Storytime

Once upon a time there was a man who had the world at his fingertips.  Wife, kids, and a dog.  The man loved his job and his family.  He grew up in the midwest.  He was quite active in highschool with sports and friends.  He weighed about 185 pounds as a senior.  In excellent shape, he felt invincible.  Everything fell into place.  Later in life, however, he struggled with overeating.  He struggled so much that he constantly put himself down and felt tremendous guilt for the way he cared for himself.  Life moved forward despite this man's continual struggle.  The man married and had a family.  His career blossomed.  Now, over 200 pounds, he felt there was no way he could feel like he used to.  Fast food, stress, and hypertension crept up upon him before he knew what hit him.  Putting on weight was part of getting older.  He was too busy to change his ways.  It would take too much energy to change.  Besides, he had tried several failed attempts to better his health but always ran back to his destructive habits.  His friends and family urged him to change.  He didn't.  His physician urged him to change.  He didn't.  He kept telling himself: Someday I will have the willpower to change my life.  Someday, I will take care of myself because I know my family needs me to be there for them.  Someday, I will throw away all of the excuses that have held me back from achieving my potential.  Someday.  The days came and went.  The man felt stressed much of the time.  He felt justified to eat poorly and remain sedentary.  He began to have chest pain, periodically.  He attributed this to stress/anxiety/tension.  Constant headaches were a nuisance to the man.  Someday, he promised to treat himself better.  Someday, he would be thin and active and feel better about his appearance.  Someday.  One day the man got up to get ready for work.  He felt tense as usual, but this morning something was different.  His chest was tight and the pain unrelenting.  He took zantac.  Driving to work, the pain increased.  He felt lightheaded.  Maybe he was just tired.  Maybe he just needed to get moving and he'd feel better.  But the pain didn't go away.  Staring him in the face was the culmination of all of the poor habits he joked about over the years.  Visions of his children in college, getting married, and having children all flashed before him.  As his car veered off the road, the visions disappeared.  What remained was a black curtain descending upon his eyes.  The pain was gone.  Someday never happened. 

.............Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock................

What if tomorrow is too late? 

Shame

What a shame......

What happened to me?  I let you down. I let myself down.  My weight is back.  My blood pressure is up (157/110) last time I checked.  I really fell of the wagon hard.  I stated in the very beginning of this blog that I would be true to myself and the reader about my progress (good or bad).  Well this is f*cking bad.  I'm pissed off.  I am angry that I can't keep commitments to myself for my health and well-being.  I have had some cough/swine flu/rhinovirus/being a f*cking pussy illness for a few weeks now.  I would like to blow smoke up your asses and say this is the excuse for my lack of motivation.  However, My lazy ass stopped being motivated long before I got sick.  It also doesn't explain why I eat 3/3 meals at fastfood joints.  Let me show you something staggeringly shocking: My bank has an online service and I noticed a item called "spending reports" on the website.  This function tracks your spending based on grocery, restaurants, gas, etc. I looked at my spending on restaurants and groceries for the last three months.  Here is the beautiful truth: 

August Restaurants:  $1302.58

August Groceries:  $634.45

September Restaurants:  $1262.98

September Groceries:  $817.88

October Restaurants:  $1082.33

October Groceries:  $823.06

Consistently, I spend twice as much money on shitty food as I do on groceries every month.  This is crazy.  I am throwing myself into financial oblivion all while enjoying the rapid descent of my health. This is insanity, defined.  Stupid, dumb, insane...call it what you want but I cannot stop.  Seeing these staggering figures won't be near enough to eliminate this selfish behavior.  Poor reports from an ultrafast CT scan, hypertension, and embarassment from my 3 chins hasn't been enough.

I look at myself in the mirror and my only thoughts are that I have gone past the point of no return.  Overwhelmed with stress, I look to food to give me the comfort.  It's something that seems to make no sense at all.  If eating fatty, fried, carbohydrate-laden fare is bad for you, why does it give me an intense sensation of peace, calm, and comfort??  I don't know if I subscribe to the opiate receptor theory.  Homeostasis, right?  If it feels good, it must be right.  Well I know this isn't true.  I look in the mirror and see the faulty reasoning that clouds my addict mind.  Where do I begin, again........

Hungry

I mean pullups.

I did 1.5 pushups today!!

Living in the present.

Do you ever have trouble living in the present? It is a huge problem for me. Feeling bad about the past, worrying about the future consumes the majority of my time. This is complicated. It is way deeper than being a fat bastard who enjoys the food like it is his mistress. I went out this a.m. for a run. In the course of 3 miles, I realized that even then I was never present. My thoughts were always behind me or in front. This has got to be detrimental to one's health or at the very least an incredible waste of human existence. The present keeps happening and I choose to avoid it all costs. Why? It is a much more comfortable place to be, the present that is. But it seems to be the most difficult place to arrive.

I think I might try a new approach to living. Everyday I will attempt to become more present. I am missing the most important things by doing it my old way. My children growing up. Their first art projects. Their discovery of the world around them. They are the ones who have living in the present down to a science. They don't even have to try. I am going to try to be more present in my marriage. I spend a ton of time on this fu*king Blackberry. Reading the news, playing arcade games. Escapism. Infomania. The media has even tried to make a "disorder" of the overuse of PDA's and cell phones and emails. They call it infomania. Bullshit! It is pure escapism-WE CHOOSE TO CLOSE OUT THE WORLD IN ORDER TO AVOID THE PRESENT. Let's not fu*king kid ourselves here, folks. My wife often asks me "Do you ever put that phone down?" The answer is no. I have been avoiding the present.

Make a commitment to work on this with me. If you read this blog-make a commitment. What pain or disappointment from the past has you in chains? What future worries of yours keeps you in your own personal prison cell? You hold the key. Today is today. Today is now. I know it isn't easy, but I am going to try. This applies to whatever the hell you want, not just food addiction and being a lazy ass. Whatever vice you claim (or claims you), make an effort. Don't let the media and the TV doctors label you and give you an excuse for your vices. The the bull by the fu*king horns and make change. TODAY. Not tomorrow.

Hungry

Not another boring post from the fat bastard.....

I haven't posted in a long while. Shame. Shame is why I haven't posted. I let myself down. I fell back into being comfortable with being a fat f*ck. See, after a while I stopped feeling guilty about eating my weight in lard. When the guilt is gone, so is the "give a f*ck." Pathetic to say the least. I gave in to stress. I said, "hell yes, let's go to the fair and eat a hot beef sundae." Oh and don't forget the funnel cake with powdered sugar. Back to McDonald's on a regular basis. Back to super size portions for my super size gut. When I do break a sweat, I wring out my armpits into a frying pan and use the grease to fry up an egg. OK, not really, but you get the drift. I have slumped back into super slug status. It's really too bad after all of that work to trim down. You may call me a failure. You may call me a quitter. You may call me fat boy. These words, however, will not phase me.

So why am I posting again. Because I feel like shit. Energy down, belly getting bigger, double chin (or triple depending on the source) coming back. I don't particularly like any of these facts about myself. I read that book by Dr. Kessler and it didn't help me one damn bit. It explained the reason for becoming addicted to sugar, fat, and salt. It didn't, however, curb my cravings. So I am back to square one. Beginning anew. No contests. No biggest loser. No trainers. Just me against the cheetoh bag. I have started by re-introducing myself to exercise. I got a Garmin GPS for my bday and I have been running once again. Taking it slow as to not jack up my knees with my extra weight. I haven't slipped back to that original picture of a portly pig that I presented. I can feel myself headed back to big panus status. Careful people, I did say "panus." Looking forward to blazing this new trail.

Hungry

Did u forget about the hungry addict? Did u all give up on him? Well he's back and in rare form. More later.....