The Problems

In talking with people who want to institute the changes that I struggle to keep going in my life it occurred to me that I really need to expand on some earlier thoughts. I have referenced the idea of knowing exactly what is going into your body and how that can engender a powerful change as far as your or my general health is concerned. The flip side of that coin is learning to put the owness of getting rid of the weight and the rewards on no one else but yourself.

What I am not saying is that I am the only reason for where I ended up. There are a myriad of life events, biology, and various other tid bits out of my control that contributed to my eventual weight problem. What I am saying is my reasons for not losing the weight were in fact within my control, but far easier to play off as the reasons for my constant problems.

The first thing I turned to was biology. There is a bit of a husky inclination in my gene pool. There is no one in my family that has that lovely luxury of eating anything they want and never paying for it. Our bodies turn out to be excellent at taking excess calories and storing them in fat. A couple hundred years ago this would’ve mean we were far more likely to survive in times of famine, today it means that if we don’t pay attention to every calorie that we shove in our maws, our body with happily shove them into stomach, thighs, and a variety of areas just in case we cant find any food for a month or two. This is particularly frustrating when you have people in your life who can eat whatever they see without a second thought and are incapable of gaining an ounce. Try to take comfort in the fact that if there’s ever a famine they’ll be the first to die.

Another convenient place I laid blame was on my job. I spend about 4 hours of my 10 to 14 hour work day doing nothing but driving. While my job causing me to sweat like crazy it really isn’t a calorie burner when I reflect on what I am really require to do. It is also the kind of job that requires me to be constantly rushing to a fro, trying to make up time and get to everyone I can in the short time allotted to me. It is really easy to eat a burger, fries, nuggets, and drink large cokes while driving. It is not so easy to eat salad while driving, and heaven forbid I spend 5 minutes in a parking lot on eating a 210 calorie versus saving that time and consume the almost 1300 calories in-between stops. When I write it out it seems even more absurd, but lying to myself is something I am excellent at.

The last big factor for me is depression. It is something I struggle with regularly. My life isn’t turning out how I expected it too, money is a constant struggle, I am frustrated with not being able to do something where I wake up happy to go to work every day and the feeling of spinning my wheels and never getting anywhere is overwhelming. It keeps me awake late into the night, and keeps my blood pressure in the pre-hypertension range even now. Part of my anti-depression medication was two all beef patties and a sesame seed bun. A constant in a world that still seems completely out of my control, doesn’t matter if I am going to have to pay the electric bill late as long as a get a few minutes of piece from the nearest dollar menu.

Here’s the conclusion I have come to. Nearly everything I believed was keeping me from losing weight, especially the 3 things mentioned, really were, but not one of them had to. Biologically I am handicapped when it comes to being then, I have to work a lot harder than the next guy to get the same results, I have to focus harder and push myself a little further to get to the same place. It is not fair, it sucks, but thems the brakes. My job is a constant problem, temptation to eat badly is going to be with me everyday. I counted the number of just McDonalds I pass in a day and it averages about 14. 14 opportunities for some short term comfort, and some long term failure. Depression and frustration with life are probably something that will be sitting on my shoulder for a long time. It is going to take a different level of work and determination to get that handled. The rub in all this is that all those things aren’t going anywhere. There isn’t going to be some dude that shows up on my door and gives me the secret to easy weight loss, there is no pill I can take to slim down with no change to my life. It comes down to me. I have to make the decision to not live that way ever again, to understand that life isn’t going to give me all the support I need to lose weight, that the only way I am going to make this continue to work is by working my body and working my mind, building up reserves of self control and discipline, working out when I do not want to, and eating less even when I REALLY want more, and doing it every single day for the rest of my life no matter what happens around me.