The Misery Diet

So, for those that don't keep up with my life outside of this blog, since November, 2014, I:

• Lost my job. Again.
• Ran out of Unemployment Insurance
• Moved back to St. Louis where I am sponging off friends who are in even worse financial shape than I.
• Was unemployed until November 2015.
• That contract ended and I am now in my second low pay, high stress job.

In short, I've been pretty miserable. I grew up in St. Louis and for many reasons, not all of them logical, I hate the stinking pit of a town, a place I like to call "Lil' Detroit".

Sponging off my friends isn't good, the fact that they are doing this out of the kindness of their poverty stricken hearts while I bitch about their beloved home town makes me a huge heel.

Because I'm living out of a small room, I really can't have much of a love life. In fact, I've tried and just really can't come up with one. The fact that I left all of my lovers in Seattle makes this even more painful.

In fact, I pretty much feel like a lost teenager. I live out of a small room, I have a crappy job to keep the payments on my car, I have to obey the rules of the house and I don't have a love life. I'm 17 all over again, except fatter and with less hair.

To make me feel even more immature, I vented to Facebook and my own mother told me to grow up. Apparently having feelings AND showing them, not to mention being disgusted with the bigots I'm surrounded by is immature. I will now commence to bottle up my feelings and become a frigid prude like just about everyone else in this town. It's the mature, grown up thing to do!

Having said all of this, the last time I got on a scale, I weighed about 430. Today, in an effort to find that happy sex life (ever the closet optimist!) I went for an STD test. I try to go every six months, but I haven't in two years. Anyway, they got me on a scale:

398

I asked repeatedly if the scale was accurate and was assured it was.

398

I have been trying for nearly a decade to get under 400 pounds. I was so close several times. I have tried every diet I could think of to get past that 400 pound mark. I've tried positive thinking and meditation and anger and, well, it turns out misery was the answer.

It's not even good misery. I mean, I have a roof over my head and a full belly. A very full belly. Food is, as my readers know, my drug of choice. I have been eating a ton of fast food and candy and full sugar soda - so, food, indeed. My needs, for the most part, are being met. I am surviving. It's not like I'm starving or in a war zone or some place I can wear my misery as a badge of honor. No, I feel guilty about feeling this bad because so many others have it so much worse.

I also figured I'd have a huge sense of accomplishment when I crossed that line. But, I didn't do anything. I'm eating crap, I have a membership to the Y that I don't use. I just lived and ate and masturbated. Ta-dah! Thirty pounds gone. A part of me says, yes! Use this! Diet. Exercise. Work it. But, another part of me (an admittedly stupid but none the less convincing part) says, don't do that! You got the weight off by being miserable, don't worry that you've probably lost thirty pounds of muscle and bone mass, worry that the weight might come back! Worry!!!

For the moment, I'm just marking the milestone. I went to Arby's and got two big sandwiches, I went to QT and got a large Iced Tea with Splenda. I went to the grocery store and bought quinoa and cheese puffs. Confused? Yup. I'm working three twelve hour shifts the rest of this week. Maybe I'll go to the gym Saturday.

My poor finger ...

Been about a month since my last entry. Most of that time I spent burning off the remains of my anger & frustration over not getting the surgery.

Purple!

Last week I got my new blood glucose meter. I've had others before, but I rarely used them and by the time the battery died, the strips were impossible find. Heck, half the time the company had gone out of business. So, I decided to get a new in box, but older model of a popular meter off Amazon, the OneTouch UltraMini - in Purple! The strips are still plentiful and I think they will be for a while. I ordered some generic test strips and they seem to work fine. I've been testing my sugga daily, much to the chagrin of my poor left index finger. It only hurts for a few minutes, but my finger has tiny polka-dots. More like poke-a-lots!

I should have listened to my doc a while back and done the daily meter thing sooner. It has been a real indicator of change. So, I started measuring last week, I only managed to get on the treadmill once and I didn't care what I was eating. My numbers were in the high 200s and low 300s - not good. This week, I've been careful about my intake and have worked out three times so far - nothing super awesome, just some walking. However, yesterday morning, right after my walk, not having eaten for 10+ hours, my sugga was 205. I continued fasting and went to the doctor. She measured my sugga at 168. Now, a normal person should be around 100, but I'll take 168 over 300+ any day.

So, that's a metric that works and shows promise. A metric and method that failed was upping my steps per day. The whole 10k steps a day thing has been a popular meme, but it's just not going to work for me. I got this way by having a sedentary job: I sit at my desk, I think, I type, I click buttons and make computers do cool stuff. If I'm up walking, I'm not actually working. I need the job. So, that bit won't work. The pedometer apps for the phone had a variety of issues as well, making the idea of using walking as a metric basically impossible. I am, however, going to ask for a standing desk, at least I'll get off my ass. I may also get an exercise ball to sit on. Do a little shaking and grooving while I sit.

Probably the biggest difference between last month and this is my attitude. Frankly, I've climbed down off my own back. We are our own worst critics. No one has ever given me more crap about being overweight than myself. I'm trying to let that all go. I'm working on my health. I'm making progress. If I can't get over that, if I can't get past the fact that this process is going to take time and on-going effort, then I can kiss my own ass and go straight to Hell! Hmmph!

Okay, off to eat a salad with chicken and a vinaigrette for lunch. Y'all have a good day.

Too Angry to Diet

I'm done dieting.

No seriously. It's pointless. Ten years. One #diet or another, on and off. Where has it gotten me?

It's gotten me angry.

It's gotten me frustrated.

It's made me feel stupid & useless.

All the money I've spent on this gadget & that product have made me poorer.

What I haven't gotten is lighter or healthier. Not a bit. All of the above stress, all the anger at my inability to win this fight - a fight with my own body. I feel like a big pile of fail. A Fail Whale indeed.

Then, we find the fight is rigged. Read this article. I'll wait.

That's not the first time I've heard this kind of thing. I've heard this a few times. Certainly my anecdotal evidence backs it up. Even the numbers I got out of the weight loss surgery seminar were telling. On average, at the five year mark, people that get WLS have kept off 70 to 80% of their goal weight. The numbers on average at the ten year mark are 60 to 70% of their goal weight. At the time, those numbers sounded fab. But, spending tens of thousands of dollars and still, in my case, being 100 pounds overweight sounds, now, in the cold light of day, utterly ridiculous. At the time I was thinking, well, heck, there are 50% of people above that average that lose a lot more, right? The problem is that there are 50% below that average, too. Imagine the soul crushing horror of taking off 250 or 300 pounds only to watch it all come back.

I can't be that guy. I refuse to be that guy.

I haven't been able to lose weight. The game is rigged, I likely can never get down to my goal weight. What's left?

I see two options:

Option 1
Eat donuts until I explode.
Option 2
Do anything but Option 1.

Option 1 sounds like it would be fun in the very short term. Frankly, I think mostly due to my recent, but failed, Anger Diet, I have shrunk my stomach significantly. The mere thought of a dozen donuts is nearly nausea inducing. I cannot commit "donut suicide" with three Krispy Kremes ...

That leaves us with Option 2. What exactly is Option 2?

I've spent most of this week eating everything in sight, making myself sick (seriously shrunk my stomach!) and considering the above question.

Yesterday, Friday, I came to a conclusion. As we said above, I can't commit donut suicide and go to donut heaven. Further, I don't wanna die. I want to hang onto my life, such as it is, for a few dozen more decades or more. Being alive is all I know and apparently I'm a glutton for mediocrity. Losing weight, as we discussed above, is also a bit of a far fetched idea. So, all that is left is health.

That's right. Health.

For ten years I've been chasing the number on the scale. Every time some restrictive diet fails to give Instant Gratification Lad (that would be me) huge, lasting results, I give up and go eat everything. I've been on this stupid roller-coaster for far too long. Look at this blog. What's at the top? Before any content, there is a weight tracker - obviously I'm a bit obsessed. I'm tired of chasing the number. The scale has made me nothing but unhappy.

What makes me happy?

I have to admit, not that I haven't admitted it here before, but I like to go to the gym. The getting up early is the part that sucks. But, when I am done, the rest of the day usually feels a hell of a lot better. And going to the gym later in the day never seems to end well, if it happens at all. I like eating right. I usually feel better, well, after my body gets past some of the gastrointestinal issues of upping one's veggie intake. I like doing active things, I just hate the aches and pains, sometimes severe, that show up afterward. Going for a walk sounds like fun, until the skin on your sole separates and turns into a giant blister that keeps you off your feet for a day or two.

Oh, yeah, what makes me happy ... right! Eating right, going to the gym and being active. Losing weight, like a donut, only feels good for a moment. Eating right feels good all day, having gone to the gym does, too.

So, to sum up, here's the new plan:

1. Tell my brain, over and over, that losing weight, chasing the number, is a bad plan. Reduce looking at the scale to once a month. I think the end of the month. I may not even set a day.

2. Eat. Just eat. Lean meats. Veggies. Fruit. Small portions. The Big-ish Breakfast, Big-ish Lunch, little-or-no dinner thing has been good in recent attempts. Usually when I do this, I can barely choke down 2000 calories. If I fall off, get back on. Not the following Monday, but the following meal.

3. Gym. Lots of it. Really ramp up the gym attendance. Five, six, seven times a week. And why not? Just do it. I'd like to get back to Simple Cardio Monday, Wednesday & Friday with Lifting Tuesday & Thursday and a Cardio, Lifting & Swimming thing on Saturday and/or Sunday. Lots of gym time. Nothing that will kill me, just regular, everyday movement. Slowly ramp up the cardio & weight. I am envious of people with muscles, not to mention useful, flexible bodies. I want that. I can give myself that.

4. Activity. Go be active. Go swim after work. Go for a walk. Why am I watching six TV shows back to back? Go walk!!! Already went to the gym today? So?!? GO WALK!!!

5. Measure. My metric up to this point has mostly been weight. I have been good on and off keeping track of what I eat, but, frankly, it was a pointless chore. When I am careful, I eat about the same stuff everyday, I was just cutting and pasting from the previous days in my diary. Not to mention, it all felt like guess work. Was I eating 100 calories of grapes every time? Not likely. It was annoying. I think I'm gonna drop that. But, I am going to buy myself a new blood sugar meter or two. I need to get my sugga down. That will get measured and tracked daily. I will certainly track my exercise. I may not track my activity. So what if I went for a walk after work? If I am just out walking, looking at stuff, stopping here and there, that's not really organized effort. It's just being active. I want "being active" to be fun, no stress, just something I do because I can. I think I may try to keep myself active at work, maybe track my steps, try to spend 10 minutes out of every hour standing, stop being a lump in a chair.

If weight comes off, great. If not, I don't want to care. If I am still 450 pounds, but can walk 4 miles in an hour, I'll be a heck of a lot better off than I am now. That's new hotness: Health.

I'm pretty sure that if +Tonja Davis  is reading this, she's thinking "Told you so!", likely +Advocata Vasquetzl as well. Well, sometimes I'm slow, it takes a while for the wisdom to sink in. But, here I am, older & wiser.

Sick; As Predicted.

I hate this.

Every time I start a new diet, it seems like about a week in, I get sick. Some kind of sick. Never the same type of sick, but it always seems to derail me.

This time was pretty bad.

Ever had a sulfur burp? An egg burp? A burp that smells like rotten eggs? You feel bloated. There might be some diarrhea? Yeah ... it's a common problem with high protein diets. The protein doesn't get digested properly and causes a sulfurous gas to build up. There is bad stomach cramps and diarrhea. It's only happened to me one time before. But, yesterday, it started early. I had a lot of protein on Saturday, so no shock. It wasn't too bad at first. I drank a lot of water to flush my system. It seemed about done. So, I ate some eggs. Essentially I threw fuel on the fire. It got really bad. The eggs came back up. I was up every hour, running for the toilet. This went on all night. By 10 AM this morning, everything was back to normal, except I was weak as hell. I feel better now.

I got on the scale. 436. I lost 15 pounds. Mind you, a lot of that is likely dehydration. I bet if I got on the scale tomorrow I'll have put five pounds back on. Either way, that's the number. We'll see where we are next week. I plan to keep going with this diet for as long and as far as I can. At least a couple more weeks with this big calorie reduction. This is the lowest I have been in four years.

400 pounds has been a long term goal for me, pretty much since I started dieting. It's as much a physical barrier as it is a psychological one. No diet that I have been on in the last ten years has gotten me below 400. The closest, and this weight was also aided by being sick, was 418. That was also about four years ago. Here I sit, just 36 pounds from 400. I want it this time. I want it hard.

Still Angry

So, here we are, Day 3 of The Anger Diet. As a #diet goes, it's not so bad. Three shakes, one meal and an empty stomach. There have already been changes. The first day, Tuesday, I was pretty hungry. I kept looking at food and denying myself. Yesterday, I wasn't hungry. Sure, the stomach was empty and food felt good, but there were no pangs. Food came when it was due, just not in the huge amounts or the constant flow my body is used to.

This morning was a little different. When I woke up, I thought about food and the thought kinda sickened me. The thought of a large meal nauseated me. It occurred to me that if I did decide to go back to my old habits, after such an extreme change, I would make myself sick. I'm surprised, this has happened in such a short time.

I'm not looking forward to the next few days. Fridays, the boss buys us lunch. If I can manage a low cal meal out of it, I'll be fine. But, if not, I may have to ditch the office, which will be easily observable. It's a small concern, but no one makes a tempest in a teapot like I do. I have social engagements this weekend, lots of food land mines. Luckily it'll be with people that get it, but it's still not going to be fun. Gotta get through the weekend.

My big concern right now isn't food or calories or even exercise. My current concern is longevity. How long can I keep this diet going? My habit usually sees the death of any diet in very short order. A week is the average. Two weeks is a good stretch. Three weeks is nearly unheard of and the crazier the diet, the shorter it lives. So, how does one sustain a diet based on anger?

Add more anger, of course!

Like any fire, when it begins to die, heap on some fuel. Enter my boss.

Don't get me wrong, I like my boss. He's a straight forward guy. He knows he's an opinionated dick. His words! I admire someone who knows themselves well enough to be able to declare such things. Doesn't make dealing with him much easier. But, in the end, he is a known quantity - you are getting exactly what it says on his smug, diminutive package.

Last night I hung out at work, doing laundry (the machine is free and better than the ones in my complex!), he happened by. He's aware of my situation since we discussed the insurance issue. We started talking and this began a two hour lecture on my weight, my health, my finances and my life choices. This is typical of the guy, not unexpected. But, by the end, I had a whole new basket of anger. Now I want to shove my diligence and resolve in his FUCKING FACE!

That should get me through the weekend.

Don't Diet Angry!

Today begins what I have been calling "The Angry Diet." Holler out if you've heard this song before:

I am SOOO-OOO-OOO sick of being fat!

Okay! Okay! Stop shouting. Of course you have heard it before, if not from yourself than certainly here on this blog from me. This blog chronicles five years of frustration. I have tried nearly every #diet and everything else I can think of and have not been able to find the diligence or the discipline to stick with anything for very long. Not getting the #gastric-bypass is something of a last straw. I'm just sick!

In the materials for the surgery, there is a pre-op diet. The diet is intended to shrink the fat around the liver and the stomach to give the surgeon better access. The diet is intended to last two weeks and is VERY low calorie. If my calculations are right, less than 1000 calories. As in, three 200 calorie shakes and one 300 calorie meal, like a Lean Cuisine. Bam! That's all.

Okay, well, I'm not going to do that. But, I thought, what if I got close to that? Really cut my calories. Just for a while, say a month? What would that look like?

I put together a shake. A scoop of egg white protein powder and 16 ounces of soy milk. That's 330 calories, so three of those a day, about 990 calories.

Then, a meal. Something simple. Chicken breast or fish with veggies. Today was a can of tuna, a bit of kinda-fresh broccoli and some baby carrots. A tiny bowl of food that I generously call 200 calories. Tasted like a steak & baked potato by the time I got to it.

Being a little short, I went with a bag of peanuts as a snack for 290 more calories.

My calculator calls that 1480 calories. I was aiming for 1500, so not too far off.

Before you ask, yes, I've been hungry all day. But, frankly, I'm getting high quality food, I'm not starving, just hungry. And, well, I have my anger to stuff into my empty stomach.

Can I pull this off for a month? Not likely. I was eating 2500 calories a day and couldn't stick to that for two weeks. But, I'll give it a shot. When it fails, hopefully my anger will be beaten down and I'll do something more sensible, albeit as likely futile.

On a good note, of sorts, the lady who handles our benefits at work is working with the insurance company to see if we can get gastric bypass coverage added to our policy. We renew our policy in September. She talked to me late last week. No word yet. I'm not hopeful, but we'll hold out and see.

Five Dollar Hypnosis

I've exchanged calls back and forth with the Overlake people. They have confirmed that there is no insurance option. There are no other financing options. They should be selling financing like car places do! $25k is the price of a nice used car, they could chuck in GAP insurance & everything. Whatever. Until further notice, there are no plans for surgery. I want to say it was a waste of time, but, in many ways it wasn't. I'm looking at my weight in a slightly different light.

This outlook was aided by yesterday's activities.

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I was looking into hypnotherapy. I mentioned that the doctor I looked at had MP3s for like $300. It occurred to me after I wrote yesterday's post that there HAS to be others slinging hypnotherapy CDs, right? Off to Amazon - and, yup, there are plenty! Left, right & center. Well, the highest reviewed, most popular must be the best, right? Not necessarily, but I'd give it a shot. The highest rated is also one of the cheapest - ah, the free market! Anyway, Roberta Shapiro's disc was only $10. From $25,000 to nearly $4000 to $10 - the path to complete weight loss is getting cheaper all the time.

Then it struck me: it's the 21st century and I'm looking at Amazon, physical media is so pre-millenium! I clicked around for the best MP3s on Amazon. Who'd a thunk! Same Roberta Shapiro recording, and this time for $5. Comparatively free!

I downloaded it to my phone yesterday afternoon. Quick as a wink I had my own hypnotherapist on my phone. Last night, I lay down in bed, a bit before my usual time and started the recordings ...

This is where shit changed.

In all seriousness, it was very relaxing. Her voice is relaxing, the music is relaxing, and once I decided to open up and give it a chance, I did fall into a deep relaxation. It was quite pleasant.

I went along for the mental ride. I followed the guided walk through. I followed the later meditations. I don't know if I was hypnotized. I do know I was very relaxed. I do know I have very vivid memories of the places I was guided to. I also know that when I was guided to surround myself with people I loved and that I knew supported me, I saw several people there, and when I saw my mother, well, I started crying. Not a small, single, manly tear. Nope. Big, heaving sobs. (I'm choking up writing this. When did I become a crier?) It felt good to let go, embarrassing, but good. I think I have a lot more emotion tied up in my weight loss than I have been aware.

I also had a moment where I was guided to envision my goals. I saw my scale at 190, and that is important. But, I also saw myself running. Running! I saw myself enjoying a run. Not out of breath. Running because it felt good to run! It brought me again to tears, tears of pure joy. What a joy it must be to just run - without worrying if you are going to break something or have a heart attack. Just feeling the world rush past, the wind in your face. I miss that so much. I haven't run since I was a kid. Just a few quick steps and I'm winded. FUCK THAT!!!! I want to RUN! I want to jump. I want to play. I want to use my body as something besides a place to shove food, a place to dump meds, a device for breaking furniture. I want to walk into a restaurant and not have to ask for a table, a booth will be fine. Sitting at the fixed chairs at the bar sounds good. A tiny car? No problem, I'm just one of the gang, not a burden to my friends and family.

... speaking of emotion!

Anyway, I feel pretty good this morning. Placebo or not, I feel good. I plan to use the recordings more. Maybe I can get good at this whole thing. Maybe I can finally find a diet and the motivation to go to the gym for more than a week.