Gaining weight is something I am all too familiar with, it starts with a simple cycle of eat too much, feel bad, do something sedentary, and then eat some more, feel worse, then pass out. 

 For me what started as a method of self medication following the worst failure of my life, turned into a constant daze of feeling inadequate, being angry, choosing to stay complacent, and wallowing in the mired mud that had become my life.  My optimism dwindled slowly like a fluorescent bulb loosing its ability to illuminate.  The worse I felt the more I ate, and the more I found myself distancing relationships with friends, family, and colleagues.  It came to a point where I didn’t leave my house for almost 10 days, other than to buy KFC, Popeye’s, or meet the Chinese Food delivery driver. 

I started smoking and smoking in my house.  I was smoking a pack a day, if I could have gotten off of my ass long enough I would have gone to the ABC store to get liquored up.  I didn’t know any drug dealers so I never got high. 

My weight gain was something that happened quickly, and now almost seems intentional. 

I’ve written before about a doctor’s appointment that I had which made me cry on my doctors examining table.  It was the single lowest point in my life, being 26 and weighing in at 443 lbs after a childhood of being obese, then being thin for the first time in my life, to becoming morbidly obese.  In movies and books they always argue about what’s worse, always have been poor, or being rich and then becoming poor.

I can tell you in my situation going from, this to morbidly obese, is far worse than always having been overweight. 

When you are obese you not only feel bad all the time, but you are limited in your daily activities.  Taking a crap becomes an ordeal, about which to do first wipe your ass, pull your pants up, or use the handicap bars to pull yourself up first.  Things like sleeping become difficult because there is so much pressure against your lungs from your own body weight, you literally suffocate yourself. 

The fire in me started more than 5 years ago.  I immediately lost 100 lbs in a matter of months, losing the weight the exact same way I had in high school, not eating and working out until I passed out.

There came a point at 333 lbs where I felt so much lighter it felt like the end.  I could go up stairs, and get into most cars; I felt so much lighter I didn’t give it a second thought, which is precisely why I gained the weight back and almost got back to 400 lbs again.  Over the years I’ve gone up and down in this manner based on the time of year losing in the summer gaining in the winter.  I would workout religiously but as I got older my body just did not respond to the lower food intake. 

It was as if the less I ate the fatter I got.

Something has clicked in me that is the result of 100’s of small moments which have developed into something bigger.  Like a river this all started with a single drop of water falling from the sky or melting from a mountain cap. 

Each little moment I have endured or asked for has been a step out of the abyss.  Every movement forward has been a shift towards the direction of the sunlight.  Every time I’ve been able to get through my “Break through Wednesday” has been a giant leap towards achieving success.

Every meal that I have which is about sustaining me and not an emotional band aid is a literal lifeline out of this trap.  I am finding remarkable changes in simple areas of my life.  My house is cleaner.  I am better groomed, and I actually get of bed in the morning and make my bed. 

These are small things which by themselves are insignificant, but as a whole are indicators of how are lives are going.  The more chaotic my living space and personal life is, the more dysfunctional I must be, in a busy life you always find time to make your living space more livable, but in a distracted or disrupted life you always tell yourself there’s never enough time, or I’ll do it tomorrow.  Further pushing yourself into a hole which you eventually don’t want to climb out of, or even pretend that you are in…

Finding myself moving out of this cavernous prison which I created for myself, is a great feeling, yet I know I’m just getting started.  It’s a struggle to stay near the light, the old was is far too familiar and too easy to say no.  With every workout, meal, or positive comment I get is another chance for me to move towards the light, and out of the abyss. 

 One day soon, I will wake up, having tasted the sunlight for such a time long forget what the cold and darkness felt like…

Daily Recap

Monday didn’t start off the way I had anticipated; it was more of the same mediocre performance from Friday morning’s session with Ali.  I woke up late and didn’t’ have a chance to really “wake up”, in fact I don’t think I was truly “alive” until halfway through our session.

We started with boxing; Ali had actually tried to do some weight lifting but when he looked at me he almost became sympathetic and said you need to get warmed up.  The boxing was pure misery, my punches had no snap, and I had no power, my legs just felt like mush. 

In fact the entire session felt uninspired, I just couldn’t find any reserve to muster anything that resembled power.  I almost felt as if my pituitary gland had taken the day off, or was in protest. 

Following this uninspired workout I knew I had to get my shit together to get a great cardio session in, it took all I had to generate enough mental fortitude to get on the Arc Trainer.  I started with only one goal in mind, start at an incline of 15, and resistance level of 35 then move up to resistance 100.  I wanted to make sure that each step would be 3 minutes long, and that I would maintain a rate of movement which kept the red level indicator lights on the machine just below the top of the screen. 

I don’t think I’ve pushed this hard on a machine since my last Treading Class with Sam.  In the final two segments I went 4 minutes at resistance 95, and 5 minutes at resistance 100.  Following 45 minutes on the Arc Trainer I got on a treadmill, to do some sprints.  I walked for 1 minute at 3 mph, and ran for 1 minute at 6 mph, I then walked for 30 seconds, and then ran at 7 mph for 30 seconds, walked again, and rain again for 30 seconds.   I did two more sprints at 7 mph, for 1 minute each.

So…on a scale of 1 to 10 my overall workouts ended up being a 6, one awful one and one great one.  If I had to rate my performance today I would say I split the doubleheader today.