A key phrase

I have had an overwhelming amount of support in my life time. When I was entering high school and realizing that sports were not going to be my thing, I was a bit nervous my dad would not understand, but when I found theater, he was the most supportive person and still is. My parents have always just wanted me to be happy. When I finally got serious about college, my parents took me back in and let me live rent free for years so I could focus wholly on my school work. It allowed me to have just a part time job and really pay attention to school and I think that it showed. My parents still come to California to see me in shows. My siblings try to come to shows and they have all been very supportive over the last year especially as I struggle with finding a full time job. I know I can call on them if I am in dire need and they would be there for me without question.

I have also been lucky with my extended family. I have friends I have not seen in years, but I know if I called them and needed them, they would be there for me. They all want me to succeed. It is not even limited to close friends. I have this giant network of people on Facebook who are pulling for me. I have people who text me or message me if they hear of an English teaching position open up. People love to share inspiring stories or tips or recipes with me all of the time as they cheer me on my journey. It would be very easy for people to just tell me "keep searching" when they ask about the job hunt, but so many people have gone out of their way to say things "it will be a lucky school that gets you" or "I wish my kid could have you as a teacher." These are not necessary things for people to say in the social contract of life. These are extra things that make me feel incredibly good about myself.

However, for years I have never felt worthy of any of it. It does not matter how many people are rooting for you if you are not one of those people. That is why i like to think of this key phrase "I am Good Enough." It is one thing to have my friends, my family and my girlfriend tell me that I am good enough, but is completely different thing to be able to really say it about yourself. This has been an ongoing battle for me my entire life. I have always felt like the back up plan. If I got a lead in a show it was because no one else really auditioned, not because I had a great audition and deserved to play the role. That was just how I thought. I was the person people would call if everyone else was busy and they just did not want to be alone. That is how I have seen myself for the great majority of my life. As I have been working through my various issues on a path to a life healthier and happier, I have been examining these insecure thoughts.

I have finally gotten myself to a place where I can honestly look into a mirror and say that I am good enough for change. I am good enough to be happy. I am good enough to demand better of myself and how people treat me. It is an empowering moment. That first moment you realize that you are good enough for that thing with which you have been struggling. It sounds cheesy I know, but in that moment, just briefly, you really feel like you can do anything if you just decide to do it. My moment came about two months ago when I woke up in the morning. I have no idea why I awoke that day feeling this, but I did. I woke up, stretched out, looked at myself in the mirror and just said "I am good enough to run a whole mile without stopping on the treadmill." Then I went out and did it. It was that simple. I just made the choice to be good enough and now I realize that I am.

I still have days where I feel incredibly awful about myself, but I can combat those now. When I feel those days coming on, I work out harder. I make myself feel worth something. Those awful feelings go away more quickly now. I am demanding better out of myself. I am still working on demanding better from other people. I am still working on explaining my issues to other people out of fear that they will turn away. I am still working on it, but it is all a part of the process. Everything I do is a part of the process. I am really enjoying the process. I am so much better at not getting mad at myself if I eat too much one day, or if I just lay in bed too long one day. I am letting myself off the hook much more easily now.

The art of letting go is a crucial and complicated art. I have to hold myself responsible for my actions while not getting down on myself. I am walking that line with a fine tooth comb these days. I am better at realizing the consequences of my actions but also knowing that I can do better next time. I am good enough after all.

The calmness of Monday morning

For most people Mondays are hectic. People loathe Monday because it signals the beginning of a new week. You have to jolt yourself back into life. While I am jealous of those people who have a job to perform on Mondays, I have realized how much I have come to love my Monday mornings.

Martina's alarm goes off somewhere between 7 and 7:30 in the morning and she gets up and roll back over and sleep for a few minutes before she kisses me goodbye and heads off to work. Once she heads off downstairs, I roll back over for roughly 10 minutes before my alarm goes off at 8. Instead of jolting out of bed, I slowly release myself from a slumbering state and calmly remove myself from bed. Before I head downstairs, I do some stretching to get the morning cracks out of my body and to warm up just enough. Nothing happens at my apartment complex on Mondays. There are no lawnmowers, leaf blowers, or garbage trucks making noise. The kids are all at school. I can hear my kitten meowing and I can hear birds chirping. It is peaceful. I set up my Runkeeper, fill up my water bottle, put on my headphones, turn up the music and head off into the world at roughly 8:30.

There is not much traffic in the world when I get out there. Once I cross the bridge, I do not even hear cars anymore. 8:30 is perfect. It is before the stay at home moms and nannies take their kids to the park. It is before the school kids have recess. On my morning walks, I only encounter like minded people. I see people jogging, walking or bike riding. We acknowledge each other in a cheerful, but calm way as we continue on our separate paths, both actual paths and our own health journeys. Most of them are older than I. Everyone is at a different level of fitness, but we all appreciate the work the other is putting in. It is nice to feel that way. I no longer feel anyone judging me. I feel people looking at me and being happy for me that I am at least trying. Now, I can get this every day. What makes Monday special is the smell. Monday smells like freshly cut grass. The school has its grass cut on Monday morning. There are two houses on my path that are out cutting their lawns most Mondays. Freshly cut grass is one of my five favorite smells. it smells like newness. It smells like a new beginning. That is what Monday morning is for me. It is a new beginning. It is a chance to start fresh. I can take what happened last week, put it aside and do what I can to make this week better. I like to just walk on Mondays. I keep my pace up, but I like to be able to take everything in on Monday. I like to count my blessings that I have this serene time. I know next fall when I get a teaching job, that these moments will have to come earlier in the morning, so I appreciate the 8:30 workout while I have it.

Typically on Mondays I will walk 2.2 miles and then I will go to the gym at my apartment complex and do another 3 miles on the stationary bike. I like this routine. It gets my body doing different things for the week and it loosens everything up for me. Plus, it gets me a good sweat. It is nice to start the week with a good sweat. Last week I had to take some time off from a serious workout because of some lingering pain in my left knee, but after 3.1 miles of intense jogging and walking yesterday and this morning's workout. I feel good. I feel strong. I know I am pushing myself again because it burns. Over the last two weeks, the burn has been less because I was getting comfortable with my level of workout. It is time to up it again, and what better time than Monday. What better time than when the air smells like freshly cut grass. It smells like a time of starting over. It smells like rebirth. The grass gets fresh life and I get a fresh start.

I now have two different things I listen to on my workouts. My iTunes to not iPhone transfer is stupid, so I have limited options. I have Mumford and Sons and Skrillex. They both provide different motivations for me. When I listen to Skrillex I feel more determined. It is a more focused and intense workout. I am fully focused on the time it takes me to do my workout. I feel more competitive. There is a time for that, but that time is not Monday morning. Monday morning is for the spiritual awakening of Mumford and Sons. With Mumford, I take in my surroundings. I notice the two ducks chilling outside of the elementary school longing for an education. I notice the old man who walks with his little black dog almost every morning. I notice the massive truck with the bumper sticker telling me that God wants to talk to me about something, but will not tell me on what subject God wants to converse. I have dedicated a whole blog post to Mumford and Sons, so I will not belabor the point here, but Mumford and Sons feels perfect for a Monday morning.

I know most people agonize on Sunday nights about having to join the hectic world of employment on Monday mornings and I hope I will be that person soon enough, but for now, I love the calmness of Monday mornings. I love the slow roll out of bed, the stretching as I walk downstairs. I love the quiet of my apartment complex. I love the pace at which I walk. Mostly though, I love how Monday mornings smell in my suburban area walk. It reminds me that no matter what happens, I can always start over. I can always try again and work harder, or smarter, or faster. It tells me that last week is last week and this week I will conquer whatever conquered me last week. It reminds me that if I fail this week, next week I can do it again and I can succeed. There is a subtle transfixing power of Monday mornings right now.

A host of short random thoughts

First off, I have reached a frustrating place in my workouts. I have achieved a place where my mind is at one level and my body is at another level. Every morning I wake up and think I am going to do all of these things and run this fast for this long and my body is just not there yet. Early this week I was feeling sick and decided I would just do a short workout on the stationary bike and ended up doing 8 miles on it. It wore me out for two full days because my body was just not really ready for it. My body is still obese, but my mind is not obese anymore. It is a great thing in one aspect, but frustrating on another aspect. I love that I now no longer think that I cannot do things, that I am no longer hindered by my weight, but my body is still obese and it still hurts to push myself too much because I have all of this weight pushing down on my knees, ankles, shins, etc. I know I need to balance pushing myself the right amount and pushing myself to injury. I am working on it because my mind just wants to go go go.

Banana splits have long been my favorite dessert. Last April when I decided to get healthy, I knew they had to go. There was a summer, a particularly depressing summer, where I would make myself a legitimate banana split almost nightly and almost always at like 1 am. I knew denying myself them would be difficult, but I told myself when I got to 60 pounds (I once lost over 50 pounds and then stopped, but 60 would be a massive milestone for me) I would allow myself to have one. Well, I reached that goal and last weekend I allowed myself to have a banana split. NEVER AGAIN! Every single bite was incredible, but every single bite was later rejected by my body. It left me feeling so awful, and queasy and miserable that I know I cannot inhale that much sugar and/or dairy any longer. I am actually glad I did it. I needed to know that my body had in fact changed.

A few days ago I was talking to a regular customer who was telling me how difficult it had been for her to lose weight (buying a large soda was probably not helping) and I told her that I was going through the same things and that last year I lost 60 pounds. She seemed shocked and asked me what my secret was and I just told her exactly what I did. I cut out fast food, soda and most sweets, and started working out. She did not believe me. She thought I had to be taking something or had surgery or something. I tried to tell her that I just did it the old fashioned way, and that I was still doing it. I have not had any soda this calendar year and I have had fast food once this calendar year. I told her I was amazed at how much I lost right at first by just cutting out fast food and soda. Eventually she decided I was joking with her and she took her large soda and left. In my many years of trying to lose weight, I have done many many things that I thought would help me lose weight quickly. It was only last year when I realized it was not a sprint, that I have been able to have success.

One place where I am still struggling and it is always this way when working at a movie theater (the biggest reason I hate it), is in eating late. Often times I eat lunch at around 1:00 and do not get dinner until my break at 8:00 and then when I get off of work at midnight or around there, I am hungry. before, I would just stop off at Taco Bell or Carl's Jr, but that is not how I operate anymore. I have been having some luck being able to actually afford produce over the last few weeks, but this week, it just did not work with my budget. With that in mind, I need plan my budget better. I need to have carrots at home that I can snack on when I get home from work late at night. I need to avoid stopping at AM/PM for a 99 cent bag of chips or something like that. it is a big issue for me because working at a movie theater puts me back in the mind frame of staying up all night snacking, like I have done for so long in the past.

A year of better living!

While it is true that I began blogging in May of last year, April 1st 2012 was the date I started to look at myself and figure out how to be healthier in every aspect of my life. I started with my physical health, but realized quickly that my emotional and mental health was as important and that my entire health was connected to each individual kind of health. I have completed my first year of better living and I thought it would be a good idea to revisit the year and talk a bit about what I am planning to do in the upcoming year.

First off, I want to thank everyone who reads this blog, sends me messages of encouragement, likes my health related statuses, and especially those who share my struggles and confide in me their own struggles. The amount of support I have received has been overwhelming. I had no idea so many people cared. It has been fun, scary, awesome and tough to share the ups and downs of the year. I am excited that people still have interest in it a year later. I also have to publicly thank my amazing girlfriend Martina for knowing when I needed pushing and when I needed a hug and kind words. Having somebody who clearly loves and supports me no matter what is such an awesome feeling and it makes the tough days easier to navigate. There is, of course, also my best friend Erik to thank. His own life changes got my ass gear and our talks have really helped focus me. He is doing so many great things with his own health related issues and it inspires me on a daily basis. I have no idea if I would have been able to really stick this out without the constant support.

So what has happened in the last year? First of all, I lost 60 pounds. My goal was to lose 55 lbs this year and I lost 60. I am currently at the least heavy I have ever been in my adult life. I have at least 60 more to go, so I know it only gets tougher from here, but for the moment, I am going to celebrate losing 60 pounds in a year. The first few months when the weight was falling off, I thought I would reach my goal easily, but of course, things got tougher. There were months where I lost no weight, but a very important thing for me was that there was only one month, December, where I put weight on. 11 months I lost weight. It was an incredible feeling on the last day of every month to step on a scale and see the weight going down finally. Now, one of the best things I did over the year, was not obsess about the weight loss. I weighed myself one time a month and that was it. I took to that strategy at around month 3. It worked out so well because it kept my focus on big goals and not obsessing why one week I did not lose any weight. When you are my size, weight comes off easy at first, but it is impossible to maintain that kind of pace, so I wanted to not get down on myself when things were not going my way.

How did I do it? The short answer is hard work. I watched what I ate. I cut out things I love to give myself a chance at a longer life. In the last 12 months I have had less than 100 ounces of soda and in the last 3 months, I have not had any soda. I used to drink probably 100 ounces of soda a week. I cut out those pesky energy drinks that I used to down for breakfast and a late day snack. All of that sugar is gone from my diet. It was incredibly tough. Fast Food is always the biggest thing to stop eating when trying to lose weight. I think that I lost 30 pounds strictly from cutting down the fast food. I have only 5 fast food burgers in the last 12 months, none in the last 3 months. It requires me to think ahead and plan meals more regularly, but it has saved me money and has left me feeling much better as a person. I had no idea how sluggish fast food made until I stopped eating it on a regular basis. I have been eating a lot of chicken, a food I did not eat much at all until last year. I replaced ground beef with lean ground turkey. I started mixing in many more fruits and vegetables and going away from ice cream, cookies, brownies and candy. I still have a weakness for chips and popcorn, but I no longer douse my popcorn in salt. In fact, in cooking at home I stopped using salt altogether.

I started this journey with the idea that I would work out at least 4 days a week for 30-45 minutes. I would be lying if I stuck to this in a very strict fashion. There were weeks I did not work out at all because of injury or apathy. When you are only employed on a part time basis you have all of this time, but I am used to spending all of that time watching television or playing video games. I would end the day feeling worthless and like I had not accomplished anything. Now on days when I do not work, I can still watch television and play video games, but I like to go get a jog in, a long walk in, or ride a few miles on the stationary bike and when the day ends, I have accomplished something. It is kind of amazing the feeling you get from working out. It is this exhausted euphoria that leaves you invigorated, beat, motivated and just a bit on the right side of awesome. This year I ran for 10 minutes nonstop, then 15 minutes nonstop. I did a mile in under 14 minutes and now I am under 13 minutes for a mile. When the year started I could not ride the stationary bike for 10 minutes without stopping, now I can ride 5 miles in 20 minutes with a resistance of 5. I hiked this year for the first time. I rediscovered my love of swimming, tennis and riding a bicycle. I started to understand why people love the outdoors so much. I jogged through a neighborhood near my house this last week. I did CrossFit and did really well with it. I did push-ups! I did 10 push-ups! I impressed people who are hardcore fitness guys. I miss CrossFit but the gym we like does not offer classes at times that work for me anymore. I cannot wait to be able to afford a gym membership that has CrossFit. I cannot wait to go back to all of that sweat, pain and hard work. Even on my worst day, and I still have plenty, I can look at my workout and know I accomplished something huge!

But beyond all of the physical health, I am slowly starting to really get in touch with who I am. I know that sound eye-rolling ridiculous, but it is true. I look in the mirror and do not hate myself anymore. I can see a guy who is really trying to make better decisions. I see a guy who is capable of more than he ever gave himself credit for. I look at myself and I can see why people are rooting for me, why my family supports me through all of the stuff I have put them through, why my friends have always maintained that I deserve better and lastly why a beautiful smart awesome woman wants to spend her life with me. At some point during the summer of last year I noticed that I was much more comfortable in big group settings. I started to make a point to find people after shows to say hi instead of waiting for them to find me, if they wanted. I stopped thinking of myself as the guy people tolerated and started to think that people actually liked having me around. When I was out in the world, I no longer thought people were looking at me like I was some disgusting creature. I felt like a completely different person, but it was not easy to get there. There were a lot of nights of just sitting with myself and really thinking about roots of my problems. I had to face quite a number of ugly truths and I had to confront myself and actively look to make changes in who I was, who I let be close to me and how I talked about myself. In fact, until yesterday when I made a self-deprecating comment at work, it had been months since I really made a joke at my own expense. For me, that is a huge step in the right direction. I am still working on getting the rest of the toxicity out of my life, but I know I am doing so much better.

So what comes next? Year two starts today and with it come a whole new set of challenges. First off, I know that losing weight is only going to get tougher. I have set myself goals of working out 6 days a week for no less than 45 minutes. For now, it will mostly be cardio because I do not have access to a gym. I certainly have my own body, so there are certainly things I can do and I need to get back up on my squat, burpee and push up game. I also want to buy a basketball and rediscover my joy of hoops. I hope to hike more. I need to research places in the area for day trips to go hiking. I found that I very much enjoyed the hiking experience. There is still room for improvement with how I eat as well. Chips, forever a weakness of mine, have really got to go unless there is a special occasion like a big party. I can still better utilize vegetables big time. I need to limit my bread and cheese intake. Those are going to be tough because sandwiches are a staple of a poor man's diet. I guess I need to look into the lettuce wrap thing. Really, the only thing that is going to keep myself moving to a leaner and meaner version of myself is to push myself. I need to make sure that on the days when I do not want to get out of bed, that I work out even harder! My body is getting a bit more comfortable with the work outs I have now, so I know it is time to step it up just a bit. I recover faster these days, which means I can push myself harder.

However, I feel like my bigger challenges still come from the mental or emotional side. I am working on being more thankful and positive about things in my life. Currently, I am working on not complaining as much. It is such a burden to complain as often as I do and it does no one any good. Instead, I am working on finding solutions to the things about which I would complain. For example, I kind of hate my job. I know I am lucky to have a job, but it is mindless work. Over the last two weeks I have been trying harder to focus on doing the job the best way I can. I stopped complaining about the tasks and just started doing them. Time goes by faster, my attitude is better and my managers have commented on how much I have done recently. Two of my managers put in personal calls to the General Manager of another theater to recommend me for a promotion, and while I did not get it, the GM at the other theater wants me for the next assistant manager position he opens up. He really liked me. Sure, it is just a movie theater job, but I have decided to take pride in my work and I am already seeing changes . Taking pride in myself is going to be a big key in the next year. I want to be proud of the work I do. I want to be proud of the things I say and do. I am currently writing a short story and I want to finish a rough draft and be proud of myself for finishing. I think it is important for anyone to celebrate small changes in ourselves. It is my goal to notice when I am doing something I did not used to do.

This goes beyond just my health though. I want to take more pictures and remember this time of my life. Things are not exactly going well for me in my professional life, but I am happy and I want to remember that. I want to remember that Martina and I are surviving in poverty and we do not fight, we do not complain. We find humor in our situation and most of all, we find entertainment and activity all of the time. We know we can survive on an incredibly small budget, and that lets me know we will be even better when we have a regular budget. I want to go out and make memories with loved ones. Okay, this is maybe getting a bit too cheesy, so let me conclude by saying that I intend to make the next 365 days even better than the previous 365 days. There are times I think I am old and that my life is passing me by but that attitude is slowly changing. I know I still have a lot of life left and it is time to actually live it.