Non sum qualis eram

Sunday night.  Always a rough time for me.  I used to call it staring down the barrel of a loaded work week.  Lay down my head and next stop will be Friday night.

I ate too much today.  Actually not today, I ate too much tonight.  I logged it all in the food journal.  Saddest part was it was only 300 calories.  My epic old day binges ran into the 1,000’s of calories.  That’s the part I love about the food journal.  The part I hate is that it means accepting the weight is my own fault.  It was soooo much easier to lie to myself and just say, “I don’t eat THAT much.  I just can’t lose weight!”

I’m starting to see that as an ongoing pattern.  Starve and then go nuts.  I’ve got a seperate journal for exercise.  Pretty much the same thing.  I tend to do good for a week or two.  By the end I’m doing a 2+ hour workout and then basically burn out.  Boom week off.

When I’m bummed I naturally assume that I’ve eaten ungodly amounts of garbage.  Then I say to heck with it and just EAT!  Now I get out the journal and it turns out that I actually haven’t eaten enough.  Last time I quite journalling my food, I slipped down to 600 calories for two days and then basically went food crazy on the third and fourth.  I went back and journalled everything as best I could from memory.  600 calories a day makes it pretty easy to remember.

Weight wise I’ve been lucky the last couple weeks.  Now I’ve gotta get consistent.  I like 45 minutes to an hour on the treadmill.  I just need to take a break from the marathons for now.  It’s just not worth it if I’m gonna burn out and take a week off.

Food-wise, I’m going back to octo-vegetarian.  I’m still cheating on the protein by supplementing with soy protein shakes.  Nobody’s perfect.  I caved in and ate meat the last few weeks.  With all of the problems, I just wasn’t up to the planning.  That’s all the veggie thing is to me; planning.  I pack raw, low calorie foods for work.  Fruits and vegetables that are premeasured.  Every break, I eat.  The hardest part is honestly not skipping eating.  A three hundred pound guy who’s doing a physical job requires quite a bit of rabbit food to keep the ole motor running along.

k.  time to give up and go to bed.  argh.

Okay, final stumbling block is out.  I knew the tooth was a goner, but I honestly expected more drama from getting a wisdom tooth out.

Dentist was amazing.  Dentist’s assistant was really cute.  I spent the time in the waiting room before hand talking to a girl who may have been literally half my age.  She was oblivious to the constant sounds of drilling in the background.  It was probably evil of me to point it out.  Then some poor fifteen or sixteen year old came out with her entire face like swollen.  Doc was great, though.  I didn’t feel nothing.  Just figured out a plan, talked to the pretty assistant for a bit and then lay back and got stoned on nitrous.  I’m surprised it wasn’t illegal.  Now I’m taking the minimum dosage of Vicodin.  I was all worried but I guess that tooth just needed out.  Really doesn’t hurt all that much.

See, it doesn’t take much to make me happy.  I haven’t stepped on the scale yet, but I think I may even have managed to lose some weight through this last week.  I’m not gonna potentially mess up the good mood with an early weigh-in but the clothes just feel looser.

Went back to the Dr. on Teusday.  Blood pressure is better.  Still high, but doing better.  Migraines are gone.  They checked my height and it turns out I’m and inch and a half shorter than I thought.  Last two relationships have been with women my same height.  First one swore she was 5′10″.  Back to back, we were the same height.  Then B.  She swore she was 5′9″ and once again back to back the same height.  Don’t ask how this keeps coming up.  Over time it just has.  B. even made fun of me for thinking I was 5′10″.  Big ha.  Inside jokes are great.  Now I find out that I’m apparently 5′7 1/2″.

I hadda look at the woman who did the measuring and just go, ” wow.  you just made me shorter… and fatter.”  The look on her face was priceless.  I think she thought I was serious for a minute.  She even showed me the clipboard was at 5′7 1/2″ on the big wall monkey thing.  (Yeah, the rest of my Dr.’s patients prolly have an average age of like 9.  We chose her ’cause she’s great with kids.  Funny how that worked out.)

Blood pressure was still a little high, but this week is toothache week.  Bad one.  Wisdom tooth on my left bottom side.  It’s much better than a migraine, though.  Migraine meant no treadmill and I felt like eating junk and lounging around a lot.  Toothache means no eating and the treadmill is one of the few things that seems to distract me from it when it acts up.  Of course, it prolly means the tooth is coming out tomorrow morning and quite possibly a root canal.

You know, the last woman I had a drink with was pretty short.  It wasn’t like a date or anything.  Months ago I was out drinking and bought someone a drink.  Hm… Mebbe I just need to date a basketball player or a model or something.  Then I’ll magically pop up to like 6′…  Science is awesome!  Makes more sense than all that calorie and metabolism malarchy! =)

Gonna be a good weekend.

I lost last week to a week long migraine.  I finally made it in to the doctor’s and found out I had a bp of 186/110.  That’s a wee bit high, even for me.

So, upped the bp meds.  Today I checked it myself and I’m doing better, but it’s still high.  Migraine’s still there if I exert myself.  I’m fighting the urge to push it just so I can check if it’s the bp going up.  There’s a high rate of strokes and heart attacks in my family, so I’m not gonna risk it.  My Mom had a stroke just about this time last year.  She still can’t feel her right side.

Whole thing is frustrating me and that’s not good with the bp.  The follow up appointment with my Dr. is on Teusday.  Work is stressful as always.  So, I’m mainly just pushing through to the weekend and see what happens.

I found this on myspace and it has officially piqued my curiosity.  These two brothers are movie producers.  One of them is 5′9″ and over 300 pounds.  (That’s pretty close to where I’ve restarted at.  I think that’s why it really caught my attention.)  That’s the guy who’s the focus of the documentary.

The premise is this.  He initially went on a 40 day water fast.  It looks an awful lot like a “Supersize Me” type of documentary.  He was under regular doctor supervision.  It sounds like they’re going to be honest about it.  It can’t have went too badly because he ends up going to a 55 day water fast to break the world record.  They’re being pretty hush hush about the results until they release the movie.  I don’t blame them, but they do say that he lasted the 55 days and has filed with the Guinness people for the record.

http://www.myspace.com/facingthefat    The link to the page.

They don’t have a release date, but I’m sure it’ll be all over the papers when (if?) it does finally come out.  So far it’s just listed as coming out in 2008.

I celebrated the end of the first challenge and the beginning of the new one with shish-kabobs.  Yay beef!  It’s been 3 weeks, pretty much as I remember it.

Today I finally got off of my rear end and did stuff around the house that I’ve been putting off.  Crazy stuff like vacuuming and sorting laundry even a haircut.  I’m moving the rooms around again.  Kids need a playroom.  Their stuff gets everywhere in a matter of the 2 days they are here and then I’m still finding stuff a week later.  Kinda  a rude slap in the face at the time.  Yeah, I get it.  They’re gone.

It is nice having the house cleaned up but it feels very much like being all dressed up and having no place to go.  This place just doesn’t feel like a home with just me in it.  It’s just the last place I lived before she left.  Days like today it still feels like I’ve got this empty place inside.  My only saving grace today was the fact that I couldn’t figure out if the empty spot was more candy bar or pizza shaped.  It just wouldn’t do to try and cram in the wrong one.  I settled on french toast for lunch.  Yah.  That crazy bachelor lifestyle!

No worries.  At least these days are getting farther and farther apart.  Tomorrow’s Monday.  It’s easy to find motivation on a Monday.  I just need to make it through the rest of the day without caving in.

Nine weeks into my ten week personal challenge and I’m calling it.  I’m not bailing on it, I just decided that I’ve made so many changes in what I’m doing that it’s probably more appropriate to start a new challenge.  Five weeks until my 36th birthday.  That’s also a much better target.

End result of the nine weeks is that I’m down 21 pounds.  That’s an average of 2 1/3 pounds per week.  I’d say that’s pretty respectable. It’s not Biggest Loser caliber but I’m also not sitting around on a ranch with a personal trainer and no other distractions.  Real life keeps taking precedence.

I really wouldn’t of thought I was doing that good.  Looking around though I can see certain spots that it’s showing in.  My wrists and face are definitely looking a lot different.  Top part of my belly is sinking in, but the bottom part… not so much.  I suppose that’s the price of aging.  Now when I lose it tends to come off kind of all over.  When I gain it heads straight to the ole gut.  I suppose stress plays a part in this, too.

I suppose that just means I’m gonna need to stick it out and lose all of it.

Most importantly, I need to keep up with the journaling.  When I’m jonesing for something, my memory just can’t be trusted.  I’m also sticking with the exercise and the vegetarian thing.   It’s tough keeping the protein up without meat but it’s tougher for me to control my portion sizes with meat.  Main changes I need to make are all upstairs.  I’m still eating something that’s off plan every 2 days.  Luckily we’re not talking massively bad.  I’m down to eating something massively bad once a week.  I would of swore neither of these was that often until I started the journaling.

Spent the morning obsessing about the past.  Keeping your mind occupied is an important part of my job.  The holes were in the right place and the hole pattern was good.  I’ve literally ran 100’s of these parts.   There’s really not much surprise left in ‘em.  So, I kinda let my mind wander.  The past is actually one of the more normal places it’s went. 

My last two exes (which cover pretty much all of my adult relationships) were the same height.  I’m the same height.  One of the shocking things about seeing the ex ex the other week was how SMALL she was.  I mean, I recognized the clothes she was in from when we were together.  I know from pictures I have that we were on a comparable scale.  I guess I never appreciated how small that was for me.

What really kept running through my mind today was the dreaded “What if?”.  What if I wouldn’t have bailed?  What if I would have finished?  At 230 I got my confidence back.  I was reaching the point where just about every pound made a difference.  I’m still not sure what my final weight is gonna be.  I’ve set my current goal for 215 just because that’s about a hundred down from when I started.  It’s also just about the end of what I can even realistically fathom.  Anything beyond that is just unknown territory.

Well today’s obsession was the “What if?”.  I know that there aren’t any “do overs” in life, but I can do the next best thing.  I know I’m getting ahead of myself but I’m actually excited about getting to 215 now.  I wanna see what’s on the other side.  If the low 200’s was that much fun (before the stupidity caught up with me), then how amazing are the sub 200’s?

Ah, whatever.  Main point is that I think I’m actually finding my motivation.  There are worse things than getting to my goal and then finding out the only reason I got there was because I was a complete nutter.  I’ll take it.

Fixed the mower and mowed the lawn, so I’m running late.  I’m off to hit the treadmill.  I should get done with enough time to watch Sweeney Todd.  Hope it doesn’t make me too hungry.  I heard it’s got meat pies in it.

I did pretty good today.  Got in the treadmill and avoided the bad stuff.  etc. etc.  Kids are back with their mom.  That was random, as usual.

Our trade off time is around supper time.  It’s an awkward time but it’s the only one that really works.  So, I grabbed more McDonalds for the kids.  They ate ridiculously healthy for the rest of the weekend, so I don’t feel too bad about that.  I survived the drive thru without breaking down.  That worked ok.   Tempting but ok.

I thought the kids were adapting pretty well to things.  Lately my Jenna is the only one who seems to get upset during the drop off.  Well, this time all three went off.  I am proud I stayed strong.  It doesn’t help them any to see me breaking down.

Then I noticed my ex looked kinda down.  Financial problems and health problems.  I’m not surprised.  I’m the one that warned her that being a single mother is hard.  I ended up holding her while she cried on my shoulder.  I’ve done it enough times in the past.  I gave the obligatory “It’ll work out” lies.  Well they’re not lies.  I just really don’t know how her life is gonna turn out at this point.  I got booted off that island.  I’m still paying on the old life that she walked away from.  I just know that even after all of this cr@p I don’t want to see her hurt.

I learned a long time ago that you can’t save people.  On a good day you get to help somebody, but they’ve gotta save themselves.

So anyways, I’m actually proud of myself.  After that I got back in the van and just sat there for a few minutes.  Then I drove the hour home with the combined scent of McDonald’s french fries and her perfume filling the van.  I drove past umpteen gazillion signs for fast food and made it home.

I’m not angry at her anymore.  I think that’s about burnt out of me.  I am a little upset at life in general.  I really wasn’t fair for me to be put in that position.  I shouldn’t have had to be that guy.  I mean, I know I didn’t HAVE TO be that guy but when we’re talking about a hug and a few words, I’m not gonna be a jerk about.  That’s just not who I am.

I know this ain’t the most manly thing to say, but the moodiness is definitely in full effect.  I’ve resisted posting some comments just because I wasn’t sure whether they’d sound like I meant them or come across as snarky.  I am reading and keeping up on them.  I do care.  It’s just easier to blog.  It’s easier to control what I say and I can even edit it if I end up sounding…  what’s the male version of (rhymes with witchy)?

I got 26 minutes in on the treadmill today.  That was a mile and a half, but I was gunning for at least a half hour.  The kids decided different.  My (almost) 4 year old daughter and my (almost) 5 year old son both had a time out within the first 15 minutes.  Then my youngest (almost 3) decided to get hers in at the 26 minute mark, so I had to finally sort the whole mess out.  I’m proud of them for going to their time outs without me having to stop the treadmill and walk them over.  They are great kids.  They just get jealous when I’m no paying them the full attention they want.  Add in the fact that they don’t get to see as much as me and well… they get sneaky when I’m occupied.  I’m at a stage that I can’t miss my daily exercise.  I’ve finally found some sort of motivation and I don’t wanna blow it.

We had a long talk.  My oldest is at the “why? why?” stage, so I even explained as much as I could about Daddy wanting to exercise and get healthy.  He just learned about germs at school so he seemed to understand what healthy meant.  I’ll see if it sunk in tomorrow.

Tomorrow they go back to their mom’s house and so we have a LOT to do.  I intend to get my treadmill in and we have to do baths sometime between breakfast and lunch.  Baths are usually an issue.  While I’m in with one of them the other two can get distracted.  I laid down the law.  The older two understood.  My oldest really tries.  I have my fingers crossed.  It’s not that they’ll do anything terrible.  There are just a lot of things that we can’t do together until I can quit being a drill sergeant/prison guard while we’re doing it.  They’ve got me outnumbered.

I’ve got a freezer full of frozen grapes.  I love ‘em.  If you try to grab too many they’ll thaw before you get to eat them.  I’ve got these ridiculously small bowls I use for the kids’ snacks.  Frozen grapes are officially they’re favorite snack now.  Biggest issue was finding out that I had some apples that were going bad.  Not bruised or anything.  They really had no taste left.  I definitely gotta have apples the next time their here.  JT’s got a memory like an elephant.  I promised and he’ll never let me live it down.

Made vegetarian taco salads for supper.  Just replace the beef with morning star crumbles.  Kid wolfed on it.  I even asked if they wanted it again and they all did.  Win!  I’m making sure to buy meat when the kids are here.  It’s kind of nice to be able to eat the same thing they do.  If what I’m eating doesn’t at least look like what they’re eating my two  (almost three!) year old wont eat it.  She gives me the funniest look and just kind of pokes at it.  Maybe she thinks I’m trying to poison her, I dunno.  More likely she just thinks I’m getting the good stuff.   I really dunno.

I love cooking when the kids are there.  No matter what I’m chopping up, they’ll eat it.  Green peppers, broccoli or even white onions.  I have never heard of kids that age that’ll eat raw white onions but my kids love ‘em.

Dream.  Anything is possible.