Thursday, August 7, 2014

The girl in the red dress.

I decided to log into the blog after someone that I have known since childhood said to me "I read your blog and I'm waiting for an update" I had no idea that people I knew actually read this blog because I tried to keep it as out of that loop as possible but here goes, an update. 

When I say there is a lot going on in my personal life I am understating, which honestly sounds like an excuse to me but as I have stated before I am indeed a stress/emotional eater which I'm working on but for now it wins that fight more times than not and I find myself lit from the front by a refrigerator light at times. My success with dropping weight paired with this whole regain bullshit that I've allowed myself to slide back into just because focusing on me is rougher these days has got to stop and I've "restarted" so many times in the last 2 years that I could be the poster boy for yo yo dieting at this point. There are days when I'm all like "Bring it on, I am the god of hellfire and everything health bows to me bitches! I got this" Then there are times that I feel more like Eore from Winnie the pooh and it goes to shit, I suppose I'm not alone in that kind of thing but damn its gotta let up sometimes... or. 

The day that this person I've known forever stated that she reads my blog I met a friend of hers and I didn't say anything at the time but this friend of hers forced me to think about this whole walk down the yellow brick road to health I've been on in a different way, the way I use to see it. Talking to this person reminded me that the attitude in which you approach a situation is possibly more important than than the process itself in a way. Though we only spoke briefly, I learned that she had lost 90 pounds and was a kettlebell instructor, her attitude and positive outlook stuck with me more than she probably realized in that moment. Over the last week I have been reflecting on a lot of things and decided that its time to take my body and health back from the negativity that currently holds the keys with an attitude change.

Life is too short and we never know what cards we will be dealt at any given moment, sometimes we get pocket aces, win the huge pot then happily ever after and other times we lose the farm, the key is that whatever we are handed that we stay the course. A blip on the radar in the grand scheme, a short conversation with a person who I know not much about other than she was really positive and dealt with some weight loss/health tuning of her own forced a week of reflecting on my part and here I am, with an update.

My excel sheet was dusted off and the salter scale is on the counter, I am heading out to the grocery store for some fresh stuff to eat after I click publish, Its time to find that guy who use to be as positive as that girl in the red dress again.

Thats all I got for today.

As Ever
Me 

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

As simply as I can say it..

In life, sometimes we are not sure where to start, many times it seems so daunting that we fail before we start, other times we dwell on what use to be but it will always remain the same no matter at what junction we stand.


You must start from the point at which you currently stand, not because its the best idea, not because someone else said so and not because the mood strikes you on any particular day.

But because it is where you stand and there is no other starting point.

What's holding YOU back?

Now to take my own advice.....


As Ever
Me

Monday, April 21, 2014

Those things that make you think about those other things..

So, the poison ivy is clearing up and opening day for trout has passed as did the big Easter dinner I made, things are looking up. This blog has given me a place to drop my thoughts when I feel the need to, it had given me a couple friends I would have not had otherwise and I have not posted as much as I might have shouldda in past months but here we go. 

This is how my day ended on opening day 2014, just amazing.

Opening day fishing was a disaster and only saved by the company that I had and one of the most amazing sunsets I have ever had the joy of laying eyes on to end my day, so in short it was a beautiful disaster. My daughter and I set out to fill the freezer with trout and at the end of the day all said and done we had a single 15 inch rainbow trout to show for our efforts and I owed her a buck for catching the first and what turned out to be the only fish of the day. Something that also made the day not so awesome was the fact that I broke the end off of one of my poles by rolling the window up on it... twice... so now my 7 foot pole is a tad shorter.



 It was a snack eating kind of day as I didn't have a solid meal all day Saturday besides breakfast but I was not minding calories at all so it made not much difference either way. Sunday on the other hand was a different story all together and the feast that I made for my family was pretty amazing... calorie filled for sure, but amazing. 

I had been doing well with my calories until about a week ago then I slacked, Today is a new day and I am not going to dwell on the fact that I have not eaten the best in the past week or so, it is what it is and its time to move on. I have to realize that I can do what I can do and worrying about things out of my control is not helping the ahem.. situation with my ass so I am trying to limit worrying but we all know how that goes. Over all I am feeling more positive about my weight situation but admittedly I do struggle a lot with dealing with the weight that I have regained and the mental that goes along with having succeeded in dropping what I did and turning myself around and now being in a 2 steps forward 3 steps back place in this journey. 

Once upon a time there was a fat guy that was not able to live the life that I am living right now, once upon a time I was living a life doing things that I cannot do at this moment and living in the now of life has got to become the way of me. The first time around I was a guy never having known how it felt to be healthy, this time around I know how it feels to be healthy and able to do what I please when I please and I am still unsure which is worse but in THIS moment, its worse having known and I'll use that to drive me forward into te life that I am trying to take back.  

Thats all I got

As Ever
Me

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Mike Tyson is effecting my weight loss.

How does a person who lost 230 pounds, became the man that he knew he was and completely turned his physical around gain more than 100 pounds back get into a groove that will again allow him to drop back into Superman status? This is my quandary.

I ask myself constantly how did I do it? how did I drop 230 pounds the first go around? most importantly how can I do it again? I walk, I eat decent (I'll admit I am not doing my part 100% where eating goes) but it seems that lately no matter what I do, no matter how hard I work the weight does not come off. I was doing yard work Tuesday and felt awesome because well, my yard looks amazing in the spring and I was getting what I have always considered "free exercise" by doing the work. fast forward to last night and I am itchy... My nemesis has returned, yep Poison Ivy, I must have missed that I pulled some roots up that were hairy and bamn! my fragile skin which cries at night thinking about poison ivy came in contact and this morning I look like I went 12 rounds with the young Mike Tyson.

I decide that going to my doc is the better option considering that the hospital is where I typically end up when meeting Poison Ivy in dark alleys if not a quick run to the mob doc for some medical help. I walk in, get weighed, blood pressure etc etc everything that happens with a visit to the doc and the nurse says "He will be right in" so I wait. The Doc walks in, says hello "been a while" yep sure has, "looks like ya got some poison ivy there huh?" yep sure do, "what are we going to do about that weight Tony?" I laughed because I had just told my wife who dropped me off that he would ask me. I said "lets get this taken care of and then we can talk" to which he replies, "yeah, you're getting a shot and a script like every time, now your weight"  and I think to myself "awesome" ...

After a short talk describing how I can;t seem to drop weight any more he wanted to do some blood work for my thyroid and I am reminded that My father takes meds for Thyroid, my grandmother had problems with hers as did my aunt... hmmmmm why didn't I think of that? because it seemed like an excuse when I DID think about it. I have an appointment in a month to talk about whatever the blood tests say and I somehow feel good that I am doing something proactive about this problem that I have. 

My blood pressure was ok, heart rate ok, everything seemed ok besides the statement where the doc said "you're 73 pounds more than the last time I saw you" ..... ouch. I got a shot for the ivy, got some prednisone and a cream for the itching so hopefully this "boxers look" that I have right now leaves me sooner than later and I feel hopeful where my weight loss is concerned again as its been a while since that was the case.

Maybe getting poison ivy was a blessing in disguise, I don't know but I do know that that hopeful feeling is deadening the itching a bit, so I'll take it. 

Thats all I got.

As Ever
Me

Monday, April 14, 2014

What we've got here is failure to communicate.

My mind says forward all engines captain yet my body refuses to comply with the order, whats a guy to do. Being negative is not how I dropped 230 pounds and is a huge part of why I have not posted lately, hows that saying go? if ya ain't got nothing nice to say? something like that.

Things OUT of my control dictate the gray matter and this is not how it should be but how does one separate the things that cause stress and the things that need to be done while making them work together if not in harmony just simply get out of one anothers way? If I knew we would be in a different place. 



With spring finally arriving in New England I realize that my hoodie is no longer a hiding place for the extra large version of myself any more and like a ton of bricks I am pissed, upset and feeling let down by myself all together. Yes its easy to say "start now" but alas here in lies my problem, I start at least 3 times per week because stress fucks with my noggin in ways that I wish it did not and like I said what to do when you are putting fires out constantly or dealing with complete frustration from more than one direction? I wish I knew. 

The old me... which was the new me.. who has now become the guy I use to be is so close in memory that being this guy that I am now seems foreign yet at the same time he is who is here at the moment. Now that I have thoroughly confused you, basically I am pissed and its time to do something about it because the guy that was doing 25 mile rides on his bike hasn't been around for a while, that guy who hiked all week, I haven't seen him in a bit and I miss him so looking for him is going to be a priority for me now. 

Less than inspiring? down? blah? perhaps thats how this post will be interpreted by anyone who takes the time to read it, maybe it will be seen as a guy whose had enough and is attempting to change a situation again in hopes that it sticks, I'm unsure as its literally just thoughts written as they came. This blog helped me drop 230 pounds once, maybe it can help me drop what I've gained back, at any rate, its worth a try. 

Thats all Igot for now, I'll try and post more often so check it out.

As Ever
Me... or is it.

Monday, February 10, 2014

Day 1, an inch at a time... Kicking and screaming if I must.

Baby steps.. that's what they say right? This oh woe is me shit doesn't look good on me so I've decided that I am going to try and pull that old me.. err or is it the new me? or maybe the new old me, well whatever it is hes coming back out in the front of the line. Its hard, I won't lie but when has it been easy? so if I drag myself an inch at a time eventually that will be a foot, then a mile then.... 


I am tired of this shit, I am tired of being tired and I am aggravated with myself for allowing the back pedaling with my health and weight, in that order because with good health comes the weight loss. I was once a completely sedentary 500 pound man, I became an extremely active 300 pound super hero and I have slowly but surely inched my way back up to over 400 pounds and inactive. No fucking way am I going to let myself stay here, I deserve better and like I said, if I have to drag my ass an inch at a time so be it. 

There will be slips, there will be days that I don't feel the way I feel as I write this but working through those times is what I need to relearn to do because if I don't I let people down and not just myself. When I started this blog I was completely lost, it was an experiment as much as a desperate man forcing a change so that death was not peeking into his windows every night and this time around I have a little more experience and I have to apply that to my daily so that we're back where we need to be.

Today I decided that this would be my Day 1.

Today I am recommitting myself to myself.

Today I take back what I worked so hard to get and what I deserve to have. 

This train is no longer idle, please step aside, I would hate to run over any innocent bystanders.. 

As Ever
Me


Friday, February 7, 2014

Fat guy issues..

When we know what to do, when we are fully aware of how to do it, when most of the tools needed are available and still the focus is not there what is the solution to that riddle? This is the place that I am in currently, I just cannot stay focused on the task at hand for more than a few days at a time before I find myself standing in front of the fridge staring in as if its the ark of the covenant, which didn't work out too well for the Germans in the Indiana Jones movie. I think back to that day in 2007 when I decided that I would start writing in this very blog, when I decided that enough was enough and weighing so much was not fun and games and I wonder how I was so focused. 

Fear, I was driven by fear back then, I was also driven by the anonymity that came with a blossoming blogger writing a blog and not knowing if anyone was actually reading it, in other words, no pressure. This blog played a huge part in my success and I believe that whole heartedly, there just is no denying that being able to lay it all out there helped to drive me into success. We need to get there again, no matter how hard I try I just cannot seem to get that eagle eye focus that I had when I first started losing weight and getting healthier and it bothers me more than I let on to anyone in my personal life or here when I write on this blog.   

Since I started writing this blog there are two people that were driving forces for me in this online world of weight loss blogging that have passed away. They struggled like I do with figuring out a way to stay focused and when I learned of their passing on each occasion I cried. Did I cry because someone that I had come to know had passed away struggling with weight issues? or was it because I was on a path not so different than theirs? maybe a combination of both? I don't know but it impacted me greatly.

This blog has served me well, I have met people that I call friends now, I have learned a lot about myself and fueling ones body and I have it here to look back on. I am going to try to get back in here posting more regularly again because that fear is creeping back in slowly and it sort of makes my ass look big so I need to get away from it again. 

Anyone that says "just stop eating" or looks at people that struggle with weight loss in a negative or demeaning way needs to reevaluate their out look on the subject because its not that simple, if it were we would all be walking around looking amazing and blogs like this wouldn't exist. Cut us fatties a break would ya? we're trying, even if it doesn't appear to be that way, we are and contrary to popular belief its not a party, this shit sucks.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it, I'm trying.. I suppose its all that can be expected of anyone. 

As Ever
Me

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Feeling so small in such a large body.. welcome to being a fat guy.

Its easy to look at a fat person and not consider why they may be that way because everyone knows that if you're fat you are completely lazy and most certainly love being that way. Hopefully you can hear the sarcasm in that leading sentence because having a problem with controlling weight is much more than being lazy, in fact I would bet that most fat people are not lazy at all. I can think of many reasons that a person might be looked at as different, Race, Gender a Handicap the list is not short and none of those are acceptable reasons to discriminate or belittle a person. Now it amazes me how that when a person is fat its somehow perfectly fine to belittle them for it and its something that I've spent my entire life on the receiving end of.

In high school when you graduate you get a nifty little year book, everyone signs them and wishes each other well on their journey after school ends and in the end of the book there is a spot for "most popular" teachers pet" etc etc. Well let me tell ya it was an amazing feeling to open up the year book and see that you made it into one of these little nominations and for what? Yep, you guessed it, "Most Lazy" well wasn't that nice of whoever decided to give the fat kid a jab on the way out. Typically these little tributes have a male and a female recipient and yep, you guessed it, the heavy girl from my graduating class had the honors of being most lazy for the female population of our school. To this day I am not sure who the wonderful person who decided that adding "most lazy"to that honorable list was an awesome idea but I'll tell you this, My year book hit the trash 5 minutes after I cracked it open because of that without a single signature inside, it was the perfect period to end the sentence that was my high school experience, just awesome, and that pun was indeed intended.

It is socially acceptable to belittle a fat person for being fat and much of the time no matter how hard we work to get healthy it feels like shoveling shit against the tide because of the negativity coming at you constantly for simply being what you are working so hard to try not to be. Something that is sort of interesting about being a fat person is that you are so physically big but inside you feel so small, You hear all of the fat jokes, nothing fits you correctly and you are twice as big as a lot of "normal" folks and yet feeling small and unnecessary is the norm much of the time and I'll bet that a lot of people don't even realize or just don't care how that feels. 

Even when you've concurred the demons, walked through hell and back getting yourself healthier that can still not be enough to be viewed as "normal" in the eyes of some people. I have never shared this story with anyone, in fact I just shared it with my wife last night and its something that happened more than 2 years ago, I never shared mostly because I felt smaller and more insignificant than almost ever in my life in that moment. 

If you read or have read this blog you know there was a point in my life where I was at the gym for hours at a time daily, I felt unstoppable and for the first time in my life felt as if I fit in with all of the "normal" sized people in this world even though I was still not at my ideal weight. A sign went up at the desk of the gym (which will remain unnamed) that sign said "Help Wanted" it was for a front desk/clean machines etc position and by a sign I mean a 2 foot by 4 foot banner sign on a stand at the front desk. A week went by and the sign was still there, a former contestant from the show The biggest loser worked at this gym and I figured that someone else who had lost 230 pounds may be a welcome addition to the staff, especially since He and I were close to the same size at this point.  A few more days go by and I thought about how amazing it would be to work at a gym since I had done so much for my health in the last few years. I decided to completely change how I would have done things as a fat guy (which would be to convince myself no way in hell would they want me to work there and NOT apply for a position) and as hard as it was for me, I applied for the job. 

A short time goes by so I decide to ask at the desk (the co manager of the gym) if they had hired anyone, "Nope, we're still hiring" I asked to talk to the manager so that I can check if they had taken a look at the application yet. Manager comes out, asks how she can help me, I asked about the application and she makes a face like she is recalling something then replies, "I remember seeing it, I'll have a look at it and let you know". At this point I am thinking "How does she know whose application to look at? she doesn't know my name" So I asked if she needed my name, which she says "oh yeah" So I say "Tony" because I was flustered and she begins to walk away so I then say "won't you need my last name?"  I tell her my last name and she walks away, never writing it down and rolling her eyes at me as if I was destroying her day by asking her if they had considered my app yet. A couple days go by and I see the same manager while I am there working out one afternoon so decide to walk to the desk and ask her if she had time to have a look at my application telling her I am excited for the opportunity, all she says is "We've done our hiring already", turned and walked away.

That entire thing went down in front of two or three staff members at the gym and a few gym members on both occasions so to say that I felt about an inch tall goes without saying because it was obvious that they had not "done their hiring" and I was being rejected without actually reading the app or interviewing me based on something other than what was written on my application. That hiring sign stayed there for more than 2 months after all of that happened and going to the gym never felt the same for me, especially watching as multiple people were hired throughout those months. Its hard to go into a place to workout, feel unstoppable and positive when you feel an inch tall because obviously no matter how much work went in, you're still looked at as completely different. Its too bad that the "no way in hell would they want me to work there and NOT apply for a position" as it turns out may have been a better option for me in the end because the whole experience sure did impact me

I stopped going to that gym eventually because of that experience, I can recall things like this happening throughout my entire life where being made to feel tiny inside this larger than average body was the norm and I'll bet I am not the only person who can say that. Fat people are not lazy, fat people are not different than you, fat people are not unaware that they are fat so reminding us with cruelty or obvious discrimination because of our bodily stature is not something others should find necessary.

I started writing this blog back in 2008 and it helped me to drop 230 pounds, I have gained some back (roughly 100 of that 230) I need to get back on course like many others that have issues with weight. Something that I ask anyone who may find themselves this far into this post is cut us fatties a break once in a while. We're trying, it sucks to be this over weight and we are full aware that we are large so there is no need to remind us with  stares, whispers, giggles or pointing. We don't point and laugh at Drug addicts, Smokers, Alcoholics or anybody else struggling with things that we know nothing about and we expect the same courtesy.

As Ever
Me