Non sum qualis eram

First week down, I’m happy with the results.  We’ll see how I do with a full work week next week.

So anyways… I crashed for like 12 hours night.  I think I needed it.  I woke up today feeling sore but awake.  Let’s face it, my schedule is kinda brutal.  As long as people keep worrying about the environment and keep buying ethanol, it ain’t gonna get any less brutal.  I’m not knocking the environment.  I’ve got kids and I’d just as soon leave them a planet worth living on.  It’s just that doing my part to build all of the equipment used to grow all that extra corn is slowly killing me. 

So anyways… …  I woke up today and found myself wide awake. I balanced the checkbook, grabbed a couple hundred bucks and hit the casino.   I was up 400 bucks for a while…  End result $200 became $600 bucks and then became $32 bucks.  It was kind of surreal.  I struck up conversations with people at the first few slots I played.  Then for like the next six hours I kept bumping into one of them.  “Still up?”  “Lost that money yet?”  That kind of thing.  Friends for a day I guess.

I lost 6 hours and almost 200 bucks.  Good thing I’m single, huh?  Otherwise I’d have some ’splaining to do…

It’s been that kinda week.  I got a mis-dialed txt message the other night.  I txted back about it being the wrong number.  I ended up spending an hour and a half txting a woman who lives in my hometown.  She does the same kind of work I do at a place I used to work at.  She’s also almost my age.

You know, I have made a conscious decision that I’m taking a break from the whole wimmenz thing.  I really need to take some me time before I risk getting into another relationship.  Then she txts, “R U married  Im not”.  I beat a hasty but friendly retreat.  I had a friend tell me a while back that I’d never meet someone if I stayed at home.  Boy was she wrong!

These are strange days

Kevin

I made it up at 3am today for my morning workout.  It wasn’t much of a workout.  I did like 10-15 minutes on the treadmill.  It did wake me up, though!  WIDE AWAKE!

I discovered something.  I really don’t like my job.  The pay is good and I’m pretty good at it.  It was supposed to support a family of five on one income.  With the overtime it can definitely do that.  That ship’s sailed and I just feel totally frustrated at work.  I think it’s the monotony combined with the lack of mental stimulation.   Maybe everyone feels like this after working in the same field for 15 years.  I don’t know.

First step is the weight and working on the home front.  Step two may end up being a career change.

The treadmill of doom awaits…

Kevin

I just weighed in.  I started the counter over, but it’s still showing a 25 pound loss.  Well, that ships sailed!  I’m up 2 pounds from when I started this whole thing.  Funny thing is that I don’t feel too bad about it.  I knew my weight was up there somewhere.  For 11 years I have been unable to plan anything.  This is something I planned for.  I set a date and I’m starting over.

I spent most of today feeling strangely melancholic.  I’ve looked back on my own experiences and I’ve been looking at other people’s stories.  It all amounts to the same thing.  It’s about starting a new life.  That means letting the old one go.

It might be different for people who have only been overweight for a few years or for someone who is 10 pounds overweight.  I’m obese.  I’m making a conscious decision that I no longer want to be obese.  In a lot of ways, that means I no longer want to be me.  We are more than just our actions, but our actions do define us to an extent.  What I’m doing just hasn’t been working.  It hasn’t made me the “me” I want to be.

I hit a lot of divorce support boards when I went through my divorce.  The advice you get there over and over again is, “Quit struggling”.  Basically, quit fighting the process.  The hardest part is accepting that it’s over.  There isn’t going to be another romantic dinner.  She isn’t going to call.  The time for talking is over.  Negotiations have ended.  You can’t regain what was lost.  Your old life is over and it’s time to move on.  Just accept it and quit struggling.  There are no miracles or do overs.  It’s just done.

I’m fat.  My old life is what got me here.  It’s time to just let it go.

I started realizing something from watching the Biggest Loser this year.  It’s not the weak willed or the people with the “lack of willpower” that struggle on the show.  It’s always that guy who just refuses to accept the program.  It’s that guy who just cant give it up and admit that he needs to change.  The successful ones leave their egos at the door and say, “Mold me!”  They check so much of their old selves at the door and start fresh.  I loved the episode where Matt went home and ended up at the bar.  He just didn’t fit in.  He’d left that life behind.

So, I spent a lot of today saying goodbye to a lot of things.  I’m putting as much of my ego aside as I can.  I’m following this rather detailed list (series of lists actually) that I made.  Tomorrow, I’m going a little more free form than I will be starting Monday.  I still have the kids and a very full day, and I’ve allowed for that.  I also figured that it would be an opportunity to make me prove to myself that I’m not going to blow it this time.  The new me wouldn’t do that.  Tomorrow night I’m starting back in on the treadmill.   Saturday I’ve got the morning strictly planned but I’m leaving a window open in the afternoon.  It’ll mean counting calories, but I’m going to be eating with the girls.  I’ve picked foods that are easy enough to count.  It shouldn’t be a problem.   I’m also doing one workout on Saturday.  Sunday, I’m pushing fruits and veggies and a lot of water.  I want one final chance to clear out the system.  Since its my only day off, I’m going to try for 2 workouts, just to try it out.  Then Monday, I’m starting the new plan.  By the second week, I would like to have an am and pm workout.  The am just to wake me up.  Nothing serious, just a brisk walk on the treadmill to start the day.  The pm workout is gonna be the serious one.  I’m hoping to move the pm one to a gym as soon as I feel comfortable.  I’ve got a few free weights, but not like they have in a gym.

If this all sounds insane, well, it probably is.  I’ve got a new life to start and I can’t see beating around the bush anymore.  Fake it until you make it.  Act like a winner to be a winner.  etc.  etc.

There’s some kind of a twisted night before Christmas feeling to this right now.  I’m actually looking forward to starting this thing tomorrow.  I’m ready to start something new.

Turn the page.

Kevin

I’m starting over.  I haven’t weighed myself in a month.  I made a judgment call and decided that rather than fail badly, I just wouldn’t play the game this month.  I just figure that we don’t lose until we quit.  I haven’t quit, therefore I win!

Kids are going back to mommy’s on Sunday.  I survived three whole weeks of being a single parent.  Well, I’ve almost survived it!  I’m gonna give myself the benefit of the doubt and plan on making it through the next few days.

I’m gonna weigh myself and start over on Friday.  That’s late enough in the week that I can always phone it in if I need to.  I mean at everything else, not the diet!  Man oh man, I hate that word.  It’s so misleading.  It’s not about diet, it’s about lifestyle.  My brother just lost 90 pounds doing a modified Adkins dealie.  My ex lost 190 pounds last year under weight loss surgery.  Heck, I’ve lost over 80 pounds twice in my life.  Read any of a million stories if you want.  Their only real common denominator tends to be a serious lifestyle change.  Going on a “diet” just isn’t enough.  Live a sedentary lifestyle and it still ain’t a gonna work!

I’ve been getting my upstairs in order.  My brain, not the upstairs upstairs!  I cleaned that like a month or so ago and I think I even put something in a blog about it.  The ex seems to be doing fine with the pace maker.  It’s odd seeing the pictures on her myspace.  You know, the ones with her and her new boyfriend.  I encouraged her on this one.  After she had the drunk thrown in jail, I was glad to see a somewhat decent guy with a job in her life.  I don’t mind my kids being around this one.  I kinda figured that it was better for me to make good and sure we BOTH understood that this bridge was burned.  She did me wrong and I’ll leave it at that.  I’m still not gonna be an a**hole about it.

I’ve also been planning my big start over!  This time I planned everything.  My current goal is to do a ten week challenge with myself.

I read a bunch of surveys and studies about weight loss.  The best of them tended to have at least 30% of the people admitted to cheating.  Now understand, these people were still included in the final results.  Those are just the people who admitted to cheating, too!  So, if you see a study that says one diet had better results than another keep in mind that doesn’t necessarily mean that any of the people actually followed the diet correctly.  Very, very frustrating!

The funny thing about most diets is that they all agree on a lot of things.  Basically, it’s protein/carbs / fats and eat less than you burn and try and get your fiber and your vitamins.  They just push around the various percentages.  The Biggest Loser diet is just a very low calorie diet with an insane amount of working out.  In the end, they should all let you lose weight.  I’m guessing some do work better for some people than others.  Mostly I’d guess, it comes down to whether or not you can get yourself to stick to it faithfully.

I think a lot of diets confuse nutrition and weight loss.  I mean, it’s easy to lose weight.  Just stop eating.  Granted, you’re gonna burn way more muscle than fat and end up one very very sick puppy.  It will work, though.  Go less extreme and just miss out on a few nutrients and vitamins consistently and you may not get sick. Over time, though, your health is gonna suffer.

The main trick is not yo-yoing.  That’s the real problem with crash diets and fad diets.  One day you’re gonna have to maintain and that means eating approximately the right amount of calories to neither gain nor lose weight.  If you’ve been counting calories and dieting sensibly, that just means adding a couple hundred calories or so a day and being done with it.  If you’ve been living off of a grapefruit and a piece of dryer lint for the past 6 months, you’re gonna have to start over from scratch with a brand new diet just to maintain.

That’s why my plan involves an orange and actual DRYER SHEETS!  I may be insane, but I’m not cra… Okay, I’m crazy.  I’m crazy like a fox, a LUNATIC fox!!!

No seriously, I’ve got my calories precounted this time and I have the luxury of having complete control over what is in my fridge.  The hardest part about the food is figuring in food that I can fit around my work schedule.  My breaks are anything but evenly placed.  So, I’ve come up with some veggie packs that I can throw down at the machine if it comes to that.  I’m actually having trouble fitting all this stuff into my lunchbox.  A couple of snickers would fit a whole lot easier!  =)

I’m also seriously considering moving at least some of my workout to the morning.  I think it would help to jump start my metabolism.  My joke at work is that I start work at five but don’t wake up until nine.  I think there may actually be some truth to that.  The only problem is that that’d be a 3am workout.  I am insane, but that is just plain CRAZY!  I seriously think I may be that crazy, though.

The most important thing is that I’m gonna try to follow the plan faithfully and blindly.  I’m only going to weigh myself once a week.  If it doesn’t work, I can always mess with it, but I’ve got to give it at least a week or two.

So, in short.  I’m gonna give myself 10 weeks to see what I can do.  I am a lunatic.  I’m okay with being divorced.  After 8 months of being single, I’m planning on being faithful and on going blind.

Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!

Kevin

I’ve been absent for a while.  What can I say, I crashed a bit.

About a month and a half ago, my ex, I’ll call her B, felt weak and went into the hospital.  I took the kids for 3 long weekends in a row, to help her recuperate.  It’s 5 hour round trip to get them every weekend and 5 hour round trip to return them.  Somewhere along the line, I let myself dip down to around 600 calories a day.  Not good.

Then two weeks ago, B flat out passed out at work.  It turns out it was a heart attack and they had to put in a pace maker.  I’ve been working 11 hour days and keeping the kids full time ever since.  JT, my son, is going back this weekend.  He’s really missing his friends from school.  Luckily, it’s pre-school so he should be okay after 2 weeks off.  I’m going to have the girls for another week.  I’ve tried explaining it to them.  I think they’ve got most of it, at least as much as a 2,3 and 4 year old can.

Needless to say, I’m pretty worn out most of the time.  This is exactly why I didn’t get into a custody fight over the kids.  I’m doing the best that I can, but they are spending all day in daycare.  That’s costing me an arm and a leg in itself.  At night it’s supper and baths and laundry and dishes…  It’s pretty much what I expected.  I can do it.  It’s just that that’s all I can do.  Tuck them into bed and then finish my chores and then crash hard.  There’ve been a couple days this week that I’ve only gotten 3 hours of sleep.  I am basically surviving at the moment.

The company we supply parts for.  The one that usually shuts down for 3 months or more a year?  The one that was only going to shut down for 6 weeks this year?  Well, that 6 weeks is here and it turns out they aren’t going to shut down at all.  That means that I’m prolly gonna stay on 11 and 12 hour days plus Saturdays for the next year.  Oh well, I can always hope for next spring.

I haven’t weighed myself, but I’ll guarantee I’m up again.

The heart attack thing kind of threw me.  It really shouldn’t have.

My ex had a gastric bypass about a year ago.  The way it works is that you start out with a new 2oz tummy. You’re supposed to work up your meal sizes until you can fit an actual (6-8 ozs) meal in your new tummy.  You also have to be very very particular about what you put in it.  Get a piece of gum stuck in there and they might have to cut it out.  Fill it with high sugar foods and you will puke it out and then dry heave for an hour.  You’ve gotta take the right supplements and push protein.  I think she took it as an excuse to pretty much quit eating.  She lost 190pounds within 11months.  There is no way she was keeping up on her protein or much of anything else.  Add to that the fact that she decided become a single mom and take up drinking as a hobby… yeah, something hadda go.  I just hope this is the wake up call that she needed.

On the up side, I bought a new treadmill.  It’s kinda nice.  It’s limit is well above my weight limit and it can go up to 12mph.  It’s also a lot quieter with better shock absorption.  Basically, I can run on it and I don’t have to worry about it dieing anytime soon and pitching me forward like the last one.  (It weighs 300#s and I lugged it into the house myself.  I earned this!)

One more week with the girls and then I’m going to hit it hard.  I’m just gonna finish this out first.