Looking forward to 2013

Now that I have fully reflected on the year that is almost behind us, it is time to look forward to the new year. Resolutions are a slippery slope. With a resolution, there is a stigma. This idea that you work super hard in January and then not so much after that. It becomes tradition to have a series of resolutions that you ignore after month one of the new year. Hell, it happens to me every year. However, this year, I feel like I have a renewed sense of who I am and more importantly, who I want to be. So I am not thinking of them as resolutions, but as goals. I have a series of goals I am shooting for in this coming year. By putting them here, you all get to hold me accountable for them. 2012 was a new beginning for me. 2013 has to be taking that new beginning and pushing it further. I did well in 2012. I did enough to make to the make playoffs, but I was Yankees. I made it to the playoffs, but I could not get to the championship. I need to work harder so I can be the Giants. World Series Champions in 2 out of the last 3 years. So I have to have a good plan of attack and it has to be all encompassing. This is, remember, not just about my physical well being, after all. So what I have done is break this into sections.

My physical health:

The first thing I need to do is eliminate all fast food and all soda. I have done a good job of limiting them, but I need to kick them completely. My mind no longer wants them, and my body can no longer really handle them, so I have to remind myself of that and just stay away. I believe my biggest 2012 triumph was eliminating Rockstars from my diet, so this is the logical next step! In terms of food I also am going to expand my culinary adventures by cooking something new once a week. I want to make sure I do not get bored of eating the same things, so I need to add new recipes. I will be making sure they are healthy meals, but I want to be able to expand what I know how to cook. I want to figure out what will actually fill me up and what better way to do that than by trying all kinds of fun new dishes!

I need to ramp up my physical activity too. I need to get back in the regular habit of going to the gym. I want to go down there 6 days a week for at least 30 minutes a day unless we have a busy day at work, then I will go for 15 minutes, but I need to stay in the habit. I also want to start playing sports again. I want to buy a basketball and shoot hoops here at my apartment complex. I need to make sure I do something active every single day. I cannot let myself sit on the couch all day at all. I need this to be a serious habit for me. Also, I have decided I want to sign up for 3 5Ks this coming year. I want to spread them out and improve on each one, but my goal is to sign up and participate in 3 different ones this year. This is going to be one of my biggest challenges! Once I have acquired a full time teaching job, I want to sign up for a real gym and spend some time with a trainer to help me figure out what would be best for me.

My mental/emotional/creative health

I find that I am happier when I read more, so it stands to reason that I need to read often. My goal is to read a book a week this year. I know this will be tough when I get busier, but I need to make the time to do this because it does make me happy and it calms me down. It also stokes my creative juices, which leads me to my next one which is to write more for me. I love this blog and I love reviewing movies, but I need to write for me. I have a story idea and the beginnings of a story, so I need to give myself time to flush it out. This means setting aside time every month to just write, which is what I plan to do. I want to have a good working draft of this story before my birthday in July. From there I can figure out goes next, but this is something I need to feel like I am still challenging myself creatively. I also am setting a goal to spend less time on my cell phone. I want to put away all of the electronics and enjoy the world around me.

I also want to continue this honesty thing within myself and with other people. I want to continue to get at the root of my issues. I am not sure if this will be a meditation thing, or if the writing will help with it, but I know I like feeling cleansed and I will continue to do that. I also am setting a goal to talk more when things are bugging me and talking to the person the problem is with. I know allowing things to build up has not done me any good in my life. I need to trust the people who love me that if I have a problem we can work it out together and not that the other person is going to just toss me aside. I need to work on strengthening my relationships with people and be open to starting new friendships and working hard at them to make them work. I also want to continue to be the kind of guy who is worthy of such an awesome girlfriend. I know working on myself will help strengthen the relationship Martina and I have and that is incredibly important to me.


So there you have it, 2013 is around the corner and I, for one, am excited. In fact, this might be the most excited I have been to start a new year. I feel good about myself and am now working on feeling great about myself. What about you? What are some of the ways you are going to try and better yourself this year? How can we help push each other? Remember, if you read this, I am here for you and am rooting for you! Together we are Giant!!

We must look back before looking forward

The other day while I was at work my manager was talking to me and randomly she stopped the conversation, looked at me and said "Kyle, you might be the most cheerful employee we have had in a long time." Me, cheerful? That cannot possibly be. I am not cheerful. Hell, I had a teacher in high school who was constantly talking about my pessimistic demeanor. I have never been mistaken for a cheerful guy. It left me thinking because I have been been hearing that a lot lately. People telling me "You look really happy" or some variation that includes a synonym of cheerful. The key is that they are not saying I am "acting" cheerful, just that I am cheerful. This is a sharp turn from where I have spent so much of my life. I have no idea if people have really known just how unhappy I have been for most of my life. When you try your best to be funny, and to be a person who everyone else can lean on, I am not sure the world can tell that you hate yourself, which is kind of the point. Now, though, I realize that I am happy and I am cheerful. I think for the first time in my life, I am just happy with who I am and where things are going. It is a strange feeling and I one that I think I occasionally still try to resist.

That fact of the matter is, being happy takes work. I have seen this article from Cracked.com around Facebook, and it is about the work it takes to change your situation in life and find a way to be happy. Well, these last 7 months have been all about trying to change my situation. it has been about looking inside myself and figuring out all of this "stuff" that has been holding back. It was about trying to realize why I spent so much of my day putting myself down. It was about figuring out why I take every chance at happiness and find a way to talk myself out of it. It has been about finding out who I have been, who I am and who I hope to be. It has been tough, and I know it will continue to be tough. It is much easier to sit on the couch playing video games, than it is to go to the gym, or go on a walk. It is much easier to order pizza, or go to fast food, than it is to plan, prepare and cook a meal. it is easier to complain about the ills of your life than it is to really sit down and analyze why you feel a certain way. Frankly speaking, this year has been crazy exhausting. It has been all been worth it. 2012 has been, at times, the most frustrating year of my life, but it has also been the most rewarding. And now it is ending and people are telling me I look happy. Not that I am acting happy, but that I look happy. I have a general look of happiness. I am a cheerful person. I cannot really wrap my head around it.

let me be clear, this is the best news of this year. Yes, I have an amazing girlfriend, who I can credit for helping me figure this out. I finished my Teaching Credential this year and due to my student teaching, I know for sure I want to teach. I know exactly what I want to do, and it has added to this monumental year. But more than anything, it has been my own work that has made me feel better. I am roughly 45 pounds lighter than I was to start the year, which is key, but it is more than that. In all honesty, if I kept living my life this way, but never lost anymore weight, I would still feel so much better about myself. I feel as if this year I unlocked something within myself that had been stuffed down by self doubt, constant negativity and downright loathing. Now, I understand so much of why these nagging feelings persisted for so long. It is so freeing. The biggest moment of self realization was when I realized, my weight was not the only thing making my unhappy, I just hid behind it, because it was the easiest thing to point to. It was the obvious thing. Now that I have realized that, I have been working on everything else. I am freeing myself from my toxins. A soul cleanse, if you can allow me a moment to be that guy.

Happiness is a choice. It seems like such a stupid thing to say, but it is. We make a choice to do what it takes to be happy, or we make a choice that it is too much work and we lay in bed with Netflix and sleep away the sadness. It took me a long time to figure that out, because it required looking into the abyss of ugliness about myself. This journey, and the ability to share it with all of my real life and cyber friends has caused me to unchain myself from the bonds of my own unhappiness. I am not no longer a slave to my own sadness. I am no longer a slave to fast food. I am no longer a slave to really sugary drinks. I am more active than I have ever been and I am in less constant pain in my legs than I have ever been. Bad days no longer completely destroy me, because I understand myself better now. I understand that bad days are not the universe personally slapping me and keeping me down. Even though I do not have the job I want, I look forward to waking up in the morning these days. I cannot remember the last time where I went months of actually enjoying getting up and being out in the world. Martina might be able to refute this, but I do not think I complained once while we were wandering around the Galleria yesterday and that is insane. For years I hated being out in the world for that long.

2012 will go down as one of the most memorable years of my life. I completed a teaching credential which began when I decided to go back to college to get my degree back in 2004. I got to play one of my dream roles as the Pharaoh in "Joseph." I took a giant flying leap of faith in my relationship by moving in with Martina, which has turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life. I think, however, I will most fondly remember this year for this blog and what this journey has done for me. When I walk down the street I look up at the world now, not down at my feet. I smile at strangers, in the least creepy way possible, I hope. I answer my phone when people call me. When I get invited out, I always actually try to find a way to go out. I enjoy the company of more than like four people in my life. This is all because one day I just had enough of feeling broken all of the time. I got tired of waiting to be fixed and decided to fix myself. No one was going to fix me, except for me.

The last thing I want to say, is that a byproduct of this blog that I did not expect, is this sense of community I feel. I often get e-mails or Facebook messages of encouragement, or stories of triumph from friends, or even people just knowing I will listen without judgement as they emotionally purge something that is going on in their lives. I love it all. I hope, as this blog and journey continue, that you will all continue to contribute. The support is lovely. Dare I say, I love you all in some way.

My once favorite meal

One of the most fascinating aspects of NBC's The Biggest Loser is when they show what the favorite meal of each contestant was and how bad it was for the contestant. One of the main reasons I never felt I could actually be on that show is because of this episode. Typically the favorite meal has thousands and thousands of calories. These are people who just eat and eat and eat. I am not that way. I always get just a bit offended when people tell me I should go on that show. I know they all mean it in the best way possible because generally the people in my life think America would just fall in love with me, because of all my awesomness. However, I do not see myself as being unhealthy enough for that show. I am obese, but the guys on that show start at least 50lbs heavier than I was at my biggest. That is getting beside the point. The point is the meal. During the course of this journey I have done a pretty good job of cutting back on all fast food. I have had fast food less than 20 times since March. I am not where I want to be, but groceries have still been an issue, so I do occasionally get some fast food. I have only had fast food burgers five or six times since march, which is pretty remarkable for me. For a while I have had this idea to revisit my once favorite meal and track how I felt buying it and eating it.

I am finally feeling better and got back to the gym for the first time in a few weeks, so I decided today was a good day to give this is a shot. For those of you who do not know, my favorite meal has long been the Double Western Bacon Cheesburger from Carl's Jr. I used to get it with a large order of chili cheese fries and a large Dr. Pepper. This was my go-to meal for many occasions. It was comfort food, celebration food, late night post-work food and any other occasion I could concoct in my brainspace. I have always known it was just a terrible meal, but I could not help myself. I craved it. It immediately made me feel better, even if that glorious feeling was fleeting, which of course, it was. Most glorious fast food feelings are fleeting. That is how fast food works. Before I go into the experience today, let's chart some of the nutritional value of this meal:

Burger: up to 1,000 calories, almost 2,000mg of sodium, and 15 grams of sugar
Chili cheese fries: 820 calories, nearly 2,000mg of sodium,
Large Dr. Pepper (44oz): 534 calories, 128 grams of sugar.

Doing the math that is 2,354 calories in one meal. A few weeks ago I had to track my food intake for 3 days and the recommended caloric intake for me for the day was roughly 2,700 calories and because I am trying to lose weight, I was coming in at less than 2,000 calories a day. What that means is every time I eat this meal, I was nearly at my recommended caloric intake for the ENTIRE DAY!!

First of all, I felt judged ordering this meal today. I could feel the judgement dripping off the voice of the woman in the drive-thru. Secondly, they were out of Dr. Pepper. To apologize, they threw in onion rings for free. Oh great, just throw fried food at the fatty to appease him! I had to settle for Cherry Coke. The whole way home I could just feel my stomach screaming at me not to throw this food down my throat. For years I constantly craved this meal and here I am nearly a year removed from eating it, and now everything in my body was telling me not to. This is huge progress for me. I am not sure why I cannot stop craving soda, but at least my body no longer craves this burger. In fact, I am rejecting the burger. Still, I soldiered on. If you know anything about my eating habits, you know they are weird. I always put part of my favorite part of the meal off to the side to eat it at the end. I eat all of one thing before moving onto the next. With fast food, I always eat the fries before the burger. It is how I roll. As soon as I opened the container featuring the fries, I started to regret this decision. Just the smell of these chili cheese fries was turning my stomach. However, at the first bite, I was in heaven. God, the taste good. Why did I ever leave you chili cheese fries? 8 bites in now, oh man, this is not going well. Why stomach, why?? It is like I am eating, but nothing is being quenched. I am still so hungry, it does not taste good, and it is just draining my energy. Last two bites, should I even finish it? Yes, I must, I must remind myself why I am not doing this anymore.

Fries finished. Burger unwrapped, a slice of bacon pulled off to the side.

First 1/4:
This is great. I love that the onion rings are still crunchy and that BBQ sauce is delicious. Why is the burger so salty? Stomach revolting a little bit. Getting...sleepy...

After half:
WHY IS THIS BURGER SO SALTY???? feeling so heavy...Is this is end of the road for me? Am I dying?

After 3/4:
Is there a salt lick in this burger? Questioning every decision I have ever made that led me to this specific point. Having to sit back on the couch. Television just noise now. confidence sinking, self worth sinking.....

Finished burger:
Why do I not feel accomplished? Where am I? I need water, desperately. Need...a...nap. How did I do this on a weekly basis?


Here I sit 2+ hours later and nothing is okay. My stomach is unsettled, my brain hurts, If misery could be personified, I would be that. I have no energy whatsoever. I just want to lay down for the rest of the year. It is amazing to me what 9 months can do to a person. I used to get excited at the mere thought of going to Carl's Jr. it was like a little party for me every damn time. Now, I have no idea how I ever did it. Was some of this hyperbole for entertainment purposes, yes, but the feeling is very real. I loathe this decision today, but I also think I needed it. I needed to know that things are in fact changing. Not just my weight and even how I feel, but that what I want is changing. I have trained myself to not crave this awful food any longer. It is a massive victory for me. I need to keep moving forward and knocking out all fast food. It is such a better lifestyle to not eat it. When I do not eat fast food I just like things better. The colors are brighter and all of that nonsense.

I ate more in that one meal calorie wise than I do in a whole day now, yet I am hungrier than usual. All that I want is to eat and sleep, which could have been the title of my memoir if I was writing about my most depressing days. The goal is to train myself to not have food=feelings. I know I will never be a "eat to live" kind of guy. I like to eat good food. I love taste, so I have to understand how to get the best taste honestly. For example, last night I had the best salad I have ever tasted. I cannot spend the money to eat that salad every day, but I know I can make salads at home that are tasty with the right ingredients. This is an on-going process for me.

Every day I have to get up and try again, whether I had a good day or a bad day the day before. I know that my life is better when I do not fill my body with fast food and that has been proven today. After eating my once favorite meal, I do not care about anything. It led me to the insight that perhaps I used to feed myself this meal on a regular basis because I wanted to not care about anything, or feel anything. Some people use drugs or alcohol or sex to numb the pain. Drugs freak me out and are expensive, alcohol gets expensive and often does not taste very good and no one wanted to have sex with me, so I have used food to numb myself to feeling anything. As I prepare for the life of a teacher, and hopefully father, I need to feel and I need to feel good. I have to be some sort of role model to people and I cannot do that if I am constantly numbing myself to the experiences of life.

One of my favorite things about this blog is that I never know where a post is going to take me. I had every intention of writing a (hopefully) funny blog about eating a burger and as I typed, I realized these transcendent things about my life. The more confident I grow on the outside, the more willing I am to be introspective and honest with myself. The writing allows me to be able to put it into words in a mostly coherent way. It makes me wonder why I ever stop writing about everything. Not sure how many people are actually reading this thing on a consistent basis, but I think it is worth it just for myself. So thanks Erik for talking me into it.