Journey Updates
April 7, 2010 @ 09:32 am
It's been six and a half weeks since my last weigh in. Today's weight:
306.2 lbs. That ... is not what I was expecting. Not even close. I thought
maybe I'd maintained around 297. I thought
maybe I'd even lost a little bit more. I've been hitting the gym
really hard - so hard I've frequently had to take quick naps afterwords just to see straight again. I feel better, even if my clothes aren't as loose as I'd like ... I guess that should've been a bigger clue.
Sigh. I'm not happy this morning; not at all. I'm shamed. I'm confused.
And clearly I've been eating way too much and all-wrong. I've known this. I've known I've been drinking too much, eating the wrong things, and most egregiously I've been eating
a lot late at night, whether I'm hungry or not. I can go all day and not feel a bit of hunger and forget to drink water and then I just binge come nighttime. I eat, and eat, and eat. I eat a bowlful of ice cream or a whole pint of Ben & Jerry's. I raid the fridge for leftover meat, cheese, and bread. I scarf down 100 calorie packs in a single gulp (well, almost) and then go back for more. I have a glass of wine, and then another, and then probably another.
I'm doing great at the gym, it's my routine, I feel good. But good exercise cannot make up for poor nutrition, and this morning I was hit upside the head with the fact my nutrition has been for shit.
Dingaling, time to wake up. Time to be tracking my food with the @
LWDFoodLog twitter account again. Time to stop eating after dinner just because I'm bored or have a craving. Time to cut back on the alcohol for the forseeable future. Time to guzzle 3-4 litres of water a day. Time to be taking my vitamins and supplements like I'm supposed to. Time to get back on track with meditation and stress-relieving visualization.
Basically, it's time to do the things I know I'm supposed to - beyond just going to the gym.
(Interestingly, the scale says my body fat percentage was unchanged ... maybe some of the weight is muscle, but then, body fat percentage is a difficult thing to track accurately so I always take it with a grain of salt.)
2 comments | Topics: exercise, food and eating, mistakes, progress, shame
The Obese Life
February 3, 2010 @ 10:38 am
I recently posted about a
phenomenon of some who are attracted to fat people. I don't really like people being attracted to me because I'm fat. But at the same time, I don't want people to judge me - or any other obese or overweight person - on the basis of this one burden, either. There is a stigma attached to obesity that we cannot escape as long as we are fat. And yet we consistently have to deal with people who hate us because we're fat. But this is an attitude that is pervasive throughout - perhaps even intertwined with - our American culture.
The majority of people don't like fat people. To be perfectly honest, I cringe when I see fat people be it on TV or walking down the street. My cringe is a mix of pity, regret, worry, and a sense that our country's in trouble. But I know what being obese is like - I know how hard it is, how much we struggle, and I empathize with my fellow fatties. Others? They don't even bother. For many people being fat is not merely a sign of weakness, it's an opportunity to dehumanize others. To them, we are lazy, incompetent, have nothing worthwhile to offer, are bad role models, and are generally subhuman. At best we are to be ignored, at worst ridiculed or abused. Fat people are denied jobs, denied respect, no matter how good they may be at something.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is a health nut at age 70. So much so, that:
He does find time, at least twice a week, to slip on a pair of black
Lycra stretch pants to do yoga with Landra at their apartment in the
Ritz-Carlton. He has an intolerance for fat people, manifested
in asides to aides who seem to be getting portly and an office staff
that is suspiciously slim.1
Former presidential candidate and patriarch of the modern political scandal John Edwards was no fan of his larger constituencies. In his book about his former boss Andrew Young points "portrays Edwards as preening and arrogant, an Atkins dieter who hated
making campaign stops at state fairs where 'fat rednecks try to shove
food down my face.'"
2Or take this offensive, misogynistic, judgmental and vapid exchange between Faux News' Neil Cavuto and the bombastic self-described "chubbie-ist" (as in "racist") Michael Karolchyk (who founded an offensive and completely
misguided gym in Denver). In it, they're questioning whether the then-nominee for Surgeon General (she now holds the position) was too fat for the job:
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0 comments | Topics: discrimination, obesity, shame
My Reasons For Doing This
January 28, 2010 @ 08:49 am
- Standing on the playground in grade school and wanting to play, but being told "no - only normal people can play, and you're not."
- The disgust - even anger - in my mother's voice when my newly trimmer father could fit in my jean shorts (that I'd become too fat for) ... "you're father shouldn't be able to fit in your clothes!"
- Trying to exist in a gay community that shuns the obese, listening to countless fat jokes and references not feet from me, and generally invisible at almost any social function.
This has been my life. Not for the last couple of years, not while in High School - this has been my life. And I am
ashamed of myself for being obese.
shame. noun. the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something
dishonorable, improper, ridiculous, etc., done by oneself or another.1
According to cultural anthropologist Ruth
Benedict, shame is a violation of cultural or social values while guilt feelings arise from violations of one's internal values. ... Similarly, Fossum and Mason say in their book Facing Shame that
"While guilt is a painful feeling of regret and responsibility for one's
actions, shame is a painful feeling about oneself as a person." 2
Is being obese shameful? Not necessarily. In a non-emotional, purely logical school of thought, the very state of being obese or even just overweight may not be shameful but rather the behaviors surrounding it may be (laziness, gluttony, selfishness). For others it can be a legitimate emotional, psychological or physical issue that needs to be addressed. But none of that matters in the real world. In the real world, we shame our fatties. Because it's fun, because it makes us feel better about ourselves, because it's so damn easy.
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0 comments | Topics: emotional healing, self-confidence, shame
Journey Updates
January 13, 2010 @ 07:24 am
I knew it had been a while since I'd blogged about my weight loss; but I was shocked when I came back to blog again and saw that it had been over a year since my last post in September of
2008. What in the world happened to 2009? Had I really done so little for losing weight for a whole year? I looked to my old gym journal and found the same thing - all written record of my journey between 9/2008 and now just ... isn't. Never was.
Here's what's been happening:
- In October of 2008 I lost my job for redundancy. The firm (which was making me ill anyway and I hated it there) acquired a new company to do what I was doing, so we parted ways. To make up for it, I decided to finally branch out on my own and started my own business. That's what I've been doing ever since - which takes a lot of time away from blogging - and alas, from fitness as well.
- I did not give up on fitness entirely. It was just in drastic fits and spurts. Even though I stopped recording it all, I still went to the gym and tried to eat okay ... some of the time.
- We moved from our super-fine apartment and the great fitness center in the building to a better apartment in the city. It's cheaper, has a home office, and we like it a lot more. No downstairs gym, though. I still kinda miss it.
- We joined New York Sports Clubs. Long ago I was a member of Equinox and part of me really enjoys going to a gym. I got into going for a while, though of course I allowed my life to get unbalanced and stopped going for weeks at a time, and ultimately my winter project took all my time.
- We started a second business this past fall, which culminated in a two-month pop-up store here in NYC. It was a great experience (I'm still kind of decompressing), but it literally took all my time and energy. For the first two weeks I was dead on my feet every day. My shoes were crap. I didn't have time for gumption for the gym but I did have to walk over a mile and a half almost every day - sometimes a lot more. I wasn't eating so well, but I was definitely burning those calories working.
The one thing from the last year that disappoints me most is that
I failed to lose any weight by the second annual family vacation. In 2008, my extended family went on vacation together for the first time and had fun, but it was marred at the very last moment by some rather
cruel offhanded thoughtless comments from my Grandfather. That moment sent me reeling and inspiring a hard push at the end of that year, which fizzled with the pressures of life. And though I'd resolved to lose significant weight by 2009's vacation, I didn't. I was just as fat.
Oh and the vacation was
to the shore. Awesome! 315+ lbs on the beach. Beached whale more like it.
Le sigh.
Here's where I'm at now:
307 lbs. Which basically means no net change in weight. I know I've definitely gone higher than than and when we were opening our pop-up store I'm pretty sure I went under that, but for whatever reason my body pretty much holds steady at just over 300 pounds.
My house is clean, my life is more or less back in order and I'm re-
establishing a routine. That will be good for getting fit. I can cook again, I can get to the gym again, I don't have to worry about the phone ringing. I need to get back in the groove of many more healthy behavours, but I'm getting there.
I'm working on instituting
better work behaviours. Frankly, life was insane for a long time. I was checking email constantly - literally every minute. I was on-call, overworked, over-scheduled. I've since turned off the email auto-checks so that I only check it a few times a day. I'm trying to focus on one thing at a time and not overworking myself. Right now I have a lot of my plate but I'm sorting through it.
I'm
not following any one particular plan or diet. I dropped Weight Watchers - only because I wasn't using its tools. But the principles are all very useful. I've picked up on the Gabriel Method, but I'm no groupie or die-hard fan. There are certain universal principles to weight loss and every plan highlights different aspects of them - so I find myself learning from many different sources. I'll talk more about my current plans later.
And frankly, I'm
not feeling so well emotionally. My relationship with my partner is fantastic - no qualms there and we're actually stronger than we've ever been. But over the last couple weeks I've been rather down about things because of my weight and obesity. I'll blog through those soon.
I'm
returning to blogging. And twittering! This is cathartic for me. It gives me an outlet. And I want to connect with others along the journey. I'm really shy and ashamed and so I'm keeping this anonymous (for now), but I still want to record this and stay accountable at least to myself by putting it all out there. And with a sexy new look for the blog and some drastically improved technology to power it I'm hoping the whole process of managing this will be easier to maintain.
And so here go again.
307 pounds and counting.
2 comments | Topics: depression, gym, shame, vacation, work
