“[...]bad, really bad, abominably bad, bad, bad, bad!”Well, maybe not that bad, but Lord! it wasn’t good!”

I don’t even know if I can describe what has been going on. I did a better job of it on my personal journal. The core issue is that I am afraid of what I was becoming. What in the world do I do if I keep losing weight? What happens if I am no longer the big fat guy? What happens if I can buy clothes off the shelf? What happens to me? Who would I be?

Scary, scary questions!

I have been sub-consciously sabotaging myself for a while now. Not just small things, like sneaking a candy in here and there. Really bad things, like having a half-dozen donuts one day ‘cuz someone brought some into the office. Like stopping at a convenience store on the way home and having donuts, candy and chocolate milk. Like having a giant milkshake plus loaded fries plus a cheeseburger for a meal. Insane things, things that are obviously done to hurt myself, now that I can look back at them with an honest eye.

These are all stupid things. These are all demons from my past. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done these. How many times I’ve failed in exactly the same way. It’s not that I should know better than this. It is that I do know better than this. I know damned well the effects of my behavior.

One of my tweeple, @dabobie, suggested that I might feel like I don’t deserve to be healthy, don’t deserve to lose weight. There is definitely a lot of truth in there. I alluded to much of that in a previous entry here, where I suggested that I am a fraud. I had lost a pound even though I wasn’t being very good… At least this time I’ve earned the weight I’ve gained.

It’s hard to say exactly how much I’ve gained without going to WeightWatchers every week. From our home scale, it looks like I’ve gained 7lbs since June. So I have to lose that just to get back to where I was in spring.

Yeah, all in all, I’m not feeling good about myself right now…

- M

I don’t know why I have to do this at least once every calendar year. This year I think I can actually attribute some of this to stress. It’s been an amazingly stressful couple of months. Since around the start of May, actually. Extended family issues, vacations, layoff worries…

However, I can’t cut myself too big a break. It’s just an excuse. I have to own the fact that I am struggling mightily. And that I need to wrest control back. It’s getting out of control, bad spiral…

HELP!!!!

- M

Image by mdelamerced via Flickr

I ended up losing almost a pound this week. Well, these past three weeks, since it’s been that long since I weighed in. I have had a couple of bad days food-wise in the past week, so I was figuring I’d have a huge, massive weight gain this week. Tons of soda, some donuts, some chocolate milk… I earned a weight gain, dammit!

Instead, I lost weight. Down 0.8lbs since my last weigh-in at the start of the month. So what does this mean?

Image via Wikipedia

I cannot help but feel like a fraud. I have a few good days, more bad days, and I still lost weight. How does that happen? Where’s the logic in that? Am I truly just a fraud?

That ansewr is an easy one: of course not! A person doesn’t trim off 8% of their body weight by being a fraud. Even though my weight loss has mostly leveled off this year (I currently weigh 3 lbs less than I did at the start of the year), I have still lost a ton of weight. Almost 29 lbs, to be exact. That isn’t a fraud, that is dedication and hard work.

So why do I feel like a fraud? Why do I feel like I am just skating by? Pulling one over? Bragging about something that I am not doing?

Related articles

• Catching up – Weigh-in for June 7th, 2011 (weightjournal.com)
• Weigh-in for the first week of December (weightjournal.com)
• Weigh-in for September 15, 2007 (weightjournal.com)
• How to Prevent Sudden Weight Gain (3fatchicks.com)

Image by alancleaver_2000 via Flickr

Okay, seriously, enough! Since the start of March, I’ve lost a total of 0.2 lbs. I managed to get rid of all of the vacation weight, and have been stagnant ever since. You can see my current weight chart at the bottom of the sidebar to get a feel for how things are going.

It isn’t a surprise when I look back at what I’ve been eating and drinking. If it isn’t having a splurge on donuts a couple of weeks ago, it was having a soda bender last week. In my defense, I was sick and soda is one of my comfort foods. Comfort foods can be the banes of one’s existence, of course. But there was a study out this week that suggests comfort foods might be worth the extra calories for the mental and emotional benefits. But only when done in moderation, of course.

My point is: I am responsible for my current plateau. This isn’t a case where I am doing everything right and my body is being weird. I am not following the Plan very well, and it is showing up on the scale. In the most annoying way possible. Grrr

- M

I mentioned before that I have a bad habit: I weigh myself most every morning. It’s not an “official” weigh-in, and I don’t really feel good or bad about the results. It is more so I can get an idea of how I did the day before. Was it a light day? A heavy day? Did the piece of chocolate cake I had at my friend’s house show up yet? That kinda stuff.

It is not abnormal to say minor changes, higher or lower, from day-to-day. There normally aren’t any major changes, though. Nothing above a pound or two. So imagine my surprise when I hopped on the scale one morning to see that I had gained 5 pounds!!!

My chin dropped, my eyes goggled and I felt sick to my stomach. How in the hell could I have gained 5 pounds in a single day? HOW?!?!?!?

Of course, there was no way I could’ve done this. What had happened is this: I forgot to take my bathrobe off before stepping on the scale. I am a big man, which means my bathrobe is very big. And a big bathrobe weighs a hell of a lot. Right about 5 pounds, actually.

Needless to say, once I shed the bathrobe and hopped back onto the scale, I was happy. Relieved. And amused! Always be willing to laugh at yourself. It is truly the key to staying sane.

- M

This week’s weight

I can be an emotional guy. I’ve been known to tear up at some emotional times. I can’t think of a more emotional time than hitting a major milestone. Like, say, losing 2.2 pounds this week. Like, say, losing 20 pounds so far this year!

I am extremely proud of myself. It is hard for me to say that. I am not a boastful kind of guy. I really need to give myself a pat on the back, though. I have done a simply amazing job since I re-joined Weight Watchers this summer. It’s been a slow march, but after the first couple of weeks I dug my feet in and really started to work at this. This weigh-in is a validation of that work. Physical, concrete proof. I cannot deny it, it is right in front of me.

I am going to keep this weigh-in post short today. I’ll be writing more throughout the week. But for right now, I am going to stop and enjoy this feeling. Maybe shed a few tears, but they are happy tears!

HUZZAH!!!

- M

Being the macho man that I am, I just nodded and pretended everything was fine. I walked right past my locker, over to the toilet stall, locked the door and wept silently. That was so devastating!!!

This time around, though, I have a better story. I’ve been telling my kiddos I am trying to lose my tummy. My 4 year old turned to me and said, “Here, I’ll help you daddy!” She then pushed in on my tummy as hard as she could, then said “See, Daddy, you’re tummy is a lot smaller now!”

Night and day, lemme tell you.

But that was then, this is now. I actually did a complete reset, starting Weight Watchers with a brand new account. My start weight is 331.8.

Wish me luck!

I sat down and mapped out a long term goal, and have that chopped up into a couple of short-term goals:

Long term goal: Lose 35 pounds by Halloween. The date is easy, since it is close to my son’s birthday. And he is part of the reason I really want to start getting back on track. I am picking the weight goal for a pragmatic reason. I want to have a heart scan done. The tables only hold a max weight of 300lbs, though, so I have to be under. 35 pounds would put me at 295, so I’d have room to spare.

Long term reward: Picking an appropriate long-term reward is kind of hard. It’s a guilt thing. Two-pronged actually. Guilt that I don’t really deserve a reward, since I’ve been a lot lighter than 295 in the past couple of years. That’s bullshit, of course. This is a new goal, it stands separately from everything except for my current weight. 35 pounds is a very good goal, and deserves to be celebrated. (The other reason I feel guilty is I hate spending money on myself.)

Okay, add all of that up, and I still need to set up a reward. And there’s only really one thing that stands out in my mind. If I am at 295 (or less) on Halloween 2010, I am going to buy myself a complete set of Legend of Zelda games for the Wii. This includes LoZ: Twilight Princess, and the earlier LoZ games on the Wii Virtual Console (I already have The Wind Waker). And no, I really don’t mind being labelled such. [grin]

Short term goal: There are seven months ’til Halloween, which  makes short-term goals easy.  5 pounds a month – approximately 1.25 pounds per week – and I am there. It sounds so easy on paper! It looks so easy on the computer screen. And it should be easy. At my weight, losing a pound or two a week should be a breeze. One less pop-tart, an extra 5 minutes walking a day, any of these will allow my body to get rid of this weight. It’s not natural to be this overweight, and one’s body will automatically start shedding weight if I just get out of its way.

Short term reward: At the end of each month, if I lost the 5 pounds I needed in that month, I’m gonna allow myself to buy any book I want. No guilt about spending the money, and no guilt about how silly or popcorn-ish the book might be.

Here’s to my first book!

Of course, this journal isn’t supposed to be about just the fun stuff. It’s supposed to be about the bad stuff, too. And I’ve had a lot of bad stuff going on. I am just so used to dealing with stress with eating that I don’t even notice it anymore. Busy work week? Eat an extra pastry at the coffee shop. Snow outside is making me nervous about driving? Carton of chocolate milk and a donut or two.

Then, for some reason that I cannot remember anymore, I stopped exercising. No more 45-minute walks at lunchtime! What the hell is wrong with me? That was cheap, easy exercise. I would combine that with a treat (say a non-fat latte from the former Peaberry Coffee), listen to some tunes, and just enjoy. Now it is hard to get myself out of my office chair at all. Seriously, wtf?

[le sigh] More sometime later.