head got involved.
I ordered product, and it arrived here at my house. It just sat in my office for three days. I couldn’t bring myself to open it. First of all it was $300 worth of product, and it was this tiny little box. But mostly…
You know I’m still not sure what my hang up was. It was a combination of several things I think…
1- I was sure I would start down this path and fail and/or
2- I would start down this path and succeed, go off of the products and gain it all back
3- But you know what? When I sit here at type this I realize that I had no hope. I had no faith in myself to be able to do this thing. I didn’t even know that I weighed over 400 pounds yet, but I just couldn’t summon the energy to even hope, have faith that I could do this. The weight had worked its way into my head, and sucked all the energy out of my life.
I realize now how much I would come home from work and lay down and watch TV. How did that even start? (I don’t watch TV, I watch Hulu, but you know what I mean, I was completely static because I was just so tired).
I had turned into one of “those” guys.
So Christine is on the phone, texting, emailing me just trying to get me to get a pair of scissors and open the stupid box. She was totally cool, I’m quite sure that she had no idea what to think, but she was very patient with me…
Finally, on day three, I committed. I opened the box…
My Isagenix site – in case you want to watch videos and check it out. I’m not writing this blog to sell you anything, but if you’re not familiar with the company, there’s a link.
Ok, I just looked at the site – I hate it. The videos are cramming crap down your throat and trying to sign you up to make money. Stupid. Lot’s of “the world is going to hell in a handbasket and we’re the solution” manipulative crap. I just wanted to be clear what I think of what you are about to see.
I have been buying larger clothes every time I go shopping for about 10 years now. I couldn’t even see it in the mirror, I still looked good. Well, as good as possible when your doppelganger is Shrek.
I’d watch the Biggest Loser, feel good about the fact that I wasn’t that “bad” off.
Friends all tell me I’m not fat, I’m just a big guy. I bought that too.
A doctor called me “morbidly obese” and I started going to a new doctor.
Then the standard resolution for 2010 – Lose some Weight. I go to the gym and jump on the scale so I know where I’m starting. The number staring back at me from the LED readout is stunning. Truly a wake up call.
401
That’s right. I’m now with the group on Biggest Loser. I’m one of them. I’ve gone to a place where I swore I never would go – I weigh over 400 pounds. It hurts me to even write it.
It’s pretty real now. I still slip back into the justifications, but for the most part when I see my reflection I’m seeing a Biggest Loser contestant.
It’s time to get serious.
Doug Losing Weight 