“You
gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience by which you
really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself,
'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes
along.” Elanor Roosevelt
So it all began once again and I was able to get myself back into the groove pretty easily. Returning to the 5-6 small meals everyday keeping the caloric intake under 2000 per day wasn't very difficult. The first couple of days were a rough transition as my tummy screamed for food on several occasions between the tiny 300 calories meals. Hell those are snacks to some people and I'm calling them meals. I survived the transition and by the weekend my desire to eat a huge pile of anything had evaporated. From the exercise standpoint I managed to avoid hurting myself in the first week. Since I am typically so "all or nothing" I really had to force myself to avoid pushing it to hard to quickly. Took just one Spin class and swam twice, and in both cases I restrained myself. Being off for so long and eating so poorly I wasn't really sure if I was fit enough to attack the cardio stuff very hard so the intensity was dialed back. The end result of the first week was a 5 lb loss! I don't expect to keep that kind of pace up but I'm not complaining about it. And that was the good news for the week.....
Now for the bad news:
An ugly side of me resurfaced midweek last week, and I decided after a very complicated weekend emotionally that I would share something with you all that I have been hiding for a long long time: I suffer from depression. It is something that I have dealt with for a lot longer than this blog has existed but I have managed to deal with it or at least cover it up from everyone for most of my life. Humor and drunken stupidity were my tactics for masking how I really was doing emotionally. I realized it when dealing with that girl problem you all may remember reading about. That was the first time it had gotten out of my control. That was the first time it was officially diagnosed and the first time that it became completely debilitating, but I know that it has been an issue for me since my college years. This is difficult for me to share because I don't want to be perceived any differently by any of you. All I can really say is that it sucks, the times when it hits me the hardest I do nothing but lay in bed. This weekend was one of those moments, I tried several times to get up and do something constructive but by the time I got to my door I just wanted to lay back down so I did. What is worse is that it begins to affect me mentally and I do some strange things and become very absent-minded. The other day at work I spelled possible: "p-i-l-e," yeah it gets that bad.
To be honest I've been staring at this above paragraph for quite awhile, fighting the urge to delete it all. However, I feel I have to unload this burden now, it has been my Achilles Heel in this fight to my 100 pound goal. Twice now I have gotten within reach of my goal only to fall backwards when an injury and other bullshit crushed my morale and allow the depression to regain a foothold. I shared my problem with someone who is almost a complete stranger last
week and I figured if I could share it with her then I should be able to
share it with everyone
So why now? Why, when I seem to have the motivation and the health back enabling my return to this battle to live and become a better me??? Well it's simply a girls fault, ok its not her fault but hanging around her has picked at a wound that I thought had healed. She is a new, albeit temporary, co-worker but hopefully a good friend in the making. She is one of the coolest girls that I have come across, ever. Instantly we had a pretty good vibe, and yes I may be crushing on her a little. Oddly enough, I've worked out around her at BZ for the past two years and she never really caught my eye, but everyday that I hang out with her I become more attracted to her. I am genuinely more attracted to the person that she is than her outward beauty. Don't get me wrong this girl is attractive, but you know what I mean, we all have the "types" that we are attracted to and she really isn't mine (besides the being fit thing). This is a bizarre occurrence for me, and to be honest I was kind of confused about it at first. I don't know that I ever experienced this form of attraction before and it kind of turns my ideas about dating on its ear. Anyway being around her so much also dug up ugly emotions because it was pretty obvious to me that she wasn't into me in the boyfriend potential kind of way. Even without asking her out I began to hate myself for being apparently the most unattractive man on Earth. I mean how else is possible that almost every girl I like wants no part of me. I understand we all are looking for something that sparks a fire inside of us, but why is it that I don't ever seem to be able to do just that. I don't blame my new friend at all but it is just hard for me to deal with this constant rejection. This is the reason that I'm hung up on Julie still to this very moment. She is the only girl that ever made me feel wanted and it ended to abruptly. If that makes me pathetic then I guess I am, but it is my struggle that I deal with all the time.
It is becoming more evident here lately that I may need to return to the doctor and discuss my medical options. Right now I am spiking emotionally and the swings are getting worse. Last night at work I show up, I'm all happy, my endorphin high from the workout is still cranking and then I do something stupid and make a comment in jest that overstepped a boundary. I upset someone and betrayed a trusting bond that I was enjoying, I knew it the second it came out of my mouth that it was very uncool, and immediately started to feel like crap. Few minutes later after getting scolded by my friend, which I totally deserved, my night went to hell. I spent the rest of the night fighting off what I guess could be described as an anxiety attack. I hate the idea of needing medication to level me out, I didn't really like how I felt when I was on it in the past. But if things don't improve soon it may be where I end up.
So the struggle continues on, I managed to at least squash the really bad feelings and have been faithful to my routine. It is my routine that carries me through some days, seeing those supportive faces at the gym are always a big help on the ugliest of days, and knowing that just doing something at the gym is calming force in my life.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Back again
It has certainly been a long time since my last post. Did you miss me??? I'm not to sure why I stopped writing prior to my triathlon and never finished documenting that adventure, but there is no point dwelling over it.
So what have I been up to since April? NOTHING and that's bad for the project. Shortly after the triathlon , which I will fill you in on later, I decided to visit the doctor because of pain I was having in my right shoulder. I figured it was nothing more than tendinitis but I wanted to be certain that I didn't have something really wrong before I began training for my second triathlon. Tendinitis (biceps) was indeed the diagnosis and so I began the anti-inflamatory/physical therapy path to recovery (or at least I thought). A month later, when no progress was made, injections became the next step along with more therapy. The longer this went the more frustrated I became. I wasn't getting better, in fact the pain was increasing and was no longer occasional, it was constant. Because I was getting frustrated I started to slide off the diet wagon and slowly started to regain weight. I know, you would have thought that I would have learned from last year's nightmarish summer that if I would control my eating that the frustration would be less umm frustrating. Unfortunately, I'm not always as smart as I tell you that I am. Finally, after three different shots in the shoulder, a couple visits to a specialist and about 4 months of PT, the pain began to fade (it was the final shot that did the trick). It has been about a month since the pain went away so I am ready (and confident that I am healthy, which is more important than you could believe) to get back in the fight.
For the record, I have gained 35 pounds since the tri and now weigh 290. I'm not happy about it but as it was mentioned before I have this occasional "fuck it" mentality when uncontrollable things stop me from doing what I want to do. I really wish I didn't get that way but I haven't been able to change that part of myself yet, maybe the third time's a charm.
“I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he
climbs, but by how high he bounces back when he hits obstacles.” George Patten
And with that I am ready to rededicate myself to my goal, again. I have some new motivation. No, silly people I don't have a girlfriend, just the other day I got my driver license renewal paperwork from the DOT. If you all could see my license pic you would understand. It has been a constant visual reminder how far gone I was (and how much hair I was losing :P), and I want nothing more than to completely change that disgust I feel when I look at it with some sense of pride in the accomplishment. So with my birthday 12 weeks away, I am setting the goal of 250 by my birthday. A lofty goal indeed, 40 pounds in 12 weeks, but you know I can do it, especially since the beach season is over I will have an easier time staying focused on weekends.
So hopefully, this time around I can keep a regular schedule of updating you along my way to success. I was going to write about the tri at the end of this new chapter, but it stirs some emotions for me that I still struggle with. I had started writing but I decided it would be better to dedicate a whole entry to it at a later date.
Until next time, Happy Dieting.
So what have I been up to since April? NOTHING and that's bad for the project. Shortly after the triathlon , which I will fill you in on later, I decided to visit the doctor because of pain I was having in my right shoulder. I figured it was nothing more than tendinitis but I wanted to be certain that I didn't have something really wrong before I began training for my second triathlon. Tendinitis (biceps) was indeed the diagnosis and so I began the anti-inflamatory/physical therapy path to recovery (or at least I thought). A month later, when no progress was made, injections became the next step along with more therapy. The longer this went the more frustrated I became. I wasn't getting better, in fact the pain was increasing and was no longer occasional, it was constant. Because I was getting frustrated I started to slide off the diet wagon and slowly started to regain weight. I know, you would have thought that I would have learned from last year's nightmarish summer that if I would control my eating that the frustration would be less umm frustrating. Unfortunately, I'm not always as smart as I tell you that I am. Finally, after three different shots in the shoulder, a couple visits to a specialist and about 4 months of PT, the pain began to fade (it was the final shot that did the trick). It has been about a month since the pain went away so I am ready (and confident that I am healthy, which is more important than you could believe) to get back in the fight.
For the record, I have gained 35 pounds since the tri and now weigh 290. I'm not happy about it but as it was mentioned before I have this occasional "fuck it" mentality when uncontrollable things stop me from doing what I want to do. I really wish I didn't get that way but I haven't been able to change that part of myself yet, maybe the third time's a charm.
“I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he
climbs, but by how high he bounces back when he hits obstacles.” George Patten
And with that I am ready to rededicate myself to my goal, again. I have some new motivation. No, silly people I don't have a girlfriend, just the other day I got my driver license renewal paperwork from the DOT. If you all could see my license pic you would understand. It has been a constant visual reminder how far gone I was (and how much hair I was losing :P), and I want nothing more than to completely change that disgust I feel when I look at it with some sense of pride in the accomplishment. So with my birthday 12 weeks away, I am setting the goal of 250 by my birthday. A lofty goal indeed, 40 pounds in 12 weeks, but you know I can do it, especially since the beach season is over I will have an easier time staying focused on weekends.
So hopefully, this time around I can keep a regular schedule of updating you along my way to success. I was going to write about the tri at the end of this new chapter, but it stirs some emotions for me that I still struggle with. I had started writing but I decided it would be better to dedicate a whole entry to it at a later date.
Until next time, Happy Dieting.
Friday, April 22, 2011
April Check-In
Time for the monthly update...weighed in at the gym, 260lbs. The total is finally back over 60 pounds and the goal is only 38 away. That is the first time in a long time that I have seen so much progress with the weight loss. When I hit the scale two weeks ago before the Tough Mudder, I weighed 267, so that makes this a monster two weeks. What is even better is that the week after the Mudder, I did very little from a diet and exercise perspective as I was nursing some injuries and licking my wounds, but I dialed the focus back in this week. Not a missed workout and not a single, even marginal, moment of cheating on the diet this week and BAM, we have some results. I have every intention of carrying this on and on for the next couple months as I prepare myself for the triathlon.
Training for the triathlon has been going just fine. Today (Friday) I swam 800yds, the close approximation to the swim distance in the tri, with minimal breaks. Swam 2 - 200yd sets then 4- 100yd sets after warming up. I gotta start working on extending my non-stop distance, it seems as I get past 125 yds or so I start to lose my form and I get sloppy. Sloppy = wasted energy! I'm encouraged that I'm a getting better each week. Mother Nature is certainly not helping the bike training. I wanna get out on Kick Ass so bad but I don't have cold weather gear (nor do I wish to buy any at the moment). I've been out twice when it SEEMED nice, but let me tell you 55 deg on a bike cruising at a good pace is kinda cold! So I'm stuck listening to Mary and Jessica (Spin instructors) bark at me while I pedal my ass off on a bike that doesn't move while I wait for warmer, drier weather. hmmm I wonder what a Spin class would be like if the instructor was more yoga instructor rather than drill instructor or yoga music played instead of J-Lo? BTW Just teasing, Mary!
Couple weeks ago the second Tough Mudder event was held at Bear Creek. After last year's event many folks complained that it wasn't tough enough. Well the folks at Tough Mudder apparently took those complaints to heart and they raised the bar, SUBSTANTIALLY! For starters they added about four more miles to the course. Then with the help of Mother Nature, condition were ripe with peril and challenge. For starters, we had to run down the STILL snow covered slope. Mud was so thick at spots sneakers were getting pulled off people's feet (I was smart and taped mine on). The water in their ponds was so cold people were being treated for acute hypothermia. Plus there seemed to be a lot more up and down the mountain in this years course. Oh yeah, there was a jabenero pepper eating challenge, I nearly threw up. Unfortunately, I was unable to complete this years course. I was having serious cramping issues in my calves after the first dip into ice cold water, and this was maybe 5 miles into the event. Knowing that they weren't gonna go away I threw in the towel and became a spectator. I was disappointed that I didn't make a better showing, but it was the wise thing to do. Injuring myself was a major concern for me from the starting smoke bombs. With slippery conditions, bad footing, and polar bear water temps, I was so worried about slipping and pulling a hammy or snapping an ankle. So I took my time and was very cautious. I have invested to much time and money into this triathlon pursuit that injuring myself and missing training time was the last thing I wanted to do. Maybe next year I will try again, we'll see.
Training for the triathlon has been going just fine. Today (Friday) I swam 800yds, the close approximation to the swim distance in the tri, with minimal breaks. Swam 2 - 200yd sets then 4- 100yd sets after warming up. I gotta start working on extending my non-stop distance, it seems as I get past 125 yds or so I start to lose my form and I get sloppy. Sloppy = wasted energy! I'm encouraged that I'm a getting better each week. Mother Nature is certainly not helping the bike training. I wanna get out on Kick Ass so bad but I don't have cold weather gear (nor do I wish to buy any at the moment). I've been out twice when it SEEMED nice, but let me tell you 55 deg on a bike cruising at a good pace is kinda cold! So I'm stuck listening to Mary and Jessica (Spin instructors) bark at me while I pedal my ass off on a bike that doesn't move while I wait for warmer, drier weather. hmmm I wonder what a Spin class would be like if the instructor was more yoga instructor rather than drill instructor or yoga music played instead of J-Lo? BTW Just teasing, Mary!
Couple weeks ago the second Tough Mudder event was held at Bear Creek. After last year's event many folks complained that it wasn't tough enough. Well the folks at Tough Mudder apparently took those complaints to heart and they raised the bar, SUBSTANTIALLY! For starters they added about four more miles to the course. Then with the help of Mother Nature, condition were ripe with peril and challenge. For starters, we had to run down the STILL snow covered slope. Mud was so thick at spots sneakers were getting pulled off people's feet (I was smart and taped mine on). The water in their ponds was so cold people were being treated for acute hypothermia. Plus there seemed to be a lot more up and down the mountain in this years course. Oh yeah, there was a jabenero pepper eating challenge, I nearly threw up. Unfortunately, I was unable to complete this years course. I was having serious cramping issues in my calves after the first dip into ice cold water, and this was maybe 5 miles into the event. Knowing that they weren't gonna go away I threw in the towel and became a spectator. I was disappointed that I didn't make a better showing, but it was the wise thing to do. Injuring myself was a major concern for me from the starting smoke bombs. With slippery conditions, bad footing, and polar bear water temps, I was so worried about slipping and pulling a hammy or snapping an ankle. So I took my time and was very cautious. I have invested to much time and money into this triathlon pursuit that injuring myself and missing training time was the last thing I wanted to do. Maybe next year I will try again, we'll see.
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