February 2nd, 2012: I’m seeing a trend in my weight loss. I’ll summarize. It goes like this – a 3 maybe 4 pound loss, a plateau for a day or two, a gain, a small loss, a gain, a small loss, a plateau for a day or two, a 3 maybe 4 pound loss – over a two week period. Evidently I’m on my first gain of the two week period. Up one pound (headed north on the Weight Interstate) to 323. If my prediction is true, I’ll have a one pound loss tomorrow. All in good fun! Except there’s times when I want to smash the scale against the wall.
Stayed home with my little boy again today. He officially has the old-school croup (baby bronchitis). I was up more or less all night with him, so I have bags under my eyes big enough to pack for a vacation, and I am now also sick. Here’s the positives of it: 1) I get to skip work again, and 2) I don’t feel hungry at all.
I used to push through colds and stuff and keep right on working and working out. I don’t think I’m going to do that anymore. I mean why? Aren’t we all caught up so much in the “how” that we never ask the “why”? I’ve got no good reason. Nothing’s that pressing. I’m just going to chill today. No work, no workout. Diet, yes, won’t give up on that!
February 2nd, 2020 (retrospective): Eight years into this, and I still follow the process as religiously as ever. I’ve believed in it this whole time and it hasn’t let me down, and that’s through a helluva lot of changes and spur lines that could have led me right back to obesity. One of the many tricks and tips I learned whilst following the process is to re-purpose negative people, negative comments, and stressful situations into fuel. It’s liking making fuel out of cow shit. These people and these situations could either go into your shitwagon trailer and slow you down or even stop you, or you could chuck these thoughts into your fuel refining system and allow them to power you towards your next goal. This little forced metamorphosis of a liability into an asset has allowed me to make it through some hard times and past some hard people. I sure hope I haven’t been too many people’s cowshit. If and when I was, I hope you turned me into fuel.
Among many other areas related to the process that I’m researching, and one I’m still trying to learn how to personally overcome, is fatigue. Eight years ago, and in a previous post on this blog, I quoted Vince Lombardi with “Fatigue makes cowards of us all”. Every time I run out of energy (which happens multiple times daily), and start getting weird about choices – past, present, and future; this seems to conveniently pop up on my mental wide-screen TV – fatigue and Vince Lombardi. As I write this, I’m 164 lbs. lighter than when I started the process, closing in on the best shape of my life, and I still feel constantly fatigued – not so much physically, but mentally. It seems like I could go all day if I’m doing active and physical work, but every couple of hours if I’m doing desk work or getting paid for thinking, my mind starts to wander back towards a soft and comfortable bed or reclined recliner. My bread-and-butter comes from my brain, though, so I can’t indulge these thoughts too much. Nor is there enough coffee on the planet. I don’t want to start popping stimulant pills. This has to be about getting enough sleep. Well, duh, I guess; I go to bed at 11 pm and wake up at 4 am. But there is so much shit to do just to survive, I currently can’t think of any other way. So whaddaya do…
…you just give life a big warm embrace, say “bring it on”, walk your ass out the door, and show up. Every. Single. Day. This life is one long endurance run with a 30 second sprint here and there. We are not in a 78 second street fight outside a bar in Butte, Montana on St. Patrick’s Day; we are going 12 rounds in the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
