Do or die.....literally.......a blog about transforming myself one day at a time.

287

Or maybe 285........... The scale fluctuates.I have decided to go with the bigger number. No sense trying to make things seem better than they are. Face the truth. I have have soared past overweight, heavy, chunky, fat, obese. medically the term is morbidly obese and there is no better description than that, deathly obese. i will die from the disease of shoveling too much food into my eagerly awaiting mouth.  I am depressed, upset, resigned and angry that I have let things get to this place. This didn't happen overnight. This is the accumulation of time of all my laziness and gluttony and it is time to pay the piper.

287

I am ashamed of that number. It is hard to see it in print, hard to admit to myself that things have gotten so out of hand. And yet it is so important to put that number out there, in public, so that you understand exactly what i am dealing with.  Why cant i love myself as much as i love food?  Since i was the candy monitor in 4th grade, i have dealt with the issues of weight. By the time i graduated 8th grade I was 120 lbs. that would balloon up to 180 lbs by my junior year in high school.  I then spent a summer practically starving myself and dancing alone in my room and managed to lose almost 60 lbs by the time I returned to school in September.  senior year I weighed 128, the least I would ever weigh as an adult. the weight slowly crept back on till 200 was a comfortable weight for me, I felt good at 200 as if my body was made for that weight. but still my weight crept ever upward. I became a mailman and the walking gradually took off 20 lbs but as my body adjusted, my eating did not. even walking 5 miles a day, I started to add some weight. I became pregnant and during the ninth month I weighed 245.  I did get back down to 225 after giving birth but a few years later I would break my ankle and put another 20 lbs back on.  At this point I was middle aged, things were beginning to hurt and i was starting to spend a lot of time on the couch. I maintained a weight of 245 for 5 years or more until I decided I would quit smoking. I had been smoking for 38 years, having started at 12. Most of those years I was a heavy smoker so I decided the risk of a small weight gain was over shadowed by the benefits of not smoking anymore. I was fifty, it was time. I quit smoking. I was very proud of myself. there was no cheating, no back sliding, I simply made up my mind to do it and I quit smoking. It was that easy, I just didn't smoke anymore. I was expecting to put on 10-15 lbs as all the stop smoking literature warned. That was an average but of course i was not average. I put on a horrifying 40 lbs over the next 6 months. I went past 3x into 4x and am finally disgusted with myself. It is time. My favorite jacket no longer fits. My knees are starting to bother me.  Real depression is looming large.

Sunday Jan. 20, 2013

Day 1
......I sit here with a glass of ice water in front of me resolving that I will change this situation. I will report back to this blog. I encourage you the reader to goad or support me by leaving comments on this blog. Wish me well for I am going to try. I am going to do this just as sure as I quit smoking. I may make false starts but I will hold myself accountable. I am going to start small and hopefully get to a place where my diet transforms into something much healthier than what I am eating now. I am making a plan to make little gradual changes. The first one will be to drink more water, lots more water. I will start with one week, that seems manageable

My first goal...285

Day 1, eve, tomato soup, 1 grilled cheese

Good....I started this blog and drank lots of water

Bad....going easy on myself, just getting started.

Day  2
...... was an utter failure....tried not to eat most of the day, made up for it by eating a lot later in the day and ate at night....went to the store and bought things I shouldn't. I didn't keep to the simple plan of drinking water. I want soup to be part of my overall plan and I did buy soup but I bought cream of broccoli.

Good....not much except that I recognize my missteps and I am not excusing myself

Bad.....almost everything...tomorrow is another day.

 Day 3

287.... I awoke at 630 am and from 645 till 730 I actually exercised. I did a series of upper body workouts, basically stretches and boxing type movements followed up by 20 minutes on the bike.  I began the day with a glass of water.  My mid morning plan will be to take the dog for a nice walk of 20-30 mins.  It is very cold out...in the 20's.  this will at the very least, test my resolve.I am happy that I woke up with a good attitude. Attitude is so important.  I have been going through a protracted breakup and am finally admitting to myself just how my depression over this situation is adding to my overall lethargy.  I wish that things were different.  I wish that my partner and I had worked together to get ourselves in shape rather than just having talked about it. I do think that if we physically felt better, and supported each other in losing weight and being more active that we might have been happier. This would have led to a better relationship and a stronger bond.   I know that it will take time to feel better at the end of any relationship. I can spend that time, moping around and eating or moving around and eating better. Looking better will be a bonus. Feeling better about myself is the real goal. I know that nothing is going to happen overnight and that this will need to be a sustained effort on my part.  I will allow myself  not to feel too restricted so that I don't rebel against myself.  It is morning cand I will start the day with some Irish steel cut oatmeal, 1 portion as opposed to the 2 I would usually have.  Lunch will be the cream of broccoli soup with a few saltines and dinner will be a homemade hamburger. Hopefully I get myself to the store for lettuce, tomato and zucchini. Grilled zucchini will replace the French fries for my burger.   Calorie wise this may not be a great achievement but I believe I will be more successful by taking baby steps.  It is very important that I like what I eat or I will sabotage myself.
Good. was so cold out that our intended 20 min walk was cut to 10 mins. went shopping. bought mostly vegetables, made sauteed zucchini which was delish 
Bad ate too much during the day even though i ate better things

Day 4 

Wednesday 

this was a bad day..I am depressed, spent almost the whole day sleeping, which also meant I didn't eat anything until 9pm.  right now I just want to get used to the loneliness. I do have people I could call but as this is going to be a long term situation, I really need to get a handle on it. I did call my gf just to make sure she was okay today but I refused to engage in any destructive conversation, short and sweet, I have to go, type of call. dont know if it accomplished anything or even if there is anything to accomplish. Thinking that I will be very lonely till I go to Florida and then it will take me months to get used to my new surroundings and make some friends. It will be another chance to reinvent myself. I went through a similar difficult time 17 years ago during my last breakup and I remember spending months on the couch, possibly 3 and then I got back to the business of living.  Seems like that is my normal thing to do.  I have read up on it and it is called situational depression. It is also mid winter, it is freezing and i am feeling the doldrums. It is of course late at night and I am wide awake. but I will get under the blankets and fall asleep again. hoping I can be up tomorrow at a reasonable time and get things accomplished. My son says he will be by tomorrow so that will be a bright spot.  
The good. didnt eat alot
the bad. didnt exercise, ate very late, sleep schedule is upside down

Day 5

Best day yet.  Again didnt eat much but also wasnt really hungry.  Thats a big part of the plan, to only eat when hungry. So many of eat out of boredom or depression. Sometimes we arent really aware that we are eating. I made sauteed zucchini and a salad for dinner. I allowed myself a few cookies in the evening as a reward.

the good...the scale said 283

the bad...didnt exercise

Day 6

Went to the deli and bought some cold cuts and macaroni salad. came home and made a sandwich on a hamburger roll. Happy that I didnt go back and make another one because the first one was delish.  Made sausage and peppers for dinner. It was great. While I was at the deli I bought a huge sweet potato and 5 baking potatoes. Tomorrow I will have eggs of some sort and I will have a loaded potato for dinner. The Irish way of life.....got a potato, got a meal  and perhaps a meal.  thinking i need to also incorporate a one a day vitamin in the plan.  Excited that my first week is almost over.  It has not been difficult at all.

the good....i am cooking almost everyday

the bad...ate 3 rolls between lunch and dinner....need to watch the bread intake...there is no sliced bread in the house but I have to be careful not to replace sliced bread with rolls that are much worse. 

My first album

 

My First Album.....it all started here

a gift from my uncle TJ when I turned 10

So sad that 2 are now gone...

RIP John Lennon and George Harrison

you will always mean the world to me

 record 1
01. Strawberry Fields Forever
02. Penny Lane
03. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
04. With A Little Help From My Friends
05. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
06. A Day In The Life
07. All You Need Is Love
08. I Am The Walrus
09. Hello, Goodbye
10. The Fool On The Hill
11. Magical Mystery Tour
12. Lady Madonna
13. Hey Jude
14. Revolution
record 2
01. Back In The U.S.S.R.
02. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
03. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
04. Get Back
05. Don't Let Me Down
06. The Ballad Of John And Yoko
07. Old Brown Shoes
08. Her Comes The Sun
09. Come Toghether
10. Something
11. Octopu's Garden
12. Let It Be
13. Across The Universe
14. The Long And Winding Road

Kicking Lance Armstrong when he's down

       I can not be quiet. Mr. Lance Armstrong is about to admit to participating and spearheading a doping ring that shunned those who would not participate in the doping and the coverup. Furthermore, evidence dictates that Mr Armstrong actually orchestrated that only these dishonest athletes would represent the USA and the USPS team. He and his team would freely use steroids and blood boosters and then engage in blood filtering technique where blood was removed from their bodies and replaced with their own previously stored and filtered blood so that when they were tested, no trace of doping would be found. Due to this doping system, he and the American and Postal Service teams won many, many races.
     Mr Armstrong rubbed elbows with the most powerful people in the world, he dated many celebrities, amassed a huge personal fortune and generally lived a life that we all would have loved to live.  Although he was given many, many chances to come clean, he continued to lie and attack those who questioned his honesty and ethics. Eventually his house of cards collapsed and almost every teammate testified against him. The doctors who participated also confessed and described how the doping scheme worked and how it was hidden for so long by Mr Armstrong's strong arm tactics (interesting unintentional play of words there). Mr Armstrong not only disgraced himself, the USA, the USPS and a sport which brought him fame, fortune and glory but put himself arrogantly above the sport which made him who he was thought to be. Yet he continued to deny any wrong-doing and continued to claim he was being unjustly persecuted.
      Eventually the day came when Mr Armstrong was stripped of his titles, banished from the sport and had all his endorsement deals taken away. He even had to step down from his own charity because his involvement was quite detrimental to its future. 
     My primary complaint is that the punishment did not go far enough because he was allowed to keep the profits which he had reaped from all the years of his doping. So now we have a situation where Mr Armstrong will just not go disgracefully down in history but he will now confess and ask your forgiveness and hope that you feel sympathy for him. I am a charitable person but I am having a bit of difficulty accepting all of this.  He does not need to grovel for my sake. He does not need my forgiveness. I would just like him to stay out of the public eye and to privately find a way to atone for what he did. I don't want him to become a bigger celebrity by going onto Oprah's show and making a national admission of guilt. It is my opinion that the time for that is long past. I have seen his character and I cant un-see it. I dont want him rewarded for his behavior anymore. Is that so wrong?
     I whole-heartedly agree with the statement that was made last week by not voting Clemens or Bonds into the Baseball hall of fame. I furthermore was glad to see that no one would be inducted this year, if only because it said to me that the cheating in baseball was so widespread that the entire sport had been tainted. However, again, even though these athletes were publicly humiliated, they were not stripped of the financial gains that they were able to bank while the doping was occurring.  It, to me, says a terrible thing to the youngsters who are watching whats happening. It means that you do not need to have integrity anymore, It means that whatever method you can use to amass your fortune is fine. You can cheat, lie and steal and in the end we will have a short memory as we Americans tend to do. But that doesn't make it okay. Perhaps we now live in a new America. Integrity, honesty and fair play no longer exist in this society. Maybe its all about money, glory and fame, even if the fame is really infamy. I dont like this new reality. I dont like what it says about us as a nation and what it says about ourselves as people. I am wondering just who it is we are seeing look back at us in the mirror, just a ghost of who we used to be...........That to me is unforgivable.