Determined To Succeed

Day Thirty-Six.

I am sitting at my computer today not really knowing how to write today’s blog. I had a great and very positive weekend this past weekend anchored by three(!) twelve-step meetings. While the one on Saturday morning was a bit different all of them grounded me in my reality now, especially knowing there are so many others who know what I’m going through (particularly with the food and eating aspect of things). However, as wonderful as the meetings were they were not the highlight of the weekend. That came yesterday morning when I awoke to the sound of softly falling rain. That moment, for me, was peace on earth.

But how do you describe peace? I don’t know, especially since we all have such varying definitions of it, but I will give it a try. Imagine you have just woken up from a wonderfully restful sleep, the kind of sleep where not only had eight hours sleep but you FEEL like you had eight hours sleep. Now, add to that rest the sound of silence, a silence that includes no street noise at all – no cars passing or horns honking. Just silence. Even the birds outside have taken a moment to take in the serenity of the moment. Now, add in the final element – the sound of rain. Not torrential rain, but a steady, moderate and softly falling rain hitting the trees and their leaves in such a way that you can almost see a rhythm to it, a pettern, as you envision each leaf as it welcomes a raindrop onto its surface.

For at least a good twenty minutes yesterday that was my world and it was the most beautiful the world has been in such a long time. If I could have recorded that to play back when I was feeling stressed I would have. The last time I felt that perfect communion with nature was when I spread my mother, JoAnn’s, ashes in the park I played in as a child. It was raining like that on that day, too, and I was instantly transported at that moment to when I was a kid just sharing a walk in the park with my mom. That was also the last time I felt whole and like a complete human being…that is, until now.

My weight is up again (I am at 240.9 today) and of course I am put off by that. Anyone would be, especially when they think, like me, they’ve been doing so well. But I know I will be O.K. and like I am always fond of saying today is the day I get back on the path of eating better, watching my portions and exercising. But the why of why I know I will be O.K. comes from being sober and comes from the fact that my mind, body and soul are all now in one place at one time and open to hearing sounds in their purest form like the sound of rain falling early on a Sunday morning.

I know there are so many of us going through tough times. I hear examples of those tough times each time I attend a meeting. But whether or not you attend meetings or not, and no matter if your struggles are only about weight loss or not, keep a hold of your peace – that one thing that brings you back to center, grounds you and makes you feel whole and calm again. It may be the briefest of moments, or it maybe stopping to enjoy a specific memory. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you have something to hold onto when you feel the noise of the world bearing down on you. For me, it happened the day I said a final good-bye to my mom in physical form and it happened again yesterday and it’s moments like that I realize what a true gift life is and how I intend to appreciate it from now on.

That is such a beautiful way to start a day and I wanted to share that serenity with you guys, especially if you have to go back to the hustle and bustle of the week. But take heart. If you are on a weight loss journey, like me, you will lose it. If your journeys are deeper, like mine, you will travel them well and bravely. How do I know this? Because I truly believe there is peace in this world and if we are open to receiving it, in whatever form it comes, it will bring us the breath we need to keep us going no matter what we have to handle in life.

Thanks for letting me share that with you this morning. I hope you have a great day no matter what you do. Just promise me you will take a moment today and listen for that peace. If you do, odds are, that peace, whatever it is for you, will find you, too.

Day Five.

Happy Friday, right? I guess. Like I’ve said throughout this week, with everything going on, it’s hard to talk about weight loss. I know it’s why I started this blog in the first place, however given my life recently it seems insignificant and trivial. I know it’s not, though. I know it’s important, important because it’s one  of two things I have done right, particularly over the last five years. Today I’m at 234 pounds and with everything else going on it’s the one small thing about which I can be proud. Who am I kidding?! It’s the only thing.

I am sitting here this morning thinking about something a therapist said to me yesterday. When I told them what was going on in my life, including how many lies I’ve told and how exactly they have affected people, they said to me “Bill, you were living outside your integrity.” This hit me not just because they were right but because I’ve realized how, in my entire adult life, I’ve had no idea what true integrity was. According to the dictionary it means a steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code, so based on this definition I’ve never known true integrity at all.

But who is integrity? And no, I didn’t misspell that. I did mean WHO is integrity? Do you or I know ANYONE who adheres to a strict moral or ethical code ALL the time? Can you give face to it? Well, I can. His name is Mike and he is the most decent and right man I know. He is the man I’ve always wanted to be and is the brother I never had. Most of all, he has integrity.

When I sit back and think over my adult life and how little true integrity came through I feel sick. I have lived outside integrity and did it for so long that telling the truth has become the foreign thing. I never wanted or dreamed my life would be in this place but here it is and I am smack-dab in the middle of it, or more to the point at the bottom of it.

I always wanted to be like Mike, pure. That’s I guess the simplest way I can describe him. Now he would say, and has, that no one is perfect and that we are all human and make mistakes. He is right. I know no one is perfect, him included, but he is as close to the man I want to be as anyone I know. He embodies integrity to me.

The major glimpses of integrity I’ve had in my life come from two things: taking as good of care of my mother and losing weight. I know in my heart I did the best I could for both of those things and if I died now I would go to whatever final judgment knowing that I did the best I could with both and did them honestly. But those two things should not have been the only two things I did in life with integrity.

Sure, there were times when bit of it came through, like when my job afforded me a bit of opportunity to do something right and good, like granting a dying kid’s family a last request for him to see a film surrounded by friends and family and the firefighters he admired. That was a moment worth living for. However, integrity should not be the moment it should be the constant, ironically like eating better or exercising.

It may not sound right mixed in with the jumble of stuff going on in my brain but I am holding onto that weight loss. It may not be much but it represents the integrity I want to show in my life as a whole and that I am looking to show for the rest of my life. I know I need to be not just a better man but a good man, my mother’s son and better friend to my friends. Most of all I want to be fixed. I want to truly fix what is broken now and do the work it will take to do that and get there.

In the end, I want to be like Mike. None of us may be perfect but we should do our best every day to be our best every day, most of all to and for ourselves. And I know it will be a long, hard road but I will travel it honestly and hopefully find that integrity so it is never a stranger in my life again.

Sometimes we all need a kick in the ass to remind us of the wonderful gifts we have been given in life. Sure, that kick could come when seeing someone who doesn’t have means standing on the street begging for money as we enter a Starbucks Coffee to order a $5 cup of coffee. However today, that kick means something different and something so fundamental that even that coffee buyer and the beggar have in common…the ability to walk.

Yesterday, I was doing research in the local Barnes & Noble Bookstore, looking up words and phrases and clauses (sorry, I couldn’t resist the “Conjunction Junction” Schoolhouse Rock reference). I was looking up editor  information in magazines and had completed my task. “A cup of coffee sounds good right about now,” I thought to myself and I packed up what little I had brought in with me and headed toward the door.

When I got to the door I was reminded of life’s gifts. It was instant, resonant and humbling and didn’t come in the form of words but in the form of another human being.

At the door there was a woman, maybe in her 30s, holding the door for another. This other woman was walking slowly because she could not walk at all without the help of the two canes she carried, one in each hand. And not just normal canes. These had the four-pronged bottoms that help steady a person as they walk and she had two of them because her legs, swollen and big as they were, looked weak.

I held open the other door and both ladies said “you don’t have to” in the sweetest voices imaginable, and I said “don’t you worry about it at all” as the second lady slowly made her way to the threshold. There, I noticed the rest of her body was suffering the same malady. She looked up at me and in the kindest, sweetest voice possible she said “thank you so much” and my heart melted. I asked how their day was going and they said “fine” with smiles. As the second lady was through I offered “now, you stay cool and out of all this heat we’ve been having.” The first lady said “oh we will. She even gets cold in here.” I said, “good. Better than outside in all that heat.” I told both ladies to have a great rest of their day and they offered the same, the second lady looking up at me smiling with the biggest eyes you can imagine on a person.

As I left the store I realized two things: one, that most of the second lady’s strength was not in her limbs but in her heart. Two, that all of us who can walk – not run, jump, skip, dance, or kick – have a gift. It was obvious that this woman had some type of degenerative condition from which she will not recover. Why is it then we sit on our asses, us healthy people, and bitch about how little energy we have especially when it comes time to work out?

Yesterday served as a reminder to me that if you are of able body, no matter what your size, it behooves you to get up and make every day count physically. Those of us who are larger have obligations to ourselves NOT to just sit there but to get up to try to prolong our lives. Losing weight and eating better and exercising are the keys to doing that, keys which most of us have right there in front of us. Hell, I did it and I was 400 pounds. I started by walking, the one thing I knew I could do. The one and only thing this second woman could do.

You have heard me say from time to time that larger people have a responsibility to themselves to get up, and that is true. We have that responsibility because no one is, or should, do it for us. There is no magic pill for weight loss therefore it will come from our own hard work and effort. But shame on us if we squander the days we have, bigger or not, if he delay that process simply because we don’t “feel” like going for a walk. That’s bullshit. I’m sure that second woman would love to go for a simple walk unencumbered by her two walking canes.

So get up and do an exercise today, any exercise. Tummy crunch, push-up, sit-up, arm curl or simply go for a walk. Do it because you CAN go for a walk. Do it because your legs DO work, no matter what size they are. And do it knowing you have a gift – the gift of ability – that others do not have.  It doesn’t matter what size you are, either. When you awoke today you got up knowing you could do these things. So get up and do them, especially if you want to lose weight.

After all, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step so don’t squander them. For many of us that single step, as simple as it is, is not as easy for others and could very well be the hardest thing they could possibly do.

It’s usually not my style to be a bummer on weekends, especially since I have taken to writing just one blog to cover both Saturday and Sunday, but I learned of something rather disturbing and I wanted to share it with you.

The Chicago Sun-Times media wire has reported that a woman with a history of obesity died Thursday after collapsing at a popular eatery in Oak Lawn. Cheryl Varnado-Turner, 44, of 7259 S. Seeley Ave., collapsed at the Portillos restaurant in Oak Lawn and was pronounced dead at 5:59 p.m. Thursday, according to a Cook County Medical Examiner’s spokeswoman. Varnado-Turner has a history of obesity, the spokeswoman said. An autopsy determined Varnado-Turner died of coronary atherosclerosis and dilated cardiomyopathy, and her death was ruled natural.

I learned of this story from a dear friend of mine in Chicago and it really disturbed me on a few levels.

One – The original article didn’t list the name of the restaurant which is weird given that most stories  pull info from the police reports. I knew it was Portillos because my friend told me (she’s from that area). I’ve eaten and enjoyed many-a-meal from Portillos. It’s the place I keep telling you guys about with the delicious Italian Beef sandwiches and Chicago-style hot dogs. I’ve eaten Portillos hot dogs for years, particularly from their downtown Chicago location, and have been guilty of DUIPHD (driving under the influence of Portillos hot dogs).  Shame on the Sun-Times news wire for not saying the name of the place and for giving people enough credit to know it wasn’t their food that killed this woman (but more on that later) but her bad health.

Two – I did that kind of eating at 400 pounds and this woman’s tragic end could have been my own. It could have been me who died in this restaurant, or any restaurant, particularly the Chinese food restaurant I love. I still eat what I want but when I was that weight all it would have taken was one egg roll, hot dog, burger, Italian Beef, or stick of carrot to push me over the edge.

Three – Why is this news? The story made me mad because I doubt a story would have even been written if the woman was thin. It’s because this woman was obese and just happened to pass away in a fast food restaurant that it was news worthy, which leads me even more to think Portillos wanted to disassociate itself not from a tragedy but from obesity since so many fast food chains are feeling the backlash of the obesity epidemic in America. Again shame on the paper for not saying the name but also shame on Portillos for that disassociation.

I understand how easy it is for people, thin people in particular, to misinterpret and misunderstand this situation. I can see how they’d think it’s 100% lack of eating self control without even giving a thought to whether or not  it is sometimes the emotional side driving that eating, or a medical issue, etc.  Many people, yours truly included, don’t use tobacco, alcohol or drugs when bad things happen. We chose food. I still choose food sometimes. I am an emotional eater. It’s not that I don’t have self-control it’s that I eat when I am frustrated or scared or have anxiety. However now I try to do the right things – exercise, eat properly and recognize when I am weak.

It so could have been me.

Do not get me wrong, though. This story also disturbs me because this woman had to have known Portillos wasn’t the best choice for food. O.K., that was a nice way of saying she should have known better (if, indeed, it was just about overeating/eating bad foods and not an undisclosed health or injury problem). If you read this blog you know I firmly believe that we have a responsibility to ourselves as big people to “own the problem” we have. We are obese and we should do something about it instead of waiting for others to solve it for us. But nooooo, thanks to infomercials and other faster, quicker options we get snookered into thinking our weight issues can be solved by others and without the hard work of changing a diet for the better and exercising. It is hard work and it does take time…period.

I am sad for this woman and her family today, not just because they lost a loved one and a woman lost her life but for the ways in which this story will be interpreted. On one hand, some will say “see, she got what she deserved being that big.” And others will say “wow, I need to do something so I don’t end up like that.” And on this weekend I sincerely hope someone of size sees this story and thinks the latter and it helps save a life or two.

This way, Cheryl didn’t die in vain or as a joke like Elvis and his fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches on the toilet. People need and deserve more dignity than that.

Monday is here and the new week begins. I am sitting at my computer today feeling far less stressed than I have been lately. The Oprah audition is over and my “schedule” is somewhat back to normal which means I can truly get back to eating better, exercising and losing these damned last ten pounds.

My mind is still a bit scattered, though. So please forgive me if I sound weird. It’s almost like I am a kid who’s been tasked with putting away his toys and cleaning his room. So, in the mental room that is my mind, I am putting my marbles back in order so I can focus on a brand new week with a cleaner space. Damn, I didn’t realize how scattered I was until things calmed down a bit and believe me, my mental room was a mess.

I am finally back to fighting the “battle of the final ten.” Or maybe struggling to lose it is a better way to put it. And it is a struggle. You know yesterday I was still so wasted from Saturday that I hardly did anything except eat, rest and sleep. I so needed to replenish and I was ravenously hungry so I had lots of protein (steak and eggs) and broke down to have an ice-cold Coca-Cola. Yum. Not the best meal to have when trying to lose and/or maintain weight (especially when potatoes and toast are involved)  but it’s what my body craved.

The anniversary of my mom, JoAnn’s, passing is just a couple of days away and it is on my mind now more than ever in more ways than one. It was almost a year ago (A YEAR AGO!) that I lost the most important person in my entire life. I watched her be taken by that wretched thief, pancreatic cancer, in just 18 short (but mercifully short) days. It was almost a year ago I had to say good-bye. It is so hard to believe how fast time flies for things that seem so recent but time keeps on moving forward and moving us with it. It was also almost a year ago I re-gained twenty pounds.

Please believe I am not beating myself up for that. I swear I am not. Losing a parent or loved one would make anyone, especially someone just sitting there unable to do anything, pass the time by eating comfort foods. But I know I’ve needed to get back on track harder than I have been because I have been talking about this for a year now and I swore I would not let her cancer beat us twice. Granted there have been other challenges as well – being “vocationally liberated” from my position at the zoo because of restructuring, my own money issues, etc. – but time has passed yet I am still ten pounds heavier. That is the thing that makes me say “grrrrrr” sometimes.

Like I said, losing weight is a struggle. Sometimes its a physical one, like when you go to the gym and work out but don’t seem to be losing anything. Mostly, though, it’s a mental one (at least for me it is), like having to talk myself out of going to the White Castle the other night and getting several cheeseburgers and fries, or motivating myself to get up and workout. Hell, even bypassing the Coke cooler in a store. But this struggle can be overcome. It can, and I know my weight now is proof of that. I may still have ten pounds to re-lose but I am still 165 pounds less than what I weighed in 2005. That is all the motivation I need to energize in the morning to clean my mental room.

And you know something? With just two days to go the only thing I am craving is the sound of my mom’s voice, not ice-cream, cheeseburgers, Chinese food or candy bars. I know she will always be with me and I can’t change what happened but you better damn-well know I am working now, harder than ever, to get these last ten off me. And with that, my friends, it’s time to start the day and clean my room. Have a great day and a wonderful week…

…and know my room is starting to look pretty darn good if I do say so myself.

OK, how sad is it that Gary Coleman has passed away at the age of 42? I have to admit I’m in a bit of shock. Not as much shock as when I heard Michael Jackson or Brittany Murphy died but a bit of shock, nonetheless. I remember growing up and tuning in to “Diff’rent Strokes” on whatever night of the week it was on. Me and my friends always, ALWAYS, used to imitate Coleman’s Arnold character saying “whatchoo talkin’ bout, Willis?” And it wasn’t just the comedic timing and incredible delivery of the line…it was those damn chubby cheeks, too.

I had chubby cheeks when I was a kid, too, but was neither as cute nor had a fan base that kept wanting me to repeat a line over and over again. I never had a catch phrase. I was just a fat kid, and my chubby cheeks were the result of me eating badly, eating often and not exercising. Hell, if anything my catch phrase was “you gonna eat that?”

OK, that made me chuckle just a bit.

I think the thing that strikes me most is the fact that Gary Coleman died at 42. I will turn 40 in December and think the best years of my life are ahead of me and here’s this cat who’s just died and he was only 2 years (two-and-a-half years) older than that. Wow. It blows me away. And why do I feel like the best years of my life are ahead of me? You guessed it. Because I lost weight, weight that was definitely holding me back from doing things. Weight that kept more of the “real” Bill from being seen. Weight that very well might have killed me at or around 40.

So today, I get up (late again, so sorry) to write before trying to start my Memorial Day weekend. There are things I need to do (well, try to do) and Coleman’s passing reminds us (OK, me) ever so gently to get out there, do these things and live life the best we can. As much as I sit and write about and discuss weight (yes, the seemingly ever-present “Battle of the Final Ten”) I know in my heart I’ve already gotten to that goal before and I will again. I beat this. I overcame the weight thing before and these last few pounds are just a revisit of endgame, nothing more. I will never go back to being 400 pounds. I have too much riding on the investment I’ve already made in myself and it has nothing to do with money or position or things. It has everything to do with just being able to wake up every day and have the ability to do these things. I want to skydive out of a plane (yes, a perfectly good plane), I want to climb a mountain, do a stunt for a movie, bungee off a bridge (yes, a perfectly good bridge), meet James Earl Jones and tell him I got into radio because of him. I also want to travel the world more, go scuba diving and so much more…all of which are now possible without weight in my way.

That’s what I’m talkin’ bout, Willis.

PS: I know my friends in the Philly area are not gomna like me too much for saying this but one of the things I want to see is every major Chicago team win a respective championship in my lifetime. I’ve seen the Monsters of the Midway, the Chicago Bears, win the Superbowl. I’ve seen the Chicago White Sox win the World Series. And no doubt everyone has seen the Bulls’ NBA trophies in the years of its dynasty led by Michael Jordan. And now, “Here Come The Hawks, ” The Chicago Blackhawks who play tonight against the Philadelphia Flyers in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals. I am thrilled. The team has not won the Cup since 1961, the longest current cup drought in the NHL. At 49 years, it is the second longest Stanley Cup drought in NHL history. So let’s go Hawks…

…now as long as I can keep my healthy lifestyle going long enough to see my beloved Chicago Cubs win that ever-elusive World Series…

Happy Monday, my friends. Today is a happy, bright and sunny, albeit chilly, Monday in southern New Jersey. Welcome to it and a brand new 10,080 minutes in the week.  It’s an exciting day for a few reasons.

First, I am pleased to report I survived the weekend (and a very meloncholy Mother’s Day) without  emotional eating. It was hard, though. Leading up to Mother’s Day I was afraid I would be just stuffing my face when Sunday arrived, and boy I wanted to. You guys know me. I have my Kryptonite foods and they called to me like the Sirens call ships and sailors to their fate. I was having cravings for my beef fried rice, and for some strange reason General Tso’s Chicken. (Where the hell did that come from?) And thank God I weaned away from Coke before this past weekend or it would have been super mega hard to resist the bottles of Coke just taunting and teasing me to come over and taste them if and whenever I entered a Wawa. And while I did have one single Coke this weekend, one ginger ale, and a wonderful, extra crunchy (extra sugar-filled) and delicious cup of coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts, I was good and drank iced tea and water the rest of the time. I had a decent breakfast yesterday and allowed myself a treat of pretzel bites in the afternoon. No Chinese food. No Coca-Cola binge. I was good. I made it. After all I promised myself and my mama, JoAnn, I wouldn’t let her cancer beat us twice and it didn’t. We won that round, Ma, and I love you.

Second, I reached my weight loss goal for the week, 233.5. Woohoo! I am down another pound down, and am setting my sights on losing another by next Monday. I am finding that re-losing these last damn ten pounds (a.k.a. the Battle of the Final Ten) that setting my sights on losing a pound a week helps me keep it in manageable focus, which is what we all need. Good, doable goals that don’t make us feel overwhelmed. Sweet!

Third, my freaking tooth is WORLDS better than it was over the weekend. Damn, Saturday was scary. I am not a wuss by any means (OK, maybe a little one) but I know something’s wrong when I touch the outside of my mouth and it hurts. I had visions of me with a giant white towel tied to my head with an ice pack on my jaw (you know, the image you used to see in old movies illustrating tooth pain). But thanks to a great trip to the dentist and their awesome work I am back to chewing stuff like those afore-mentioned pretzel bites and bacon. Bacon! BACON! BACON! BACON!

Last, today I am launching something special (at least I think it will be) – my online weight loss motivation sessions using Skype (tm). It has always been my mission to help people achieve what I have done, lose weight and successfully keep it off. So no matter whether people just can’t seem to fit in personal care into their schedules or they’re too embarrassed to talk about it in a group or with their families I will try to help using this wacky thing you space-age kids call the computer. So check it out and pass the word on.

There are 10,080 minutes in a week. We spend roughly 3,360 minutes sleeping (based on 8 hours average sleep per night seven nights a week multiplied by 60 minutes in an hour) and approximately 2,400 minutes working (assuming a 40-hour work week). That leaves approximately 4,320 minutes to live and catch up on life – do laundry, run to the store, pick up dry cleaning, work out and exercise and simply try to recharge our batteries before the 10,080 minutes start all over again.

Yes, it is definitely a new week full of new possibilities. And even though I will be busy I will be exercising today and every day this week to help me realize my own goals in all this crazy who-ha we call weight loss. I will re-reach my goal, and you will reach yours.

So c’mon! Time’s a ticking. The week has begun…

When I was growing up I was one of my class’ fat kids. I was also taller than most kids so I stood out more and kids can be utterly merciless when it comes to picking on someone NOT their own size. I remember being called “tubby,” “Buffalo Bill,” “fatso…” you name it. I was also physically bullied as a kid. This one kid, Frank, and his prick friend (I don’t remember his name but I’m sure he’ll burn in Hell) cornered me one day in the winter after school, grabbed me, threw me down, took my school supplies and chucked them over the school yard fence. Luckily they were in my nifty Aquaman case or I would have been playing 52-pencil, pen and crayon pick-up all afternoon. Then there was Eddie, who picked on me as I stood my post as a school crossing guard. He bullied me until I faked having a disease and being really hurt by him punching me. Then he got too scared and backed off. There was this other kid whose name I can’t remember. Andrew, I think, or Andre -whatever. Anyhow, it was lunchtime and he tried grabbing me from behind and shoving his chicken bone down my throat. Luckily I had the sense to fight and simply keep my mouth closed because I don’t even think that bastard realized I could have choked to death (coincidentally, he will join the afore-mentioned  prick friend of Frank in Hell).

Yes, as sure as the sun rises each day in the east, kids who don’t look or act like other kids we are singled out for ridicule, especially when overweight. Dr. Julie Lumeng, an assistant research scientist at the Center for Human Growth and Development at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, has authored a study whose data were just released online May 3 (and will be published in the  June issue of Pediatrics) that suggests just being overweight increases the risk of being bullied by 63 percent. And factors that usually play a role in the risk of being bullied, such as gender, race and family income, don’t seem to matter if you’re overweight — being overweight or obese trumps all those other factors when it comes to aggressive behavior from other children (no shit).

She added that researchers also hoped they might be able to find some protective factors against a bully, such as doing well in school. “What we found, much to our dismay, was that nothing seemed to matter. If you were obese, you were more likely to be bullied, no matter what,” she said (again, I say, no shit. Hell, you get picked on for being smart, too. Like having the double-whammy of being a tubby and being a “poindexter”).

And this isn’t new news. In May 2004, Ian Janssen, an obesity researcher at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, released data that showed overweight adolescents are more likely than normal-weight children to be victims and perpetrators of bullying, bolstering evidence that being fat endangers emotional as well as physical health. The results in a study of 5,749 Canadian youngsters echoed data from British research and followed a U.S. study published in 2003 in which obese children rated their quality of life as low as young cancer patients’ because of teasing and weight-related health problems.

You’ve heard me talk about the perfect storm of factors that led to me being an obese child – not enough money to afford better, healthier foods, not learning proper portion control and lack of exercise. But I’ve neglected to correlate how being picked on can start that comfort food cycle at such a young age and how it carries into and through adulthood. Yes, adults can be and are victims of bullying, too, in the work place, at home, or even in the neighborhood bar.

People who are on a weight loss journey know they have weight to lose. It doesn’t matter whether it’s five pounds or fifty, we know we have a journey ahead of us. And it’s F&$#@*G hard enough getting that weight off and keeping it off without the words or actions of people bullying us or putting us down. Because when we’re sad we are prone to revert to actions we don’t want or need, like eating and over-eating or giving up and not exercising.

There is nothing wrong, though, with standing up and saying “piss off” to a bully and it feels damn good standing up and saying “I am bettering myself by losing weight.” I don’t know what the ultimate answer is to solving the bully problem. It’s been around forever and will be for decades to come. But as our kids become more and more obese and until such time we can reverse this almost epidemic trend the need for a watchful eye and swift action becomes necessary, both in school and home, if for no other reason than to help save a child’s self-image, self-esteem and overall emotional health.

People always pick on the easiest thing to pick on – someone’s physical attributes. However, I wish people would realize how early that vicious circle actually starts and, moreover, how words and actions really hurt people…and their battles to lose weight.

Happy Monday, my friends. Let’s start this week off with a basic refresher science lesson. I know, I know. “It’s too early in the week for physics and I haven’t had my coffee yet.” But stick with me. This one’s easy…

You guys have heard of Newton’s First Law of Motion, right? Newton’s First Law of Motion states that a body at rest will remain at rest unless an outside force acts on it, and a body in motion at a constant velocity will remain in motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an outside force.

The southern New Jersey and Philadelphia areas have had rain since yesterday, with more rain expected tomorrow. It’s cool (somewhere in the 40s) and the skies have a light grey look to them. Drops of rain gently hit puddles of collected water in the streets outside creating small ripples colliding with other competing small ripples and you can hear the wet rolling of the tires on cars as they drive by on the street.  In general, this is a blah day indeed, perfect for just kicking-back, finding a good old movie on TCM or some such channel and curling up on the couch.

It is such a struggle on days like today to get up and get moving. My body, which has pretty much just woken up, still feels “at rest” and would be more than happy to stay “at rest” and let today be spent watching those drops of rain hit puddles, stay under the covers or on the couch while listening to the wet car wheels roll by as I mentioned above. In other words, my body would be more than happy not to have an outside force (me getting up to exercise) cause it to lose its “at rest” status.

Because I am human, rainy days are perfect examples of when I fight the urge NOT get up and exercise.

It would be so easy to justify not getting up, putting on my gym clothes and working out on the elliptical. I’d blame it on the rain (oh, great! Now I’ve got a Milli Vanilli song going through my head!) and say to myself “I’ll just get up and workout doubly hard tomorrow.” Sound familiar? I know it does to me. I can’t tell you how many times in my fat life I’ve said those words. And I’m not saying I won’t ever say them again. I am human, after all. I just won’t say them today because on the good news front, thanks to some smart eating choices, cutting out soda (yes, including my beloved ice-cold Cokes) and exercising, I survived the weekend and am back to 236.5. Just eleven pounds to go before my goal weight is re-achieved.

With that in mind I am willing my body to be “in motion.” I am telling myself to get up and get moving. This weight ain’t gonna lose itself and even though it is a perfect, lazy rainy day I will get up and stay in motion at a constant velocity and will not be acted upon by the outside force of me wanting to be lazy and not workout today. I am going to get my workout “on” and will do my 4 miles on the elliptical, push-ups, sit-ups, weight machines and dumbbells. I will stay on my downward trend.

See, science and physics are not too terribly bad on a Monday, are they? Well, at least as reminders to get up and get moving to achieve a weight loss goal.

Happy mega-late-Wednesday night/super-duper early-Thursday morning, my friends.

Since I have to be in New York City Thursday morning for an appointment (I was lucky enough to get an opportunity to talk about the website and weight loss on the nationally-syndicated BetterTV), I decided to do tomorrow’s blog tonight. Er, or today’s blog yesterday. However you want to look at it. It feels kind of weird because I’m so used to getting up every morning, rolling back over when I see it’s earlier than I think, getting up again because it’s then later than I want, stretching and writing my daily weight loss blog post.

Yeah, I’m breaking up my routine. It happens from time to time to all of us. We get sick with a stomach bug that lays us up for days, or we travel out of town to visit a son’s graduation or we blow out our knees and have to take it easy to heal our joints and give them tender loving care. No matter what the circumstance, crap always happens and it’s during that time that a ripple effect occurs – when everything in our day gets thrown off, even eating, because of one tiny pebble thrown into the lake of our daily lives.

These past few days I have really taken advantage of detoxing from Coke to combine that with eating better and exercising to bring my weight down to a mere 12.5 pounds above my goal. But what makes me nervous is that having to get up early to beat New York traffic (o.k., NO ONE beats New York traffic but you know what I mean) to get to the TV studio on time means I have to throw off the rhythm of my day, including what and how I eat.

Sure I’m going to start out my day with my simple cup of coffee and fruit, like I always do, but having that be earlier than usual by a few hours, getting on the road, the increase of tension with less-than-agreeable other drivers, general nervousness and location all mean that the meals that follow may or may not get to be the healthiest I could have. Does New York have healthier food choices? Oh, yeah it does. But will I be close to any of them? I simply don’t know.

My brain tells me I’m being silly, that I know what I should and shouldn’t have and, therefore, won’t have it. I’ll wait until either a healthier choice pops up or wait until I return to good ol’ Cherry Hill, New Jersey for a morsel of din. But I know the rest of me better than that. I know the little devil that sometimes rules over my stomach which says “ah, go on. How often are you going to be in New York? Go to that Halal cart you like so much and get yourself a nice heaping plate of chicken and lamb, rice, pita and wash it all down with an ice-cold Co – “, er, you know, the soda that shall not be named.

So tomorrow, like it is so many times during a day or in a week, becomes a chance to flex some will (Bill) power and NOT put tempting foods in my mouth. No one forces me to eat bad foods no matter where I am. And that number on the scale IS coming down and I want it to keep coming down to re-reach my 225 pounds. So to help occupy my brain I’ll play a game I like to play especially during Oscar time – changing the names of television shows or movies into food-related pun names (kind of like the adult film industry does but much, much cleaner). Some I’ve already thought of are:

• Planet of the Grapes
• Pie Hard
• Family Pie
• Lord of the Onion Rings (One Onion Ring to Rule Them All)
• The Breakfast Club Sandwich
• The Codfather
• The French Toast Connection
• The Hunt for Bread October
• Hot Sub Time Machine
• Iron Manwich 2
• Chex and the City

I will be OK I’m sure of it, no matter whether I play a cheesy, geeky name game or not. And on Friday morning I will tell you guys all about the show, but most of all I’ll tell you how I didn’t give in to the smells and tastes of one of the greatest food cities on Earth.