January 14, 2012: How does this happen? I thought I had this figured out, as in, no treadmill = no weight loss. It doesn’t always work that way, though, and I’m reminded how much of it is really about the diet. I didn’t hit the treadmill last night (though I did a bicep/tricep weights workout), but still lost 3 lbs. An anomaly, I guess, but I’d rather be lucky than good. I do feel so much better after a treadmill workout, though. Listening to those “live in concert” playlists is starting to be relaxation time. This is after a day of biting my tongue at work – because I’m hungry, no, it’s because of people that seem almost to want to derail me, even though they know nothing about my weight loss plans (thereby adding affirmation that I am the inventor of my own demons). I haven’t told anyone outside of my family that I’m on a diet yet, but I will as soon as the results become evident. I feel like there’s just so many people out there who would love to see me fail. But I’m not failing, not this time. I am not going to miss this time. Listen to me, all kinds of motivation today because of a 3 lb. loss. Let’s hope I can keep it off, at least 2 lbs. of it, eh? Want to know what else sucks about being fat? Nothing you say will be as respected as it would be if you weren’t fat. Wrong? Yes. True? Yes. Sadly. I know none of us that has battled obesity would ever be like that, but we’re different. It’s funny how we, with our extreme personalities, have to kind of go to extremes, just to be back to normal.
January 14th, 2020 (retrospective): Extreme people, by definition, do extreme things – extremely bad and/or extremely good things. They generally have all or nothing attitudes, and doing something half-ass is not in the mindset. You’ve heard of the Type A personality – aggressive, outgoing, ambitious – these are the external characteristics of a Type A person, the behavior you witness. What you don’t often see is the underlying challenges they face, number 1 being an extreme fear of failure, and number 2, obsession sometimes to levels so high it’s actually maladaptive. So when you think of this Type A person, odds are this person is physically fit, and/or fairly successful by most common societal measurements. That is, in fact, stereotypical. Type A personalities, in my opinion, may just as likely be “losers” by our standards, and by losers, I mean extreme losers. I am a Type A through and through and through, and when I do good, I do great, but when I fail, it’s usually epic. Can’t help but wonder sometimes if the medication, cognitive behavioral therapy, maturity, and introspection have not helped me control my obsessions so much as made me change the face of those obsessions to appear more adaptive. If that is fact, though, I’m good with it. Nobody wants to be disrespected, and appearing normal is really good camouflage.
