One good day.

Well crap. Alright so I am not perfect, I've had a lot of ups and downs and back and forth in trying to get stronger and fit. I've come a very long way from 300 pounds, but dang it, why can't I keep it together long term? Granted I don't look in the mirror and call myself a stupid fat pig nearly as much anymore, but how hard is to string one day together without mistakes?

The answer to that is... Very Hard. I am an addict. Now of alcohol or drugs or really any of the more interesting stuff, but of food. I love food, I love bad food, and I love stuffing my face until I feel grossly full. It's a not a good thing, but it is a thing I am.

So lately I have been on a keto'ish diet. I don't go full fats and back the protein "whey" down (get it?), because in my endless experimentation with my own body and diet I have found that if I keep my proteins and healthy fats pretty comparable, while keeping my carbs reduced to around a 1/4 of whatever the protein and fats are, I feel the best I can. I have gone full keto, I have gone traditional macro, I have gone with every fad or diet idea out there, but that balance is what my body likes, and to side track for a minute, that's what I think everyone should do eventually. You are not going to fit into any prescribed diet, those baselines are great to get you going in the right direction but they are not tailed to you, your gut, your lifestyle, or your biology. However, figuring out where that balance is takes forever, changes with age, and if you're like me, you're really good at lying to yourself about what your body really needs.

Let me give you an example. I just told you up there^ what works for me. I know it does because I drop fat, I think better and I perform better athletically, and not like I think I perform better, I categorically perform better. I am obsessed with recording times, numbers ect.. and my peak performance is always directly connected to those periods of time where I EAT RIGHT. So I know that, I have the data to prove it, so why on earth would I constantly break that diet to eat crap I don't need and doesn't help me in any way? It tastes good, and I'm weak willed (short answer). Long answer is that I let things creep in. I look into the diets of some of the highest performing athletes in crossfit, and really all high level sports, and I see the kind of carb numbers these people consume. I know logically that what they are doing as "exercise" and what I am doing as "exercise" are very different, but after a few weeks of chicken, veggies, cheese, mct oil, and not a whole lot else my brain starts telling me all kinds of lies. Like, you've been stuck at this weight on deadlift for weeks it's definitely because you don't have enough carbs, its killing your recovery, eat all your daughters pop tarts. SO I DO! WITH FRUSTRATING REGULARITY! So fast forward to one second after I consume 400 calories of cardboard (no i don't feed them that all the time, they're kids calm down), my brain then tells me that hey, you already wrecked everything for the day, eat one.... twelve handfuls of fruity peddles (thats what my daughter calls them), just make sure to do it one at a time and walk back and forth to the kitchen, it wont feel as pitiful that way. SO I DO! It's devastating.

Whenever I talk with people about weight loss, or getting started with exercise everyone picks dates and times, which drives me insane. If you want to get started with anything, start right now, don't make the first of November when you're going to begin, if you want it start right now, today. So it's a bit confusing that when it comes to food I've been able to tell myself the lie that drives me so nuts with other people. Start tomorrow. When I screw up on food I always think that my days ruined, when honestly that moments ruined. I did something stupid put garbage into my body and my performance and well being is going to suffer for it, but if the next thing I do is to correct it, it's not that bad. If however the next thing I do is to convince myself that the days shot and cook two totinos pizzas in the oven (if you microwave a totinos you are a monster, the crust is heaven in the oven, and don't preheat the over you heathen, put it in then turn the oven on to 450 it takes less time, the bottom is nice and crispy and the pizza is delicious, get out of here with your 1100 watt microwave you communist) and eat them both, no matter how delicious, now I have ruined my next several days.

Hitting the Walls

So I was listening to a podcast, Joe Rogan I think, and he was discussing a navy seal whose has a quote where he believes that most people quit at 40% of their capability. I could argue or wonder over what the percentage of people is vs the actual percentage of capacity the average person actually reaches, but the spirit of the quote is what got me thinking.

How far do I actually push myself? My ego wants me to believe that I leave it all out there everyday, but I know that's not true. Let me side track here for a second, if you ever have the option to do a competitive martial art, do it. It is in my opinion the best way to learn how to take your ego out of the equation and really get to know what you are capable of, after you've been beaten senseless by a lady who is 30 years older than you, and you we're basically defenseless because she was so skilled and practiced, you learn a lot about being humble and finding out your weaknesses. Ok, back on track. I know me pretty well, when I am working out my ego is in the drivers seat and it loves to lie to me and let me know how hard I am pushing, but when I analyze my workouts after I know when I am dogging it, when I am bailing 5-10 reps early, splitting sets when I should push through ect... We all do it, we all give in before we have to, and what is so frustrating to me about this is that I am wasting time. If I pushed all the way every time I could get stronger fast. I could push my endurance further, I could get closer to who I want to be faster.

So why? When you are mid workout, when you are deep in the hole of suck and you hit that wall, you put the bar down, you drop the ball, you break the set, you know that you've gone as far as you can and need a minute to recoup... but do you? I can tell myself those lies right up until I am working out with anyone else, particularly my brother in laws or at my gyms (Levels) Sunday group workouts. I am a very competitive person. I said it, I like to lie about it, but I want to win, at everything, and not by a little. I want to win, and I want to win by such a wide margin it's stupid. I think it comes from losing a lot. I had the benefit of my first year of little league being on one of the worst teams in the city. It taught me how to lose, it taught me to want to win. So losing doesn't really make me mad, it lights a fire in me. I want to ferret out my weaknesses, I want to find other people strengths and make them my strength. It's pathological. If i'm honest it's a problem, but anyway. I started thinking about how I am working out in this bubble. I don't have anyone I work against (except my past performances), and I thought to myself, oh crap, I'm a quitter.

A short existential crisis later, and now I am trying to figure out how to right that ship. How in this training vacuum am I going to perform at my best? So I decided to look at what is it that stops me, and that's when it occurred to me that I have been building all those "walls" I hit. I have been laying the foundation and placing all the bricks for all those points where I tell myself "this is where you need to stop".

I lay the foundation for those walls well in advance of hitting them. I refuse to rehab my shoulder and knee, I lean on my ankle injury rather than figuring out how to fix it. Tonight during the Levels group workout they decided to run 2.4ish miles rather than 1.5 and I was bummed, and about half way in my knee and ankle we're starting to get sore, not the sore that is indicative of injury, but the kind of sore that says "you're taxing these muscle more than you have in a long time and it hurts" and I actually found myself hitting my knee and ankle harder than I should, leaning into the injury and thinking "if you have to stop it makes sense because you're recovering".Well this whole 40% thing is fresh in my mind so I decide that, that's crap and focus on balancing my stride, striking right with my feet, and while I am certainly not going to lead a run I didn't break. It sucked, it hurt, it was not fun, but I didn't break, and I know if I was alone tonight I would have, and that makes me so mad.

See here's the thing. I knew I had an injury, I know logically I am a lot healthier than I was weeks ago because of all the rehab work I have been doing, but I have been whispering in my own ear about my ankle and my knee for weeks. I have been building that wall just so I could run into it. Not a wall my body put up that says "if you go one more step like this you'll be injured" but a wall of justification for giving up. I've done the same thing with my shoulders. Rather than putting in the rehab time to make that weakness my strength, I leave that injury alone, because it's an easy one for me to lean on and give in early, and everyone get's why I stop, and everyone knows how smart I am for listening to my body, because I've laid the groundwork for that lie.

Now I don't think I am going to fix this is week, a month, maybe not a year. My gym isn't a competitive bro gym, and I love it for that reason, but not having someone to push against and they intern push you lets me off the hook. I know every time I put the bar down, or give up on a session on the rower, or sit down on the bike I am going to ask myself "really? is that all? did you give everything?" and I am going to answer that honestly.

Back to my roots.

In the last few years I have over and over again gone from keeping track of my calories and recording everything I do, to deciding I don't need to do that and just work out hard and eat pretty good. I fail.

It hasn't been horrible, it's been a slow burn. Just getting a little worse day by day. I lose a little, I gain a little, slowly trending up over the last two years. Telling myself it's been primarily because of all the weight training.

But fat is fat. It's there, there's more of it now than there was. If I don't deal with it now I'm going to be back where I started. I am not willing to do that.

I am back on the wagon. I am recording, I am counting, I am quantifying, and now I am writing about it again.

I am floating between 218 and 222 right now. My goal is 180. I am going to hit that goal. I am going to do that by doing what makes sense for me. Part of that has always been writing about it. So I'm back doing it.

Over ayear

I've been clean for almost an entire year now, its been really hard but until about two weeks ago I was doing okay. I am not sure anyone will look at this after a year absent but I am at the edge of beginning the up swing of a yoyo diet and I need to get my head right before I head back to knocking on 300 pounds door. I am out of control. I am eating, I have severe body image issues, I don't want to stop myself, and if I don't fix it right now while I am typing it will never happen. Now to clarify the lowest weight I ever achieved was 193 currently I average 200 with a 5 pound swing, so the physical damage hasn't caught me yet, but it will if I don't change now. So right this second I am committing to do right and to sorting the mess that my head has become on here again.

Fat Wife Part One

Hi, I am the wife of the man who writes this blog. I’d like to say that I am a stranger to what my husband has gone through. And in many ways, I am. I have never been overweight. I have never struggled with inability to turn down food or put food down. And I am not a strong enough person to completely turn my life upside down for a goal while working harder than I have ever worked while denying myself an obsession.

That being said, I have a two part bone to pick, mostly with society. In the theme of this blog, I will refrain from standing on a soap box and instead, simply state my complaints and explain why they affect me or frustrate me.

Part One: Society’s View of Fat

I have a real problem with how society views body image. It’s not a new topic – people have been complaining about it for the last year or two. I don’t know where it began, whether it was Twiggy and the Supermodels that provided a new type of beauty, or the age of Photoshop and the ability to print pictures of impossible standards. Regardless, society went from worshiping a woman’s figure to critiquing it, from praising curves to hiding them. And really, this applies to men too. In the beginning, a person’s physique was much more than a means of physical attraction; it explained your station in life. A full figure was proof of health, wealth, and happiness. The leaner the person, the more it explained about their lack of food, lack of ability to provide or hunt, and their lack of funds. The Italian Renaissance brought artful paintings of people lazing about, eating, always plump. Women had full (but not ridiculous) breasts and curvy waists, large hips and ample thighs. Men had round bellies. This was attractive. Even as late as the 1950’s ads ran for weight GAIN pills for women. “No man wants a skinny woman” they crowed. The same sad, thin, curveless woman they showed then echoes the most famous, most “beautiful” women of today, who’s sallow faces and bony figures are not only how women of today must judge their beauty but the clothing sizes they wear. Even for men, a typical idealistic man has a broad chest, built arms, rock hard abs, and defined legs, with no body fat to be seen. Not at all. And we are told not only is this attractive, this is healthy.

I can’t believe this is fair. When 95% of America is so much larger, why do we have to conform to those numbers? Why do we have to refer to numbers at all? This is another bone I have to pick. Fat has become much more than a look, it is a number. Your BMI, your weight, your clothing size, these determine whether you are fat or not. If you are 190 pounds but you eat right, work out, wear clothing that looks good, no one cares. You should be in this category with these numbers or you are fat. Overweight. Obese. I hate this. I’m a small person. As I said, I have never been overweight. But I have gained weight. I noticed when I when from size 0 to 2. Or from 2 to 5. But providing I change my clothing accordingly, no one else notices. If my clothing fits well, I don’t even notice. But the little voice that chants “0-5” over and over notices. The scale that goes from 110 to 120 notices. The doctors that measure a 4% increase in BMI and warn me how metabolisms fade notice. And those numbers eat into your brain and tell you what a terrible person you are for allowing this.

I used to dance ballet. It was our job to be thin, to maintain a weight. But there was always someone thinner, someone you compared yourself to. And that’s when I learned that fat can be a mindset. That’s how someone as thin as a rail can starve themselves into nothing – because perception is such a large part of the battle. You worry about how people judge your body, but only because you already have and are unhappy with the person in the mirror. I struggled with anorexia because I saw fat everywhere. And no matter how much I lost, I never saw enough difference. I was never as thin as that next girl. I see that same danger in my husband, who stands in the mirror after losing such an incredible amount of weight and still sees nothing but fat, nothing but dissatisfaction in his reflection. Until you drop the comparisons and the numbers and the mindset and focus on being healthy, being fit, and fitting into clothes the way you want to(in your real mind, not in your society set mind), that haunting of fat can drive you insane.

Part two later on.

Things Undone

Ok, the other thing I mentioned a few days ago was about how people give up so often because they can’t look at what they’ve done, only what’s left to do. I think I may be one of the few people out there that reverses this concept. That is to say I believe the sentiment of the statement is that you can look at the ten pounds left to lose as insurmountable forgetting about the 50 you lost to get there. With me I need constant goals, and the second I am done with something I leave it behind and forget about it. So when I run out of goals, like only have a little weight left to lose, I have trouble staying focused because I know there wont be anything left to conquer. The problem with that is that I tend to leave things close but undone. Not because I am discouraged or think that I cant do it, but because I know I can and there is no challenge left in it. Strange I know.

powerless

I have been doing a lot of reading on food addiction, and overeaters anonymous, and there is a certain sentiment that pervades the thought process behind the support groups. The fix for the problem varies from something that looks like a buddy system to putting in the hands of your chosen god, but the core concept they all agree on is that you (the overeater) are completely powerless over your addiction. I don’t know how I feel about that.

I went onto their site several months ago and they have you run down a list of 12 things that you are supposed to answer yes or no if they describe you. When I finished I figured I might be close but must not be an overeater because I only answered yes to 10 of them. Then I read the next paragraph where they say if you answered yes to 3 or more you could likely be an overeater. Imagine my surprise. Though really I should have seen that coming, I know what I am, I know what my weakness is, but I am not now, nor have I ever been comfortable with the idea of being powerless over myself. I know I can’t control anything outside of myself, but I will not let myself get out of control.

What sucks about this situation is that I analyze what my mind set is throughout, and it occurs to me that I would be the first to say “I can stop eating whenever I want.” Which sounds an awful lot like the redirect of an addict in denial, but the truth is (ask my wife) that I am well aware of my lack of ability to stop eating something once I start. There is an OCD left over  in me that will not be satisfied if I leave a container of food unfinished. As I sit here writing this I can not stop thinking about the piece of pizza left in the box downstairs. I don’t want to eat it mind you, I am full, but I cant stop thinking about it. Crazy right? But that’s how it is with me. You give me a back of sour patch kids and I will eat till my tongue is torn up from the sugar, and then keep going until that bag is empty because if I don’t it will be all I think about until it is gone, even if I don’t want it.

That all sounds like I am powerless right? Well maybe, but I don’t believe that, if I did I would just keep eating and not fight it. I’m not saying I don’t draw strength from other people or my faith, but I like to take an active role in my life too. So I try to only by things in serving sizes that fit in my consumption requirements. Or get the kind of thing that I can’t it enough of to break down those goals. It makes things harder, but I am not going to let some obsession condemn me. I wont refuse help or deny the need for it, but neither will I just say I can’t do it, and let someone else pull me out of my problems.