Salt and Pepa's here and we in effect

Salt, salt salt. Just saying the word makes me all kinds of happy. The saltier a food is, the better. Only once in my life did I ever put too much salt on something. To me, "Too salty" does not exist. I have always been the kind of guy who would put salt on something before even tasting it because I knew there was not enough. This presents a massive problem when trying to lose weight. If you recall the first entry into this blog I had mentioned how I was wanting to cook more so I could control the amount of salt that went into my food. This, along with the soda thing, has been the hardest part of the last few weeks.

However, I have managed. I have used other spices when needed and have avoided salting everything except movie theater popcorn. SOrry, that is probably not going anywhere anytime soon. I have made tremendous strides and part of that is never ordering french fries, anywhere. I am avoiding fast food, but diners and other eateries still offer fries as a side dish. By opting for a salad of some sort, I manage to avoid the salt problem easily. I only bring up the salt thing because something pretty remarkable happened on Wednesday of this last week.

Martina and I went to eat at Burgers and Brew, followed by a walk through the Farmer's Market and I used up my free frozen-yogurt coupon at Yoloberry. I ordered a salad as my side dish, and they brought me a Caesar salad, which is not what I wanted, but I ate it anyway. I took one bite and was absolutely shocked by how salty it was. This was a monumental moment for me. I have been avoiding putting salt on ANYTHING and here I am eating something and finding it to be too salty. Now, I ate it because when you do not have money, you eat what you can, but it was probably the least enjoyable salad of my life. I cannot even fathom living an existence where I find food to be too salty, yet, here I am. This is a big step for me. It also means it is working. Something inside of me is changing.

In other news:

I went for my first walk with my new shoes, and accessories. To come home from a great walk and not feel insane pain in my feet was amazing!

I bought groceries and did not buy any chips, candy, or processed food. I have a fridge full of vegetables and fruits and a cupboard with nuts and tuna in it. I also bought frozen chicken, even though I am not a big chicken guy and have no idea what to do with it.

My craving for soda persists. Everyone tells me it will go away, but as a guy who gave it up for nearly 2 years once, it does not go away. I continue to crave it something fierce and probably always will.

FOr those of you interested in my total weight loss, it is at 15lbs in the last 3 weeks or so. I do not expect a pace of 5lbs a week to continue, nor will I get bummed out when it slows down.

I am waking up with slightly less aches and pains. My days are just a bit easier, and I am not as out of breath all of the time. I could tell that from my audition and call back this week.

Investing in myself

I had this whole other post I was going to make today, but I have decided to table that post for tomorrow or Sunday because something pretty major happened to me today and it really kicked this whole thing up a notch.

I have mentioned a few times that I have been receiving bunches of great support from this blog, which I guess was part of the point. I love to write, but when I put my writing in the world, it is very rarely a serious look into who I really am. I tend to keep my writing light, or focused on things like movies. But, like my lifestyle change, it was time to sort out what is going on with me on a deeper level and writing is how I have always processed my own life. If I happen to inspire someone else, or motivate someone else in the process, awesome. I live to inspire people, so that is awesome. Mostly, though, I need to inspire myself. This blog is a way for me to gauge how I am feeling, track trends in my own motivations and it gives me something to look back on during struggles and it helps hold me accountable for my own life. Well, something happened today that really made me pause and re-evaluate my own determination in this.

One of those messages of support came from a girl I have known since 7th grade. Now, I do not want to mislead you and say we are close friends, because we are not. I have not spoken to this girl in nearly 15 years, but in middle school she was one of the few people who did not make my life a living hell. This girl has a gorgeous family now and sent me a message that she wanted to send me a little gift of encouragement, so I gave her my address without thinking too much about it. Today I came home to find a package at my door. When I opened it I found a CD, a jay full of inspirational quotes and a gift card to Fleet Feet sports store in Davis for an amount that allow me to buy new shoes. That is right, this woman who I have not really spoken to in 15 years at least, decided that she and her husband and family would invest in me a little bit. I was reduced to a quivering mess for at least 30 minutes this afternoon. Who am I to take this gift from someone else? I am not worth this person's generosity.

After the usual battling within myself, I realized something. With the exception of one of my best friends, everyone has been insanely supportive and reassuring during this time. Now comes this incredibly generous gift. This woman who has no reason to really believe in me, believes in me. There is something about me that made her decide I was worth this investment, so why do I keep trying not to invest in myself? At some point, don't I have to stop fighting myself and just say "You know what, I am worth this." So, for today, I am saying I am worth it. Will I feel that way tomorrow? I haven't the slightest clue, but today I am. So before I could think too much about it, I jumped in my car and drove to Fleet Feet. The woman sat me down, measured my feet, watched how I stood, how I walked and listened to me tell her about the problems I have with pain and with my weight and came back with the shoes in the picture of this post. I tried them on and for the first time in YEARS, it did not hurt to walk. I invested in some soles to help with my odd walk, I bought this thing for the tendinitis in my right knee that should help that pain and I bought socks that will keep my feet from blistering. My old friend invested in me and so I invested in myself. The shoes are amazing and all of the accessories I bought will, hopefully, take the rest of the intense pain away, or at least alleviate it.

Today was more just about the shoes, though. While I was out, I went and bought a bunch of healthier food to keep around my house. I have a bunch of the boxed unhealthy pasta left, but I really needed to get some healthy food. It is time to stop talking about making drastic changes and start making them.

Having the right people around makes all of the difference, but I also know that this woman would not have made this amazing gift if she did not see something in what I write here, or what I post on Facebook that makes her think I am worth it. You really have no idea who is watching you, who is listening to you and who can help you at some point in life. It is a nice reminder that how you conduct yourself in the world can help or hurt you. People are famous for saying nice guys finish last, but I like to think I have a pretty healthy reputation for being a nice guy, and with support like this, and constant encouragement from Martina and Erik, I know I am nowhere near finishing last.

My sports dilemma

I grew up in a sports family. My mom cheers as loudly for the Giants as anyone I know. It is in my blood. I grew up playing baseball, basketball, football and tennis. Baseball is my favorite sport, but basketball was the sport at which I excelled. I loved playing basketball and even spent a summer at a basketball camp where the 9th grade basketball coach told me he regretted not putting me on the team the year before. In my sophomore year, the dream of playing sports for school went away. I was not good enough at baseball, did not want to be an offensive lineman in football and I was too fat and slow for basketball.

I found theater that year. Of course, theater has been my main outlet since then. Theater offers many of the same things I loved about sports. There is a sense of team work, camaraderie, and accomplishment in theater that I loved in sports. However, there is one big component missing in theater: competition. I can already hear theater people saying "Umm the audition." Sure, there is competition at the audition, but that is where it ends. Well, that is where it should end. Sadly, I have been a part of too many shows where actors continued to compete to the detriment of the show, but that is a whole other blog post on a whole different blog. That belongs on a blog where people contribute posts on how there is a lack of community in community theater.

Martina can attest that I do not like to lose. I loathe it in fact. I am insanely competitive and without sports in my life, I start going crazy over things like Scrabble. This is where the low self image comes into play and how it is relevant to this blog. I do not play sports anymore, not because I worry about not being good, I worry what I will look like to everyone else. I am not sure when I became so afraid of what other people think because this has not always been an affliction to which I am accustomed. I stopped playing basketball at a local church because I stopped knowing many of the people there and was afraid no one would want me to be on their team because of how out of shape I am. I started psyching myself out. I got so afraid of being just the fat guy trying to play basketball that it over-shadowed my abilities. And I had abilities. I was a pretty good basketball player. I could shoot, dribble and most of all, I could pass. I knew the game. Hell, I coached a youth team for 4 years, and we were good.

This week I played basketball for 30 minutes on two separate occasions and it was a total blast. I am unbelievably rusty, but I was starting to get my game back during the second day. I would love to feel comfortable enough to get back on a court with other people. I would love to play a pick up game with friends or even random people looking for a game. I just do not think I am there. These last few years have really been tough, and even though I am doing incredibly well in so many aspects of my life right now, I feel like I am not right in some aspect.

This post feels like it is lacking something. It has been a pretty negative week on this blog and I apologize. People have been telling me how motivating this blog has been or how much they are rooting for me, so I feel like I have not done a very good job over the last week. For anyone reading, know that this rough week will not defeat me. This week I ate much better portions of food than I would normally eat and I am still consuming water or iced tea as opposed to soda, so I am still fighting through it and maybe that is the motivating part. Those things I wanted to do are becoming habit. I still miss soda and I miss filling my diet with sugar and salt, but I am not reaching for the salt without even taking a bite anymore. It is the small victories we have to celebrate, right?

So, to the people who have told me I have motivated them to give up soda (and there have been at least half a dozen of those people) keep it up. We need to celebrate little victories, for they will eventually add up to something big, or at least keep us going to shoot for something big.

My big goal this week is to get in the pool 3 times. Also, find a summer job so I can afford new shoes. If you know of anything, let me know!

Some setbacks, bad news/good news, and ribs

Hit my first set of setbacks starting Sunday. I was out for my walk, which was a killer walk, when I started to feel serious pain around the heel area of my right foot. When I came home, I found that I had bled through my sock completely. Something from my shoe is cutting into my heel when I walk at a nice brisk pace. This is problematic. To say that I am poor would be an insult to poor people. This whole student teaching thing has bled me dry for time and money, so I am not sure how to go about buying shoes that can feasibly accommodate a guy my size trying to put all of his weight on these shoes for 30 minutes worth of walking a day. I need to be able to afford some new shoes, but I really need the RIGHT shoes, which when you wear a size 13 EXTRA wide, it gets expensive. This problem has caused me to lose two days of walking, but today, I supplemented it by running barefoot through grass with some of my seniors who have a free period during 4th. It was quite a sight, me in a button up shirt, slacks and a tie, running barefoot on grass with 4 seniors.

My next setback is my most embarrassing. I drank two sodas yesterday. I am not horribly embarrassed by the act, it was the quickness with which I caved. Last night, I went out to Cattleman's for some seriously delicious ribs and Giants game with Martina, her roommate and two of their friends. Martina was celebrating finishing Chemistry for the semester, and I love ribs, Martina and The Giants. It made sense. I ordered water and the waitress asked if she was sure she could not bring me something more exciting like a Shirley Temple and without even hesitating, I said "yes." Oh man I have missed soda. I downed the first one like I needed it to live and then I had another. The fact that I stopped myself after only two made me feel slightly better, but after a solid week of no sodas, I caved so easily. I am trying very hard not to beat myself up over it, but if you know me, you know how well that goes for me.

I was proud of myself for not over eating last night. In fact, I got some food to go to eat for lunch today and I did not even eat all of it today, so I still have lunch tomorrow as well. I guess I have to take the good with the bad, right? The main idea is to not set a minor setback derail me, like it always has in the past. This journey will be filled with ups and downs and I have to accept the downs if I want to celebrate the ups.

Today before my 3rd period class started, I got some really terrible news. It is student related, so I am not going to divulge the information across the internet, but it was sufficiently day-ruining. I kept thinking on my drive home how much I was going to enjoy getting off the freeway and turning left to go to Taco Bell. I just wanted to order a bunch of crappy food (well, tasty, but crappy food) come home, watch television and try and not think about anything. In a shocking move, when I got off the freeway, I did not turn left. I came home instead. This may not seem like a big deal, but for me to greet really saddening news without fast food is pretty huge for me, especially the last few years.

A few of my students today noticed that it looked like I had lost some weight and said I felt more energetic this week, which is the best news I could have received because these kids see me 5 days a week for 90 minutes and I know that I have their undivided attention, so they would notice this stuff.