The universe RSVPed NO for my pity party

Well gang, here I sit still sick. Going on 8 days of sickness. This never happens to me. I typically have a champion immune system, but this sickness has worked its way deep into my soul. Still coughing, still sniffling and still generally feeling "bleh." This sickness, I think, is a manifestation of how I have been feeling lately. I desperately want a full a time job. In my part time job (which I am relieved to have) hours are being cut and I am in need of another job. Oh joy, the job hunt. All of the negative feelings kind of came to a head yesterday. Yesterday was my second straight day of sitting at home trying to kick this sickness. All I want is to stop sniffling. I was just on verge of a pity party. I had snacks, decorations, and drinks. Then something happened.

As I left my house to go tutor, I put on the jacket I bought last December. When I bought it, it was just a bit snug. It worked for the style of jacket and did not bother me, but it was a bit snug. yesterday I put it on and it was baggy. It was a size too big. At first, I shook it off. Well, it got stretched out in the move, or some nonsense. I was not in the mood to be happy. This was my pity party damn-it! I was sick, and tired. I needed to whine and be full of self pity. When my student showed up without his essay, I knew I was back in pity party mode. That was until he told me that he felt strong enough about his essay that he turned it in early. Two months ago this college student could barely form a coherent paragraph and now he is turning in final drafts without making sure we go over it together? How awesome is that? He gave me a copy to look over and no joke, it was pretty good for him. Because he turned it in early he gets half a letter grade bump, so he was not worried. I was so proud of him for making this giant leap. He had a strong thesis and some great ideas and it was the best effort of his in terms of grammar. I was so sure this was not working, and here he is stating to get it. He wants to work together through next semester too.

When tutoring was done, I came home and the dinner I was making smelled great and it tasted great and Martina and I had a lovely night together at home. At this point I realized the universe was not only rejecting an invitation for a pity party, it was not going to let me HAVE a pity party. The universe was slapping me across the face with all of the things that are going right in my life. Yes, I am sick. No, I am not a teacher and my job is not what I want, but look at all of the things that are going well. I am a size smaller than I was at this time last year. I clearly WILL be a teacher, and I truly believe I will be a good teacher. On top of that, I have this wonderful girlfriend who takes care of me when I am sick and trust me, I am no fun to be around when I am sick. I am more stubborn when I am sick than when I am healthy. it is obnoxious. I can hear myself being obnoxious and for whatever reason I refuse to stop it.

If you ask anyone who knows me very well, they can tell you that I am not one to attach cosmic importance to events, big or small. It is not in my nature to think the universe it trying to talk to me, or give me signs. However, I am finding it hard to ignore. I have been feeling very empty without a classroom. I have been wondering if maybe teaching is not in my future. Perhaps I am not meant for that profession, that life. Then twice this week I have heard from students from last year. Both of them told me how great it was to have me as their teacher. One of them said some of the nicest things I have ever heard. How could I possibly have a pity party when people out there are telling me how thankful they are that they were in my class. How can I possibly ignore the timing? Right as I was getting the most unsure of my path, these two people lit up my path so it was as clear as it had ever been. If anyone is meant for anything, I am meant for teaching. The universe is clearly saying that.

This is not to say that I am going to change my mind completely about cosmic importance. I think if you go looking for signs, you can find them anywhere and can attach importance to anything and when things go wrong, you give yourself an out for personal responsibility. However, if the signs are there when you are decidedly not looking for them, how can you turn your back on them? All things considered, my life is pretty good. I think every once in a while the universe reminds me that. It tells me that my pity party is unnecessary. I have nothing in my own life that needs pity. I have a path, all of you amazing readers, a beautiful-smart-kind-loving girlfriend, and am 40+ lbs lighter. Thank you universe to slapping me across the face with the reality that my life is pretty sweet. I think we all forget how good things can be, especially when the weather is crappy. We are conditioned to focus on the negative. We think about the money we do not have, the extra weight we have, or how this other person has more than we do. Every so often we need to stop, and really look at the positives in our own life. They are there.

This is not about some "I am lucky to be breathing" nonsense. No, really look around you and discover what you have going for you. You, yes you. You are beautiful. You probably have an awesome family, or an awesome group of friends who have become a family. You have great things going on, even in the face of sadness, or in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds. There is something that will get you through it. And to be completely honest with YOU specifically, if you need help, if you are struggling, if you need reminding, ask me. Know this, if I know you in my real life, I want to help. If I do not know in my real life and you stumbled onto this blog, I want to help. We are all in this crazy life together and if you have taken the time to get to know me through this blog, know this, I am here for you. I love to listen, I love to hug and comfort. We all struggle and we all find a way through it. I learned a long time ago that climbing out of a hole alone is incredibly difficult, but climbing out of a hole with someone reaching down to help pull you out, is easier. If you need a hand, I promise you, mine is available.

The ever evolving schedule

Sorry for the absence dear readers. It has been a busy few weeks and I am still adjusting to a new schedule. Which brings me to the main topic of this blog entry.

It is very easy to work out, eat right and get proper sleep when you have nothing to do all day. It is also relatively easy to maintain a regular schedule if your job has a regular schedule. Unfortunately things have not worked out in my favor this fall and I find myself back working at a movie theater. I am incredibly thankful to have a regular job and paycheck, but working at a movie theater presents its own series of challenges in my fight for health. The biggest being that it completely messes with my internal schedule. Some days I have to work until 1am, some days I have to be at work at 10am. My sleep schedule has gone completely out the window which has very much affected my energy level. This is one of those moments where I realize how important sleep is, or at least a regular sleep schedule. My body does not know what to do when I get off work at 1am and need to unwind, so I am up until 2 or 3 in the morning some days, and other days I am so beat I fall asleep at 10:30. It is something on which I am still searching for a grip. I need to find a happy medium.

Having a job, finally, has also done things to my eating habits. I tend to eat later now, especially if I work at night and do not get a lunch break until 9 at night. I am still finding ways to mostly eat healthy. I am eating more Subway now. I know the bread is not good, but I am packing my sandwiches with many more vegetables than I have in the past. My biggest concern is not letting myself go hungry. During my many years at a movie theater, I have noticed I tend to let myself go hungry a lot because I do not want to change my eating patterns, but I know I need to. Letting myself go hungry is not going to solve anything because it will lead to gross binge eating. Once we get groceries back in our house, I am going to make a real effort to make lunch more often. More likely is making bigger dinners and taking leftovers. All of my life I have underestimated how great leftovers can be. It makes me want to go back in time when my mom would throw away leftovers because no one would eat them. I would eat them now. I have noticed that when Martina cooks she tends to cook more, giving us leftovers and I tend to cook just for the two of us for one meal. That may change soon. I need to make sure the allure of popcorn does not overtake me.

Which leads me to the next point: temptation. While on shift, I can drink all of the soda and eat all of the popcorn I want, for free. 3 weeks in and I have had a total of ZERO soda and only roughly 3 cups of popcorn. BOOM!! My last movie theater, I would have competitions with people about who could drink the most Mountain Dew during a shift and so far here I have not had any soda at all. I am not saying I have not had any soda in the last few months, but I am really proud of myself for not giving in at work where I can drink so much of it for free. However, I am probably most proud of how little popcorn I have had. When I do popcorn at work, I load it with butter and popcorn salt, which is worse for you than regular salt. It is heavy tasty salt. Knowing I get free cheese too makes my will power even more awesome because popcorn with popcorn salt and cheese is heaven. It truly tastes like what I imagine food in obese heaven tastes like. I was so worried about all of this temptation and so far I am proud of myself. For those who know me very well, giving myself actual credit for something is new and still makes me slightly uncomfortable.

Lastly, I want to talk about something completely different. Because of the blog and my Facebook statuses about my weight loss, it is pretty well known that I am fighting for my health. This leads to many conversations about it. People want to know what I am doing, how much I have lost and tell me how great I look and how much happier I look. My entire life I have never believed anyone when they tell me I look like I have lost weight. I feel it is something skinny people say to fat people to make them feel better about themselves (this sentence is decidedly vague). I have always felt people said it to me to be encouraging, and then when I walk away they turn to each other and comment how I look as obese as ever. I know I am losing weight. I can feel it in my body, I can see it when I put on winter clothes I have not worn in a year. Logically I know this is working, but still, when people comment on how good I look, all I can think about is how full of crap they are. I cannot help but think they are just being sweet friends who want me to succeed but deep down are thinking how nothing has changed. This mentality HAS to change inside of me. It has taken me a long time to accept that people are rooting for me. It has taken me months to even sort of grasp why so many people are on my side. Who am I to have all of these people invested in my journey? I am constantly being sent words of encouragement, inspirational quotes, videos, stories and people are sharing their own battles and demons with me. It is overwhelmingly touching, so why can't I just accept the compliments like an adult instead of stammering on about how I still have so far to go? I have worked damn hard and deserve to accept people saying nice things. This is the hardest thing I have ever done. And it will continue to be the hardest thing I have ever done. I am not rewarding myself with brownies or pie, so why shouldn't I reward myself with the acceptance of nice words? That is my goal, to take the compliments as tasty brain rewards.


Oh one last tiny thing: Thanksgiving is the one day where it appears perfectly acceptable to binge eat and it is the one day of the year I never worry about binge eating. I do not care for turkey, potatoes, or pumpkin pie, or any fruit pies. I am rarely, if ever, stuffed on Thanksgiving.

the clothing issue

I hate shopping for clothes. I have almost always hated shopping for clothes. When you cannot fit into the clothes in the regular section, it sucks. Most of the time I have to shop for clothes in specialty stores designed specifically for fat guys. Feeling defeated before you ever go to the store is never good, but that is how it has always been. The bigger the clothes, the more expensive they are as well. I never get a shirt/sweat shirt from shows I do because they cost more when you get to the XXXL and XXXXL sizes. There is no way I could ever buy a shirt at a concert because they do not even bother to carry my size. Also, forget about thrift stores! My theater friends love to host themed parties, but I can never dress up because there are no thrift stores that carry my size. If I do not already have it in my closet, I cannot participate. It makes me incredibly self conscious and always has made me feel that way. Just thinking about buying new clothes fills me with anxiety because I do not get to always choose things I love, but things that fit me.

I recently started a part time job at a movie theater and I needed to pick up plain black pants ( i have a pair but they are too nice to worry about butter stains) and a few white t-shirts to wear under the polo I was issued. I was not looking forward to it because I have not been feeling at my best lately. I was sure that I was going to have to go up a size from the last time I bought pants a few years back when I lost 40 pounds. When I was at my heaviest (roughly when I was like 23-27 years old) I was wearing a size 60 in pants. The last time I bought pants I bought size 52 and 54. I was sure I was going to need at least size 56 last week. I got to JC Penney (the cheapest place to buy big and tall clothes) and grabbed a pair of size 54 and 56 pants and slowly, achingly lumbered to the dressing rooms. The 56 were far too big and the 54 were too big as well. I was pleasantly surprised and bounded off to find smaller pants. This is something I NEVER get to do. I grabbed size 52 and just for fun, I grabbed a pair of discount size 50 pants. To my unbelievable surprise the size 50 pants fit! They were a bit snug, but they fit!! I am so close to being out of the 50s in pants, which has been a goal/struggle of mine for the last 5 years! Here I am sitting on the verge of achieving this massive goal. I am not afraid to say that I had tears in my eyes as I looked at myself. This is working!

After that shocking bit of awesome news, I remembered I had to buy t shirts. They did not have any XXXLT (my current t-shirt size) so I grabbed a XXXL t-shirt and gave it a shot. It fit perfectly. It was not too short over my stomach or too tight around my arms. This is a change from only 6 months ago! I thought I was going crazy, so just to push my luck, I went and grabbed a XXLT shirt and it fit! I did not buy the XXL shirt because I do not think a more fitted white shirt would do me any favors. To make sure it was not just the brand, I went out and grabbed other shirts. I was running around the store like a mad man. I can only imagine what employees were thinking of a guy running around their store half giggling, half crying, grabbing random clothes and trying them on! I realized that in the Big and Tall section I can fit into all brands of XXLT. In the regular sections, I can put on a XXL, but it does not fit....yet. For years I could not even pretend to cram into a XXL shirt and now I can actually put it on. That means I am so damn close to the biggest goal I have ever set for myself. It has been a dream of mine to wear XXL shirts because once I get there, I can start buying clothes in the regular person section almost exclusively. I am tearing up now as I type this out.

For the first time I can remember I left a department store feeling better than when I went in. I am smaller than I have been since I was a teenager. But more importantly, I believe I am healthier than I have been since I was a teenager. I can breathe easier. I do not cram food down my throat all times of day. I am figuring out how to be the best version of me. I know I am far away from my potential, but I am feeling so much better these days. The hard work is paying off. The other day I looked at myself in the mirror and smiled. I am not sure that has ever happened. I was looking at someone I did not hate, someone I was not feeling sorry for. I was looking at someone who is fighting. I looked at someone who is working hard and seeing results. I think I am finally starting to see the guy that Martina loves, that my friends see and that my family sees. I am finally starting to see me as I actually am and not some awful warped sense of who I think I am. I can finally see the weight loss in myself. I can see the physical and mental changes. After a long day this week, I did not cave and get Taco Bell. I am fighting and winning. My goal now is to be in a XXL t-shirt by the year anniversary of this journey in March. it is not going to be easy, but if I keep myself going, I believe I get there.


A quick note:

This weekend I saw one of my best friend's parents and my friend sent me a text that her mom thought I looked great and her mom did not even know about this journey. It is the first time someone who did not know what I was doing made that kind of comment. It felt awesome.

A quick note part two:

To everyone who told me I would eventually stop craving soda, you can all go to hell for being liars. I still want all of the soda all of the time.