I am 48 days in. No restaurants...not too hard I must say. It seems like it has been easier to just take it off the table. I am finding that my goals are getting more specific. I guess that's what happens when you walk in a direction for a while...you start to actually see where it is you are going.
All of this started as an experiment. No real attachment to outcome. In fact, I wasn't sure what would be different. I knew that it would most likely be a positive change, but wasn't sure how. As time has passed however, I realized that the "no restaurant" thing is merely the first step. I want to lose over 100 lbs. this year. I am really really close to being below 300 lbs. for the first time in my adult (older than 18) life. So, I want to weigh 194 because that is exactly a two-hundred pound loss.
Now the question becomes, how? How the hell do I go from here to there? Well, that very question led me to searching. I tried a low carb approach...I went a little overboard. I used appetite suppressants and ate less than 15 grams of carbs a day. (that's a small slice of bread) That was going ok UNTIL I worked out. For two days in a row, my peripheral vision started to go black and I felt dizzy. So, I changed tactics. I am currently eating 1200-1500 calories and 30g of carbs a day. I burn 2694 calories at rest and with exercise---around 3700. That leaves me with a deficit of 2,200 calories (on the 1500 days). That is 4.4 lbs a week (a pound is roughly 3500 calories) SO in one year, I will weigh 80 POUNDS!!! TOTALLY STOKED! This makes me soooo happy---I am trying to get to my original weight....7lb 8oz. hah. Well, as you can tell, I have plenty of room for error along the way. Point is, I am moving deliberately toward a destination. It is inevitable. Belief is optional. I say this because I vacillate between knowing I can and feeling defeated. Nikoletta said something in a message to me...."trust yourself". I believe trust is a dance between movement and doubt.
Now, I made a promise to myself to be wide open on this blog. I need to be able to process this and I need people to see what happens when someone faces a huge fear. I want you to know what I am up against because, so much of the time, the author takes the position of expert. Impenetrable from flaw or human emotion, the EXPERT only speaks to you as a subordinate. At least, that's the way I always read it. SO, it is in this spirit of vulnerable equality, that I will share this next story..
I have been doing Zumba and Sports Conditioning classes for a while now. They both challenge me and place me against my physical and mental "wall" (Especially the sports conditioning class) In the SC class last time, I was starting to fade. I couldn't run very far. I couldn't do the things that the people around me were doing. I was trying....but I just was out of energy. Then...the voice. I think you may be familiar with "the voice" although yours may have a different script. MINE likes to remind me of how different I am from you. My "voice" doesn't want me to be your friend...he wants me to be alone. I am easier to control if I am alone. Well, this "voice" kept reminding me that I was big...well, fat....well...a big fatass...who couldn't do it...who would never do it...who should quit...and get a waffle. This kept creeping in as I was pushing and pushing and fighting to keep up...to push myself that hard and simultaneously feel defeated is, to say the least, straining. We ended the class with stretches and, as I lay on the mat, I felt water running down my face. It took me a minute to realize that they were tears. A grown man in a YMCA gym SURROUNDED by women....crying. "Please GOD don't let this be happening!!!!" But it was. What struck my about it was that I felt as though I was neither the oppressor or the oppressed. I was separate from both...a bystander...a third party. I don't know what that means...but it is a feeling I had. I regained control and finished the class and because of the encouragement of others, both in person and through messages on this blog, I will go again tomorrow. So at 6 a.m. I will do my best and quite possibly hear the deafening roar of my past. But eventually, there will have been more days spent pushing my limits than hiding away.
That's me "trusting myself"
Thank you all!!
Roy
3 comments:
You're fine, really.
Just on the way to a life that you will experience as a different person. At age 50, weighing about 180, you may well look back and say, 'Who was that guy?'.
Of course, you'll be alive and well to look back in wonder, which has its advantages.
Back in the day, in what seems like a different life, I knew someone who embarked on a journey much like yours. Going great guns, until she decided one day she didn't want to go through the emotional discomfort, and would rather be obese. She turned tail, and never went back.
I spotted her some twenty years later, eating alone in a restaurant.
Still obese, looking desperately lonely.
It was tragic. A completely avoidable tragedy.
You're fine. Keep it up.
i think you are exactly right that belief is optional in these kinds of journeys. there is too much emphasis sometimes on 'believe in yourself and you can do anything'... when really, sometimes you don't believe it--but you can still do it. that's where i am pushing through right now, as well. well said, as always.
"7 lb 8 oz."
ROTFLMAO!
(my word verification is "sylliant;" I guess that is opposed to a "sireousant.")
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