Determined To Succeed

It’s 10:37 a.m. on Sunday morning as I write you this entry, my friends. I know I’ve admitted this to you guys before but I want to get it out there again…

…I, Bill Ivory Larson, have a Coke habit.

NOOOOOOOO! That the stupid snorty kind. I mean the sweet, dark, ice-cold bubbly kind. The kind that follows me when I go to movie theaters. The kind that wakes me up in the middle of the night craving a taste. The kind you order with rum. The kind you might order with Jack. The nectar of the gods.

Coca-colas.

I wish I could stay away but I can’t. Of all my kryptonites this one is the strongest and I don’t know why. I have loved Milky Way bars and Chinese food beef fried rice since I was a wee lad. Hell, I even used to be a Pepsi drinker and gave that up cold turkey in favor of America’s number one soft drink.

What’s wrong with me? How is it that I can not have fried rice for now going on a couple of weeks and Milky Ways the same but yet absolutely have to have a Coke? I wish I knew. Some people get up in the middle of the night for a glass of water? I get up for a taste of the “good stuff.”

OK, I know this sounds heavy handed but it’s true. I crave this stuff. I am fighting the “Battl,e of the Final Nine” as of today (woo hoo – I lost a pound) but it’s Coco-Cola that tempts me the most. I have always said I will eat (and drink) whatever I want on my weight loss journey but I seriously have to cut back. God, I feel like a smoker who says “I need to cut back to just three a day,” or something like that.

When I was a kid I could down a two-liter of any pop (how we from the Midwest refer to sodas) like it was nuthin.’ When I was 400 lbs. It was conceivable I could do that twice in a day. As I got thinner I did cut back (and still do to tell you guys the truth) but if I “snack” I’d rather have a Coke than any chocolate, pudding, cracker or – well – anything.

Sigh. I know each of you out there has an addictive food, one that you absolutely cannot resist. Is it pasta? Indian food? Chinese? A good, messy burger? Whatever it is please know I am right there with ya’ in our “addictions.” It’s hard but we will learn to control them, too, just like we are controlling the other food and drink stuffs in our lives.

In the end will a Coke or two derail me? Certainly not. I’m just trying to keep TABS (OK, you have to excuse one punny soft drink joke) on how many I drink a day and balance that out with water and other healthier drinks. I only have one body and I don’t want my blood type to end up being secret ingredient #83 or whatever it is.

Hello my friends. I promised you that I would report all, good and bad, on my weight loss journey. Well, here is the truth. I have slipped. I have slipped in what I ate last night.And it is no one’s fault but my own.

Last night I ate a HUGE order of egg foo young and it was wrong. So wrong. And you are probably saying to yourself “so what.” Let me tell you that I feel like a slug today because of it.

Have you ever eaten so much that you feel like you have a hangover. You feel lethargic and gross, and heavier – like it’s a struggle just to move. Well, that’s what that egg foo young did to me. I feel that brown gravy goo running through my veins like a thickened blood. I have always told you that I eat what I want on this weight loss journey, but last night I ate WAAAAAAAY too much of it.

What I should have done is eaten half of it, and put the other half in the fridge for today’s lunch or din din. But it is deeper than that. I ordered Chinese because I couldn’t think of something better. I wasn’t even really hungry. It was one of those auto-pilot times when programming took over common sense and I went to one of my kryptonites. I could have even gone to the gym to work out to build up more of an appetite. ARGH! I am so mad at myself.

What the hell was I thinking?

If I wasn’t really hungry I should have just gotten up and made soup, or a Lean Cuisine, or gotten myself a piece of fruit instead of blowing God knows how many calories on two egg patties that look more like cow patties covered in a gravy that congeals when left in the fridge.

Eeeew!

So what did this slug do today? Totally got my butt out of bed and worked out. I did what came to six miles on my elliptical (at least my machine says it’s six miles), lifted weights and then hit the steam room (always a relaxing way to end a workout). THAT made me feel better. Those approximately 600 calories I burned this morning (probably half of what I consumed) made me feel better because there is no excuse for the sheer volume of what I ate.

I simply must lose this last three or so pounds. As Val Kilmer said in Real Genius “It is a moral imperative.” So just know I’m with you guys when we stumble, too. I so am. And would you even believe I ate this monstrosity watching “THE BIGGEST LOSER?”

But I did get something very cool today. I got an e-mail from a wonderful guy named Jeff who’s following my blog to help motivate himself to lose that stubborn 10-15 lbs. Dude, you totally will lose that weight, my friend. You will. And so will I. We all will.

So thank you, Jeff, for helping me remember I need to get back up when I stumble. It’s OK. That I just need to keep walking hard to stay true to the journey for us all. And thank you to all the people in my life who also continue to support me, wish me well and say to me “you need to exercise more,” “you’re doing great” and “I am so proud of you” when I need to hear it.

I absolutely assure you, I will not be a slug today!