A Day of Nothing
Inactive today. I don’t think I have done this little while healthy since I started this Journey 117 days ago… Rain and cold today. Simply a miserable day to be outside and so I stayed inside and enjoyed the company of my family, a friend, and baseball on the TV.
Our Favorite Place for Breakfast
Before the rains came, we went as a family to our favorite diner for breakfast . It has been a while since we have done this and it was fun. I had a bagel and lox with cream cheese YUMMMM. I had a light lunch and a very nice dinner. I made a roasted chicken with multi-grain rice and Chinese broccoli with onion and peppers. All good.
Still, despite the rain, I feel I should have been out there getting in some sort of exercise…
The News Today is Excellent:
I am down 55 pounds! I stepped on the scale today and it tipped at 250.6 pounds. As I started at 305.6 pounds I am now down a full 55 pounds. I always say 305 because I was embarrassed to say 305.6. That sounds really silly right now…. Especially considering I talk about peaking at 315 pounds…
In any case… I am excited to be at 250. I will be even more excited to be in the 240′s. The 240′s at my height and frame no longer sounds fat right? It doesn’t to me in any case. 240′s sounds big, large, filled-out… It doesn’t sound FAT.
I can feel it now. I can feel that potential.. I can feel the goal within reach.
The Mind is a Complicated Thing…
I find myself trying to explain to people how I ever got so fat… They don’t ask. I just feel so embarrassed by having been so heavy that I feel an explanation is in order. I don’t think I have a good explanation mind you. But I do try to explain about inactivity, bad habits, societal pressure, genetics… None of it make sense to the perpetually thin and the weight battler’s don’t need the explanation.
There is so much discomfort with being fat. Not just the physical discomfort, which is considerable, but the emotional discomfort. The feeling of not belonging. The feeling of standing out for all the wrong reasons. The feeling that you are being judged by those around you.
I tuck my polo shirts in now. I no longer feel I am trying to hide the girth.
I sit in booths in dinners.
I stand in the middle in pictures now.
Still, I have to remind myself at times that I am not as fat anymore. I put on a shirt the other day and could not understand why it was so loose. It was the right size.. XXLT… Why was it hanging on me?? Oh, right….
The mind is a complicated thing…
It’s Not About Looks
I have never been particularly vain about my appearance.
I spend most of my non-professional life dressed in worn-out old jeans, my hair a mess and a two-day growth where the beard does not cover… I admit I didn’t like how I looked at 300+ pounds but the Journey has never been about looks.
I am graying and balding, what hair I have is a dull brown and wiry in the extreme, and my ears and nose are too big… My legs are too short, my torso too long… Weight is the least of the visual issues…
It is about health. It is about living long enough to see The Younger One reach adulthood. It is about feeling good in my skin and about emotional well-being.
When I post a picture of then-&-now I show it because of what the change in appearance represents. It represents honest and dedicated effort. It represents a change in how I am living and caring for my life. It represents a rebirth of a me I thought I had lost.
The Then picture shows a man who had stopped caring about his own health and well-being, who had become lost in day-to-day existence and lost sight of living.
Self-portrait
The Now picture shows a person who has started the process of living again, started the process of rediscovering himself and has found so much, learned so much.
It has never been about looks.
Peace
