Determined To Succeed

Day twenty-two.

It’s quiet this morning. I can actually hear myself think. And what am I thinking about? The fact that I had a weekend that was good, really good, and sober. That I was here and present and a participant in my own life instead of being so detached from it I could hardly remember what day it was. The fact I had great workouts and went shopping, and the fact I now have to re-lose some weight because I have been eating a bit too much again because I am, well, stressed.

If you have ever studied addictive behaviors you will find that people almost always replace one addiction with another and an extremely high percentage of them replace their usual drug of choice with food. Being that I am a dual addict and my first drug of choice WAS food it was easy to begin eating a little bit of this and a little bit of that to deal with the stresses of sobriety. Yes, there are stresses in sobriety. Of course there are, and these stresses are constant because you’re always working on your sobriety, like you’re always working on maintaining your weight loss.

I can’t speak for anyone else out there but I stress because I want to make sure I am now on a clean, good and honest path. Because I always want to do the right things and am not sure if some of the things I say are right or not. I struggle with being the newer, better me and having that have the best parts of my personality and not the shitty parts that dominated it before. I struggle because I never want to go back to old Bill again, either in addiction or in weight, and because I struggle I stress eat.

It’s stupid, I know. I do know better. I know that I shouldn’t eat a stupid gyro wrap from my local diner with fries. That was stupid (especially since it wasn’t very good at all and made my stomach all messed up). It’s stupid because I know in my brain eating doesn’t calm stress, it only adds to it eventually. Sure what I eat may taste good at the time but any addict will tell you that the quieting of the brain during addiction comes from the endorphins produced when you give yourself the drug. But when they wear off you feel ashamed and never want to do it again – you just don’t know how to break the cycle.

I am at 235.9 today and I am pissed off at myself. I am pissed off because I can see in my face my cheeks get chubbier again. I feel bloated. I see the numbers creeping up on the scale. Most of all, though, I am pissed because food is so automatic for me I didn’t realize I was eating too much again until yesterday really. That the old patterns were coming back and I need to arrest them, too, especially if I want to maintain the “high” of being sober in other areas of my life.

Look, food is fuel. It isn’t the answer to a problem. It won’t solve money issues. It won’t make pain go away. It won’t solve what’s going on in your life. Used like this it’s only a distraction, a distraction from what’s really going on inside. But like any addiction you need to recognize you are in need of help, in need of control and in need to stop and face what is really causing you to seek out food (or your drug of choice) in the first place. Today I vow to fight that addiction, too. I made that vow yesterday and did O.K. in my eating. Not the best I could have been (I had an extra helping I shouldn’t have) but I was better and I will strive to be better than that today (no matter how delicious Jersey corn is).

And how will I be better? I will be better in my eating because I will tackle the day as I began my day. Listening to the quiet and hearing myself think. And when I can think like that I have the power to change the things I want to change about myself including that stupid number on my electronic scale. And no matter what, I will think about how I no longer want to feed either addiction. How I just want to be me and the best me I can be.

As part of my on-going writing gig I did an interview with Katie, a woman here in South Jersey who lost 130-pounds, which is awesome.  As part of that interview, I talked to Jorge, her personal trainer. He is the one who helped Katie lose weight and I thought it would be a neat idea to see it from her side – what it was like to have a trainer. So I talked to Jorge who invited me to come to his gym yesterday to my first-ever personal training session.

Hell, I am always looking for ways to burn fat and this was certainly going to be an education at the least. But when all was said and done, I  have to say it was really, really cool. I was also excited because of a symbolic reason: today was day-one of one of my new pair of New Balance gym shoes (what we in Chicago call sneakers). I thought it very fitting (all puns intended) to begin a new path on my weight loss journey in brand new (and very comfy) shoes .

By a quarter-to-twelve I arrived at Jorge’s gym. I didn’t know quite what to expect (except to sweat a lot) so I got there just to look the place over. I admittedly was a bit nervous. Coming from such a heavy 400-lb. background the old programming has the ability to take over and make me feel pretty intimidated by the machines and the people in a more professional gym. But I took a deep breath and began.

He had me start by doing cardio (about five minutes on the treadmill) just to loosen me up and get my heart rate going. Then, we jumped right into some good ab training. It was the first time I used a medicine ball like so:  I laid flat on my back and extended my arms over my head holding the medicine ball. Then, using my abs, I lifted my torso and threw him the 10-pound medicine ball. Damn, did I feel that immediately in my stomach.

After that we did reps of push-ups (always a weakness), crunches, exercise ball and then back to the medicine ball. After that series of exercises we went right into weight training. I did “shrugs” and I used barbells for the first time, too. I did hamstring stretches, different kinds of dumbbell lifts, more ab crunches, a Stairmaster and…and I sweated more in ten minutes than I usually do in my gym on the elliptical in half-an-hour.

I found out that fast-changing of machine exercises keeps the body guessing which helps it burn fat more and burn fat faster more so than cardio exercises do. Moreover, when you do exercises for extended periods of time your body gets used to them, therefore you burn less and less fat over time. By changing up exercises, especially those using weights and weight resistance, your body burns more fat.

After a fairly quick forty-five minutes I felt muscles in my upper arms, shoulders and abs I haven’t used in a long time – and it felt great. I was so excited to be learning new and different exercises to hopefully get the rest of these stubborn pounds off me and to tone-up a bit. I may not ever have the best, non-flabby body in the world but I sure as hell can try.

When it was over I was juiced. Those endorphins were released and I couldn’t wait to work out today. The second of two complimentary appointments happens on Friday and you bet your cross-trainers I will tell you about that session, too. But one of the things I made clear to Jorge was that I wanted to relay to you guys how to do the same types of exercises WITHOUT bigger pieces of gym equipment, using what you might have at home or in a gym not as well stocked with machines, medicine balls and barbells. The most important thing is just to be active, no matter what kinds of exercises you do. I am also going to share with you the food plan he shared with me once I find out more about how that is supposed to work and for how long and when.

Today was really good. Working out felt really good. Most of all, working on me felt really good. As I head into my gym tomorrow I will use that same basic rapid-fire machine-to-machine technique to help me burn fat and hopefully keep burning it. I still have visions of having a great body someday and having some of these tricks of the trade will help me get there – especially with summer just around the corner.

Hey there, my friends. How is everyone on this Monday morning? Well, I hope. You must be asking yourself “Why is he so chipper?” Well, I just got back from working out and an egg and cheese wrap for breakfast. It was tasty and a good protein way to start my day. I have found that working out in the morning helps increase my activity during the day (and yes, gets it out of the way). As of today I am also within three pounds of re-reaching my goal weight of 225lbs and I am so happy.

But that is not why I am writing today.

I am writing to everyone today to let you guys know about a bit of holiday healing I did over the weekend. And it was all due to the snow that fell in the east on Saturday afternoon/evening. As I sat in the late afternoon watching the sky turn a beautiful, muted blue the snow was coming down in huge flakes. Neighbors of mine came out and were catching the flakes on their tongues. A neighbor dog ran and played (before it got a bit too cold). It was beautiful and just what I needed to help begin snapping the holiday funk I’ve been in.

Most of you know I lost my mom almost six months ago. When you lose someone time loses meaning. It has no definition. One minute it feels like an eternity has passed, the next minute it feels like yesterday. I have the coincidence of four major events in a row – Thanksgiving, my birthday, Christmas and my mom’s birthday – one right after the other. And during this time of year there is nothing like the sound of my mom’s voice saying “happy birthday, son” or just shootin’ the bull during the holiday season when the weather outside turns frightful.

The snow on Saturday helped me to “feel” the holidays for the first time this year. It reminded me to enjoy the season and its beauty. Like many people, there are days when all I want to do is hide. Crawl away and let the world pass by, like a train at the station. I don’t want to follow through the day’s routines, and I certainly don’t want to exercise or even deal with people. There are sooooooo many times when my couch comes a callin’ and it’s an irresistible call – especially when some good distracting TV is on.

My mom’s passing has been hard, as it is for all those who lose loved ones and have to “celebrate” the first holiday season, birthday, anniversary, etc. without them. I do my best to not let that funk get me down but it does. I am human. And when I get funky I tend to eat. But something happened last weekend. I didn’t overeat. I thought about not letting cancer beat me and my mom twice and I didn’t order Chinese food. I went to exercise yesterday morning.

I know that this is hard some days. Believe me, exercising and cutting back on certain foods is the pits especially when you’re blue. But know in your hearts you have come such a long way and you have done so well for yourself. I hope to keep that covenant to you, too, and stay as true as humanly possible to my weight loss journey as well.

So, my friends, take some of my strength today. Take some of those endorphins (or however you spell it) and energy that I mustered from working out today and use it to help you power through today. We are all in this together, even if you are also dealing with hurt and pain this holiday season. And if you need a word of encouragement I am here, too. Just drop me a line through this website.

No matter what, just know you are all amazing and like all of us on this weight loss journey, it’s OK to have the batteries run low every now and then.