The Elephant in the Room

It goes without saying my posts are littered with swears. This one will be no exception. SorryNotSorry.

So last night I was walking in Japan, and I was like, "What the fuck? An Elephant?"

Maybe I need to back peddle a little here. First I want to say this is possibly going to be one of my longer more rambling posts, which is crazy because I write long posts all the time. I also want to be honest and get out what's been occupying my brain so much the last few months.

Honesty. Deep Breath. Here goes.

I should probably start with, I am fatter than hell. How do I know this? Well back in August I looked at myself trying to tie my shoe and being out of breath doing that simple task and said, "I can't do this any more. I am fat as hell!"

So I joined a website called calorie count. The idea is simple. You log your food, you log your exercise, they give you a goal of if you want to lose 1-2 pounds a week your calories in vs out should be x. In order to do this I had to weigh myself so they could calculate for my age, height, weight, and activity level what my daily calorie goal should be.

I blew the dust off my mortal enemy the scale and said, "Hello old friend. We meet again." It was bad. My estimations were correct. I was fat as hell. And was only 13 lbs off from my estimation. Thirteen pounds more than my estimation to be exact. Fuck.

So I plugged in my weight - got my calorie assessment. And set to work.

I think I lasted two weekly weigh-ins. Roughly two weeks?

The tricky part is tracking everything. Duh - Jo - that's how it works. But I had to build every recipe I made, the interface was a little tricky at first and frustrating, so I missed a couple days and then shit happens.

Ever since then it has been in the back of my mind that I still need to do something. Things have not gotten better, so I can't just sit around waiting for weight loss fairy to show up and say, "Ding - you have hip bones again, and only ONE chin! tee-hee!"

I feel like I need to back up a little more now.

So I've talked before how I am a quitter. I am so good at quitting. For the past couple years I have been setting challenges for myself. The first year was to read 25 books in a year. And I was so proud of myself. I did it. I did not quit!  My next goal was to take up meditation. There was a 8 week course/book I read. And I did it. All the exercises, every night for 8 weeks. I did it and I loved it. Now, I haven't kept up with the book reading or meditation as much as I would like them to be daily practices, but they were goals I set - and I achieved them - and while they might not be part of daily rituals they are things I enjoy that make me sane that I can turn to when I need to on a regular basis.

Those two small goals may seem like not much to you go-getters of the world, but I am not a go-getter. I am a happy in my cozy cave, you-go-get-it-yourself-getter; I am good right here in my cave not getting. But that is not entirely true. I'm not happy. It bothers me that I don't go-get. It bothers me even more that my body doesn't let me go-get.

Last year my goal was to start saving money. I read this thing that was to increase the amount of money you put in a jar every week. You double it. Week 1 is $1, week 2 - $2, etc. The last week of the year you deposit $52. So my jar was going to be metaphorical, I was just going to savings transfer that shit between my accounts. And I quickly decided the week increment thing was dumb. $30 a week. I don't know how I came to that amount. I think I averaged out what the final amount for the year was, and then felt like that wasn't enough -- and who knows; math sort of settles over me like a fog - that's not the point. The point is $30 a week in the savings account. And I did that shit manually. Because I could have set up a re-occurring deposit but I wanted to do it - just to see if I could. And I did. I won't say I remembered every week. But when I forgot - I put $60, or $120 for the weeks I missed. And that sucked. But I did it. And at the end of the year, Christmas shopping was awesome! And my credit card debt was paid off, and my nest egg was shiny. It is tiny - but it is shiny and I am proud of it. I'm still doing the weekly deposits this year, but upped my amount because I want a bigger egg.

And that got me thinking. If 2014 was the year of savings and paying off debt, 2015 has to be the year of health.

There is some quote that the way your body looks before 25 is because of what your parents fed you, and the way your body looks after 25 is what you fed you.

Well... shit.

True story.

I've always been fat. But damn did it get worse after 25. That's on me. I look back at photos of when I thought I was SO FAT, and think - you stupid ass - that's not fat. THIS - This that I am now...THIS IS FAT. What you were then, that is my ideal weight now. If you would have buckled down a little then we wouldn't be in this sorry state now.

My mom is on a wacky eating plan. I say wacky because I don't understand it. It's almost vegetarian, but you can have meat - just not so much. It's mostly about eating the shit out of veggies and fruit. I can get behind that. Everyone knows you're supposed to eat more of those anyway. And it just so happened it was a PBS pledge drive and this doctor who touts this eating plan was giving a talk. You could pledge and get all his CD's and Books, etc. It was an infomercial with the added bonus of supporting public television. I WAS IN!

So I texted my mom - because that is a thing she does now, and said - "I am thinking about going on your diet, and buying all of his books on PBS."

She said, "I have all the books - just come get them."

Score! Sorry PBS. Get you next time?

My mom has struggled with her weight my whole life. She says the best weight loss she ever had was breast feeding me and being on weight watchers. She has tried them all. This one, this one has helped her lose weight, get her blood sugars worked out, and helped my dad with his high blood pressure.  I see their results. I want to do this.

It's about baby steps. Not just this program, but my approach to this year. I can't diet. Not anymore. Dieting doesn't work for me. Dieting implies - this is only temporary. And don't talk to me about cheat days. My whole life has been a cheat day. No cheating. Cheating implies badness. There is no badness. Just eating to fuel yourself. This is how I want to eat now. Which doesn't mean I can't eat what I like. I will...just not so goddamn much.

Also because I was on the high of my money saving plan of 2014 I was looking at treadmills at Sears. Well I just paid off my credit card, and they had no interest for 24 months on treadmills. And free delivery. Done.

I know me. I am not going to a gym, but in my house? Paying for that shit every month to sit there. Yup. This I will do. Gabe talked me down from getting the one with the TV attached - but this one does have WiFi. I can post my work-outs to facebook if I wanted to from my treadmill. I won't, because I refuse to be that guy - but I COULD!

The coolest thing is the google maps feature. There are maps and routes all over the world. If I want to walk in Paris, I can! The grade adjusts to that of the map and I can look at those Marcel Marceau bastards eating baguettes while I walk. It's cheesy as hell - but it keeps me on the treadmill. It's a gimmick. There is nothing I love more than a cheesy gimmick.

Before it arrived, and before I finished reading my book on this new idea on eating, I re-logged into calorie count. I had to weigh myself again. You'll remember I was fat as hell in August. Well now I am 12 lbs heavier than I was then. Fucking great. I realized immediately that it means I am now fatter than hell.

I wanted to wait to write about this because I wanted to get past the two week mark. My general length of - "well, I've failed - yet again - it's quittin' time."

January 5th was when I found out I was fatter than hell. That first week I just logged my food and tried to not pig out and stop eating so much shit. It worked. I dropped four pounds without trying too hard even. I was kind of shocked.

January 10th my treadmill arrived at my house. I stared at it nervously. There were a lot of manuals. I was scared to touch it. However, I am happy to report it has been in my house 13 days now. Here are some of the stats.

• I have used it 11 of those 13 days. The gimmick of google maps TOTALLY works on me. I signed up for two challenges/courses. The first was to walk each of the seven continents. The second was to walk in scenic parks around the world. Because I had no idea what I was doing the challenges got jumbled up - so I have not completed either yet.
• I did walk Antarctica. Ironically it was the coldest day of the winter in Minnesota. I was tempted to throw open the windows to get a real sense of it.
• THERE WERE PEOPLE in Antarctica. No penguins. Disappointed.


• I did walk in Paris...by the Eiffel Tower. There were lots of motor coach buses.
• Barcelona had an incline of 12, I thought I was going to die. Had to abort.
• I walked in Portland. Saw no hippies. Disappointed.
• I did the Hana Run - which was a video in Hawaii clearly filmed from a car, it felt like was running at an incredible rate of speed!
• Tonight I walked for an hour because I felt like watching another episode of my show and didn't feel tired yet.
• I'm not killing myself, but working up a sweat and doing about a mile a night. I know that's nothing, but it's a lot for me considering I was literally doing NOTHING before this.
• I shaved a minute off my pace time already.
• I remembered I don't hate exercising. I just need to do it everyday. A little bit to move that ass around. It's not so bad.

Last night was the Asia leg of my continental tour. I was walking in Japan. It was lovely. Beautiful gardens and trees. At one point I looked up at the screen and saw an elephant, and I said "What the fuck? An elephant?" Turns out google maps was just looking at some street art in the park, but it startled me until my eyes adjusted to what I was looking at.

Where my treadmill is set up I can see my reflection in the picture window in the living room. I hate it. I don't take pictures of myself anymore. I hate them. I avoid mirrors at all costs. I hate them. After realizing I'd not seen a real elephant in Japan, I looked up at my reflection and noticed the elephant on the treadmill. Loping along. At first I hated it and looked away. That gut, how did it get so big?  Dat ass...but not in the good way... but I made myself take a second look. A longer look at everything. You know, she didn't have bad legs. Thick, but clearly strong to be bouncing that bulk. I don't hate those legs. Those legs are going to have to carry me around the rest of my days, so I better learn to appreciate them. Maybe eventually I can learn to like some more of me.

So I guess this is where it starts. Learning to like myself again. Reintroducing myself to my body; whatever state it's in. Remembering how it moves, and how to feed it. It's the only one I've got. I can't hide from that elephant in the room anymore. I have to stick it on the treadmill and just go walk in Japan for a while.

This weeks weigh in said I am now down 9 lbs from where I started on the 5th of January. So I am technically still fatter than hell. But I've got good legs. They've been carrying me and my baggage around for a while now. Maybe next week I'll be back to just being fat as hell, and that will feel really good. I don't want to quit just yet. I've still got a few continents to go.