Cutting In

On April 14th I went to the doctor and we discussed my options. I have been struggling with my weight for over a decade (that Throwback Thursday post really drove that home for me.)

To begin, I asked straight out "What are my chances of seeing 50?" The doc said: "Pretty good, your heart is good. 60? Not so much." That kinda puts it in perspective, huh?

Next, we talked about what I can do since apparently I have no discipline. We looked at drug options, nothing seemed worth the side effects. She mentioned hypnotism. When I stopped laughing, she revealed the expense and it seemed a lot for the possibility it might work.

Then, we talked weight loss surgery. I raised my fears. I've watched my friend go through it. I watched her have surgery after surgery. I watched her put weight back on. She is worse off after the surgery than before she started. I have another friend that has lost a ton after the surgery ... and now she is putting weight back on. I've heard of the ways you can cheat your surgery. I'm an addict - an addict will do anything to get their fix.

But, when it comes down to it, I'm 42, I'm scary heavy. It's not getting better. Gotta do something.

I have no idea how to pay for it. I talked with a few friends who tell me it's not as expensive as I thought. It seems like my last option.

The doc suggested getting serious about dieting and going to the gym. Think about the surgery. And she wanted to see me back in a month.

• The first week I screwed around. I was shocked to still weigh 450.
• The second week, I lost 6 pounds.
• Last week, I screwed around and I gained 7 pounds.

I went to the gym this morning. I see the doc next Monday. Next Tuesday I go in for a class on the surgery.

I can't believe it's this bad. But, it is. It just is.

Throwback Thursday

So, yeah, #ThrowbackThursday is a game played on Instagram where you post a pic of you that is at least 5 years old. Well, I'm rarely in front of a camera, certainly not enough to get a pic up every Thursday. However, I thought it might be fun to take a quick trip back to some previous blog entries, from the blog I shared with +Bryan Dobberstein, Irate Weirdos, in or around January 9th. Here's what I found:

5 Years ago (Apparently, I started a diet blog!) January 15, 2009
6 Years ago (Any of this look familiar?): January 13, 2008
7 years ago (The Trouble Begins!): January 7, 2007
10 years ago: January 8th 2004

As for January 9th, 2014, this is Day 4. I've been good on my diet all week, been to the gym four days in a row. That sounds great and all, but it also sounds like some of the false starts mentioned above. *Sigh!*

I've gotta get it together this time. If anyone has a magic wand they aren't using, let me know, I could use a small miracle.

Last year I found THE ANSWER.

One lonely entry last year, eh? Not my proudest moment. However, in my defense ... um ... I got no defense. I wasn't busy enough to not write out here now and then. I was more ashamed. Ashamed I wasn't doing better.

Last year wasn't an all bad year. I started a full time job in May. I dated more than I had in the 40+ years before. I managed to go from 480 to 450 while barely dieting and no exercise.

One of the things I tried out that seemed to work was not having dinner. You can find the details here, but in short, a small study showed that diabetics controlled their blood sugar and lost weight by eating a hearty breakfast, a solid lunch and little to no dinner. I did that for a few weeks. It seems so much smarter, why do we eat a huge meal then go to bed? So, I'd have a bunch of protein in the morning, usually quinoa in soy milk, a hearty lunch, fruit snacks and maybe fruit if I got hungry at night. It was working, but I didn't stick to it.

However, here we are back at the beginning of the year. I will likely go back to the meal plan above. Plus, there is a gym between work and home. It's costing me extra every month (it is really nice!) and I had to pay a huge initiation fee, but it's right there. It glares at me on the way to work and on the way home. So, MOAR GYM!

On that note, I had +Tonja Davis of +Action Hero Fitness, Inc.  come in a for a consultation the other day. She walked me through a weight machine workout she built specifically for me. I plan to have her come back once a month or so to check my progress, keep me honest and help me tailor my routine to my (hopefully) changing body.

Then there is THE QUESTION, you can read up on this in my last entry, but the short of it is that +Tonja asked me if I knew why I wanted, nay needed, to lose weight? What was my reason? At the time I didn't have an answer. The funny thing is, I covered the reason in that entry, I just don't think I wanted to admit it. Well, I can admit it now. My reason to lose weight?

Sex.

I want to have sex. I am dating quite a bit these days and I can't have penetrative sex. I miss that. Sure, I can do, and do do, lots of other stuff, but good ol' penis-in-vagina is prevented by a layer of fat that just rolls a condom right off. (Too much info for ya? Too bad. We're about real around here ... well. most days.)

So, yeah, resolutions and all of that. I have the tools and the knowledge I just need to apply them. I have a good start, nearly 30 pounds down. I've been here before. I've said I was going to do something with my tools and knowledge then, too. The spirit is certainly willing and oh boy is the flesh weak. If the flesh was as strong as my desire, well, we wouldn't be here.

Don't wish me luck or tell me I can do it - tell me what you are doing. Have you achieved your goals?

No saddle, no wagon.

To be honest, I'm rather angry at myself.

I mean, being 480 pounds is pretty bad, but I've been slightly worse.

What angers me is the fact I planned to get back to dieting and exercising when my contract ended in October - three months ago! Instead I'm actually heavier now than then.

So, I'm pulling out all the stops. Diet, exercise - the bull from my last post about it being expensive to go to the gym is right out. I have set up a Kanban board for getting tasks done - I've added diet and exercise goals to that. I've even gone so far as taking "Before" pictures; both with a shirt and shirtless.

Having said all of that, I got up at 7 AM and it's nearly 2 PM and I haven't gotten to the gym yet. Not to mention the fact that my stomach is growling because I've had only one small meal. Now I need to get a meal, pack my bag and get to the gym - I've wasted the day.

+Tonja Davis of +Action Hero Fitness, Inc. asked a question of me earlier that I didn't feel I should answer on Facebook. To quote her:

You know what to do and how to do it, you just need to find out WHY it's important to you. You know to start small and work up, you know to eat clean and do a great job of it but WHY? Why do you want it? Until you identify a reason, you will get in your own way. What is so important to you that you will accept no excuses, only action that moves you closer to that goal?

I've got plenty of reasons and I've had them for a while. Starting with congestive heart failure. Sleep apnea that has put me in the ER. Having to sleep with a CPAP - having to carry the CPAP anywhere I want to travel. Afraid to take a nap because I don't want to go to the ER. Tons of meds that have all kinds of fun side effects. Looking disgusting isn't fun - there are easy comparisons to Jabba the Hutt & Baron Harkonnen. The red, blotchy leg and foot edema is gross, the fun I have had struggling to put on a shoe that fit three hours ago because my foot has blown up in the mean time. Diabetes - nothing quite like dicing with losing a limb, going blind or losing my penis. Not that my penis is much use to me - it's buried in a layer of fat, a layer so deep I can't keep a condom on - just rolls right off.

So, limited sex, mobility and activity along with fears of losing my penis, my limbs, my sight and possibly my life. And yet, with all of that, I have been struggling with just getting started, just getting off the ground, just getting under 400 pounds for seven maybe eight years. I always have a reason or an excuse to forget the diet, stop exercising and go back to the couch with a plate in hand. Always.

Well, Tonja, I guess I haven't yet found THE reason. I don't know if I ever will.

Ima go eat a salad and then go to the gym.

I need a new way to say "Back in the Saddle."

It's true, I am indeed back in the saddle, back on the wagon, "on" - etc.

My contract at Wizards of the Coast ended and I knew I was to be unemployed. First thought: "Use that time. Get back on the diet and back to the gym." A good idea.

Thinking and doing - I rarely get these two lined up. Took me two weeks of eating even more crap and watching endless Netflix to realize there was no escaping it, the best thing to do was get back on my diet and get to the gym.

So, it's essentially day three. The gastro-intenstinal issues that always accompany my change in diet are in full gear. I've got good groceries in the fridge. I've been to the gym twice. Gave myself a blister on my pinky toe yesterday. If I want to do more treadmill, I'm going to have to tape it up.

Frankly, now that I've had time to think about it, the gym isn't the best deal for me right now. It's not close by. It's a lot of gas for an unemployed guy, it's also a lot of time. Luckily, the last two days I added other errands to my gym going, making it seem like less of a money sink. But, today, I really paid attention to time. I left the house at 10:30, got to the gym about 11. I probably put in an hour of weights. I spent quite a bit of time in the jacuzzi. Two showers all told. A quick errand on the way home and I got back to my door at 3. That drive time is time I could be doing other things. That gas is just expensive right now for a guy with limited income.

I know I sometimes over worry money. And, I'm not saying I'm going to stop going to the gym. My intention of going nearly daily is, however, out the window. A couple of exercises I do are body weight - I can do those anywhere. I have bought various pieces of gym equipment over the last year - simple stuff; medicine balls and resistance bands. Those can go a long way, especially combined with body weight exercises. Plus, I have the Wii - which I bought to get me off the couch but it has become mostly a Netflix machine. There is cardio boxing and other things I can be doing with that. So, I think the gym is going to be two, maybe three times a week.

Also, I ran into another issue today. I don't like the idea of eating a big meal before the gym. However, I nearly passed out in the jacuzzi. I had some soy milk before I left, and a banana. By 2 apparently my body needed more. I keep some granola bars in the car for just such situations. Those were the best store brand granola bars ever made as far as I was concerned. The day before I did about the same routine, longer actually because I went grocery shopping. The difference was a trip to Jack in the Box first. Not the best food choice, but I didn't get lightheaded. Can't wait to shed some of these meds, they are both the things keeping me from more health issues and causing these light headedness issues. Don't get me started on what the beta-blocker is doing to me - it's the first to go if I have my druthers.

I'm going to stay open minded about the gym. The truth of the matter is I like the gym - once I get there. I certainly like the jacuzzi. As my money situation settles out, I'll feel more comfortable about spending gas money. Also, as I get stronger, I will need more resistance than I can reasonably provide for myself at home.

As to goals, well, I'm really hoping to see the other side of 400 by end of year. I know. I know. I've said that how many times before? Doesn't mean it's not a good goal. I also came up with that concept when the end of the year was more than 90 days away, now its about 60 with lots of opportunities for holiday binging. No sense setting myself up for failure and disappointment. Frankly, I'll be happy to see a steady downward decrease in weight and a steady uptick in muscle, no matter what the rate. I'll be happy to stay "on" for 30 days - been a long time since I've hit that tiny goal.

The Recovery

I do this time and again. I fall off the wagon, spend a month or two wallowing in old habits, i.e. eating crap and no exercise. Then I go through the process again of changing my diet (and all the gastrointestinal issues that go with that) only to stay on a diet for a few weeks and fall of the wagon yet again. I've been doing this for damn near a decade now. They say the only way to make a diet permanent is to change your lifestyle. Apparently I changed my lifestyle to a permanent roller-coaster diet.

Sigh.

Anyway, the cars are crawling back out of the pit - clack! clack! clack! I did some groceries yesterday - something I really haven't done since I stopped juicing. I need to do more groceries tonight. (I want to go to the local fruit & veggie stand - it was stacked and packed with a Mother's Day crowd yesterday) I want to primarily do fruits and veggies this time around. A small amount of meat for dinner. I bought some chicken breasts, boneless & skinless. I bought some flat iron steaks. Both meats are low in fat. I want to cook them up ahead of time, chop them up and portion them out - that way it will be simple to drop them on some salad or nuke it just long enough to serve with some steamed veggies. The easier I make my meals, the more likely I'll stick with them. I mean, right? It's a good theory, right? Sounds like a good theory. If I can stay on a diet longer than 30 days we'll call the unproved theory a good idea.

This morning I found one of the drinks to the right; a Naked Blue Machine. Banana, blueberries, etc. It tasted pretty good - but the first drink really did remind me of the whole juicing thing. I want to drink more of these - the blueberries are good for my gout. I want to add more juice to my menu. I still have the juicer, might as well use it, right? Another good theory.

I told someone this morning that if you want to learn about diet or exercise, talk to a fat guy, he's been reading and thinking about it for years. I know how to diet, how to exercise, how to lose weight - I just have to do it. I have to do it. I have to get off the couch, I have to go to the grocery store, I have to get to the gym.

Best news of the day? In the 5 weeks of just eating whatever and no exercise since losing 20 pounds on the juice fast, I am only back up to 464. I was pretty shocked by that this morning. I didn't backslide all the way. Good deal - maybe that bodes well for this time out.

Indeed, it sucked.

I did the juice. For a while.

As you may have guessed from the last entry, the green juice was indeed a problem. I just couldn't get past the taste and smell. The real nutrition is in the green juices; the kale, the chard, the spinach and so forth. I like these things. But, when you juice them, all you get is the concentrated chlorophyl and it smells and tastes like fresh mowed grass. I'm sure that smells delightful, to a cow, but I'm not much of a fan of grass to begin with, drinking the stuff was hard! Toward the end I was burying the chard and kale behind enough fruit that I could drink it, but I was worried about the sugar numbers and my diabetes.

The juices were filling, but not satisfying. I spent the whole week fixated on cheeseburgers. Weird, but it was where my head was at. With them being filling, with my fears of bumping my sugar with the fruit juices and with the gross-out factor on the green juices, I found myself often coming in at or below 1200 calories for the day. Not good. Starving myself was not an option.

I started to get some … cramps. Maybe not cramps, maybe spasms is a better word. The deal is that a muscle would contract and not release. It wasn't painful, it was sudden and alarming. Last Friday night, while in bed, my thigh flexed and wouldn't release. I kicked out my leg to try to get it to un-flex and the whole leg fired off: thigh, calf, foot and even my toes, all flexed and wouldn't relax. This lasted for over a minute while I lay there wondering what I was going to do? I don't know if it was lack of calories, lack of sodium, lack of potassium or what - but this freaked me out.

Nine days in and I was done with the 15 day juice fast.

That's the bad news. The good news came when I got on the scale Monday morning and saw that I had dropped 20 pounds. Well, I guess it's good news. Certainly seemed like a scary way to do it at the time.

In the process of all of this, I started a food diary out at MyFitnessPal. I've been keeping track of exactly what I'm eating - like I did out here years ago. It also keeps track of my exercise. It's not as good as Fitocracy for exercise tracking, but the food diary has really helped me see and control what I eat. I have even squeezed in some fast food - but I have found myself repeatedly playing with the fast food options before going to get the food. (The smaller fries, one burger instead of two ...) Yesterday I played with it until I decided to go home and eat something I already had that was better for me - saved myself 500 calories in the process.

In a few weeks I will get back on the scale. Sooner if I find myself waning. I've had some soymilk and I'm about to go make myself an omelet - all of which will get into the diary. I want the sacrifices I made on that juice fast to indeed be a reboot and to keep these good numbers going. I'm tired of being fat, sick and nearly dead.

I want to be healthy.