Trying to maintain a positive attitude

In all honesty, the last week has been incredibly rough on me. I lost the substitute teaching job. I am not entirely sure what happened, so I am not going to rehash it all, but it is gone. All that means is that I am exactly three weeks ago. I am in no worse a position, although it definitely feels that way. This is where that mental aspect of my work comes into play. I am pretty sure if this had happened at any other part of my life, I would have completely fallen apart. I would have binged on some of the worst food imaginable and stayed in bed for weeks. It is just how I would have dealt with a sort of loss. However, I do realize that I am in no worse a place than I was a few weeks ago. I still have a job, even if it is only a part time job. I am well liked and respected in this job, and my managers all told me that they will let me know if any of the surrounding Regal theaters have management openings and will write me a recommendation. It is not a great job, but I have something. I also still have everything else I had a few weeks ago. Therefore things are still good. Right? Yes, for the most part. I still feel great.

I am slowly realizing that we create our own mentality. I have been weighed down by a negative attitude my entire life and no matter where I try to lay the blame, I realize I am the one who should be shouldering the blame. I know I have touched upon this in my blog before, I will not bemoan the point, but I think it is worth mentioning every so often. Our attitude determines how we react to a situation. I can remember times in my life, when I would have a day of small misfortunes and I would blame it on the world just hating me for existing. What kind of nonsense is that? Now I realize that is not the case. People spend a lot of time commenting on how great I look, that my physical appearance is changing and that is great, but there is a part of me that thinks that I do not really look that physically different in terms of my weight. I feel like the change my appearance has more to do with how I carry myself. I am no longer always looking at the ground. I am not as hunched over when I walk. My hands are not always shoved deep into my pockets as I try to avoid talking to people. When I go see shows, I am not standing in the back waiting for my friends to be done talking to all of the patrons, I go up to them and hug them and get in the middle of crowds without feeling like everyone is looking at me and judging. I really believe that is the biggest physical change people see.

I know I am losing weight, that is something you can measure. However, when I look in the mirror, I do not see someone who looks smaller, I really do not. I wish I did, but that is not what I see. However, I do see changes, but they are attitude changes. Last Friday night I went to CrossFit without Martina for the first time. It was the biggest class I have attended to this point and the work was by far the most intense to this point. I am pretty sure the Kyle from a year ago would have quietly walked out, gotten in his car and gone home. He would have not been able to handle any of that without someone he knew. He would not have been able to be in a gym with a bunch of really fit people and still been able to do any of the work out. But that is just not who I am anymore. Instead, I walked up to a guy who was sort of similar in size, introduced myself and asked him to be my partner for the partner work. I could barely recognize myself in doing any of that. I have never been the kind of guy to walk up to people and just start conversation. I have always been too self conscious to do such a thing. At least not since high school. And to have spent a whole hour next to some other dude and not once be self deprecating about my weight or my abilities in hopes of getting a laugh? That might be the biggest part of that whole night.

In fact, I generally feel like I am doing a great job at not being self deprecating in an attempt to get people to laugh with my obesity instead of at it. I am doing so much work to be healthier and happier and I realize that I am the one who holds me back the most. Instead of joking about my obesity, I am tackling it head on. I am admitting to myself that my obesity is something I can get control of, instead of letting it have control over me. I still have days where I just feel gross about who I am, and I do express it, but it is not in a joking way, or even a way to get sympathy. It is just stating it out so it no longer festers in my brain and eats at me. And then I have Martina who reassures me that I am not gross and it makes everything okay for that moment.

I know I am going to have bad days and bad weeks, but my attitude is everything. If I can keep myself moving forward and looking for the next opportunity instead of wallowing in what I did not get or what happened to me, I can overcome the bad days or bad weeks without letting them turn into bad months, or bad years. It is time for me to be an active tense and not a passive tense. I need to do things and not let things happen to me (sorry, I could resist). If I just focus on the things that make me happy: my girlfriend, my friends, cooking and eating good food, the gym (what??) movies, and books, I can overcome the bad times. I have to keep myself from slipping into an inherently negative attitude until it is my habit to be positive and do not even have to think about that negativity that has weighed me down for two decades. One step at a time seems like such a cliche, but it is true. Every day is fresh start, and it is time I stop carrying the baggage from Monday into Tuesday and so on until Saturday comes and I am too crushed by baggage that I cannot enjoy the weekend.

The Biggest Loser

From its first season until now, I have always been a fairly casual observer of NBC's The Biggest Loser. I have seen probably 8 seasons in their entirety and seen bits and pieces of most of the other seasons. For those of you who do not know what it is, The Biggest Loser is a reality based contest show. The goal? To be the person who loses the most weight, pure and simple. Every season obese people come on the show and work out with renowned trainers and learn how to be healthy. They get weighed at the end of each episode and the team who loses has to send someone home. For 13 seasons, The Biggest Loser has been a staple of NBC programming.

I remember when I first heard about this show, I was hesitant. Then the first season started and it had the catch phrase "Time to trim the fat" and I felt like it was a show that was not taking the idea of obesity seriously. That catchphrase went away quickly, thankfully, but every year as I watched the show, something about it always felt off for me. I have been obese for most of my life. At my heaviest (early 20's), I was over 350 lbs. I know what it is like to be obese and I know what obese people go through. I always felt The Biggest Loser gave people a false idea of how weight loss worked. It made it seem like dropping 9-15 lbs a week was not only doable, but expected. It sets people up for failure by giving them unrealistic expectations. it does not show the viewer how to lose weigh at home when you work 8 hours a day, come home to a family and have 50 things going on. These are not excuses. Let me make that clear. This last year has shown me how possible it is to lose weight, once you figure it out, but The Biggest Loser takes a group of obese people away from their lives and tells them, "Lose the most weight and win $1000,000.00." It is your only focus when you are on that show and when you only have one focus, it is easier to spend all day in the gym. When stocks your fridge with healthy things, it is easier to eat them. I am not saying the show is bad, but it has always felt like the show sets people up for failure if they think the weight loss results on the show are realistic.

Every year I have watched this show with an attitude of "I wish I could do the things they are doing." I always watch it and think about how I should maybe just try and get on the show and that would fix my issues, which is another dangerous idea the show kind of plants in your head. It is shocking to me how many of the contestants say that they have been trying to get on the show for years. "Well if I cannot get on the show, I guess I just cannot lose the weight." Let me be clear, I think the show has great ideas and it is compelling television. It reduces me to tears on a weekly basis as I watch these people fight to get their lives back, but I have always watched it with the idea that you need that avenue to lose the weight. it has always been an unhealthy relationship for me.

Last year when I started to figure out how to get my life back, I thought about the show and how the contestants motivate themselves. I realized, they do not typically motivate themselves, the trainers help them breakdown their issues and motivate them. It is only after they confront the mental and emotional blocks that they have any success. Instead of wondering where my personal 24/7 trainer was, I realized that I could get myself through the emotional and mental roadblocks. I have detailed my internal struggles repeatedly on this blog, so I am not going to talk at length about them, but The Biggest Loser showed me that losing weight is, at most, a 70% physical thing. That 30% of mental/emotional is just as important. I did not have a trainer yelling at me, pushing me and telling me I deserved better. I had to do it myself. When you start to dissect your choices, you realize how much you have been holding yourself back.

Once I stopped thinking only about "I wish I could do that" and started saying "I can do that" or "I will be able to do that" so much opened up for me. Yes, the workouts on The Biggest Loser are a big part of the show, but in my life, I cannot replicate those. I do not have the access they do. I do not have entire days to give to just focusing on my health. I have the stress of daily life looming. I have to find a job, or pay bills, deal with car trouble, or whatever other issues come up in a day. But, I have understood what The Biggest Loser teaches about the mental hurdles. The trainers are therapists as well as trainers. The contestants break down and cry and feel worthless and then they build themselves up as they realize what they are capable of doing. This is the shows biggest asset. It shows us what we are capable of when we stop making excuses.

This year the show is focusing on childhood obesity and they have three young ambassadors to help show the struggle of young obese people. These three people are incredibly brave. When I was 13, I would have never gone on a national television show for being obese. I was too scared. The young boy representative looks too much like me when I was that age. I cannot imagine what he is going through when Bob Harper comes to visit him, but every week I just hope this kid can figure it out. There is nothing I want more than for young people to not go through what I went through at that age. No one deserves that. The show is doing a great thing with these kids though. They never put the kids on a scale. They are just trying to teach an active lifestyle and a healthier diet. it is really tough for me to watch, but also it fills me with hope because if these 12-16 year old kids can put themselves out there to try and end the cycle of obesity, so can I.

These last few weeks I have found myself hitting big milestones. Yesterday I reached a new one by running for 10 minutes nonstop. I am pretty sure I have never done that before. I am doing things I was sure I was not capable of doing. Of course, I never tried them, but look at me. I am too obese to run nonstop for 10 minutes. NO I AM NOT!! When I finished my workout, I went outside and just became overwhelmed with emotion. I could not even cry, that is how full of emotion I was. I thought to myself that anything the people on The Biggest Loser can do, I can do. In the last few weeks I have done a 15 minute mile, I have done a few sit-ups, and now I have run nonstop for 10 minutes. I watch The Biggest Loser with a different perspective now. I no longer say I wish I could do those things, I say that I know I can do those things. I know that 9-15 lbs of weight loss a week is unrealistic, but I do know that if I work out daily and eat better, that the weight will come off in time. The Biggest Loser is a sprint, but my life, my experience, is a marathon. 2013 has already thrown me a serious life curve ball, but I am strong enough to stay up. I will figure this out and now I will conquer the ever elusive 12 minute mile!

My culture of can't

Sometime in December Living Social put up a really great deal for a CrossFit gym. I had been looking into it for a little bit because I had a few people who I know and respect tell me how much it was working for them. They said it would appeal to my competitive spirit. As I am always looking at ways to feed my competitive beast, I was curious. After doing some research, I felt it was something that could be of interest to me. Of course, I had no actual intention of doing it. I mean there was no way I could do all of that "stuff." Well, Martina, being the super smart woman she is, bought her Living Social first and then just kept dropping hints about how great it would be if we could go together. She really is a devilish woman. Unable to resist the logic and charms of my beautiful girlfriend, I bought the deal and we were going to use the new year to Springboard into it. Martina went a week before I went, but I joined her the next week. What follows will be my first two CrossFit experiences.

First off, the husband and wife who own the gym we attend are great. They are overwhelmingly positive and supportive. From the first moment I felt comfortable. I have NEVER felt comfortable in a gym. I have never felt comfortable around people who are in great shape because I always feel like they are judging me. I never felt that here. It was a very welcoming place. Cold as a frozen hell, but welcoming. We started off with a warm up consisting of a jog, push-ups, sit-ups, walking lunges, squats and wall/balls. The owner gave us modified versions of each exercise if we were struggling and kept reminding us not to hurt ourselves. It was about the most insanely painful thing I had ever experienced, but it also felt so good to be trying to do these things I had been telling myself I couldn't do since those awful President's fitness tests in middle school. Here I was, a day after a crazy 60 minute workout, pushing myself in ways I had never pushed myself. Then he showed us how to do these modified pull up things, which was weird and scary and uncomfortable, but also kind of fun. The workout used weights and more squats and felt like my senior year Weight Training class, which I never took seriously because I cheated the system. My teacher told us on day one that if your max weight lift gain went up over 40lbs during the semester you could not get less than a B. I pretended to make a pretty low weight my max, then goofed off all year, then lifted what I actually could lift at the end of class and my "max" went up 50 lbs and I got an A. I mean, I could not actually do any of the lifting. I was too weak.

Week two of Crossfit presented an interesting challenge: clapping push-ups. From the moment I found that out, I just kept saying "I can't, I can't, I can't." When the time came to do them, I resisted, but eventually knew I was going to be held accountable for it. I had to try. I got down and did 2 of them! The rest of them I did in a modified way, but if you include the modified ones which were still incredibly difficult, I did 5 sets of 5 push-ups. 25 push-ups over the span of 15 minutes along with doing these squats whose name escapes me right now, might seem like a little deal to many people, but this was monumental for me. This was me conquering 18 or 19 years of "I Can't." This was me doing everything I could to push almost two decades of negativity aside and at least trying to do something about it.

When it was over the female owner asked me how it was and I said "It was the hardest thing I can remember doing" and she held out her fist and said "Yeah, but you did it." I did it. This concept is still foreign to me. This idea of simply doing things is so strange. I did a 15 minute mile this week, simply because I stopped telling myself, "I can't." Never has such a little phrase held such power over me for so long. Last year I lost 40lbs and when I plateaued and when the holidays came and the weight stopped coming off, I did not tell myself "I can't lose anymore." I simply told myself to keep working.

This phrase "I can't" is something I am eliminating from my vocabulary. It is a phrase I never let my students say, and now it is a phrase I need to not say myself. I will run for 10 minutes non stop by the end of next week, because I know I can. The chains of "I can't" must be broken. I must free myself from the bounds of my own negativity. I must not let myself be kept in the prison of my own insecurities about what I am capable of. I cannot in good faith tell the people I love and care about that they are capable of great things, if I do not believe I am capable of great things. And let me be clear, me doing any kind of push-ups is a great thing. Any time we do something we did not know we were capable of it is a great thing. Please know that. Great things do not have to be these huge massive feats, they can be small feats that we previously felt we could not do. Anytime I feel myself pushing through a moment of "I can't" I feel empowered and every time we empower ourselves, it is a great moment. I doing everything I can to not let these small feats of greatness go noticed by myself. If next week, I can do a few more push-ups, that will be a milestone. It will be uncharted waters for me and it is only because dived off the island of can't and into the waters of can. Forgive the cheesy metaphor. It seemed good when I thought it.

The new year is 12 days long and I have not had any fast food or soda. I have been to the gym or walked for 15 minutes in a day 10 out of the 12 days. I feel stronger than I have in years. I feel healthier and happier than I can ever remembering feeling. I am expanding the scope of what I am capable of on a daily basis. On top of everything else, I got a job this week. It is kind of funny that when I finally decided to take control of my life, and started to feel better, things started to fall into place. The minute I stopped blaming the world for my life and started to look deep inside myself, I started to realize things could get better for me. And now it is happening. But it all starts with pushing aside the phrase "I can't." Trust me, you can. All you have to do is try and then be amazed at what you are actually capable of doing.

"Don't hold a glass over the flame" - Mumford and Sons

Last night I went to sleep with the idea that I would get up at around 8:30 when the kitten usually starts attacking my feet to wrestle me from slumber. I would get up, make breakfast and go to the gym for a short workout. I work tonight so I planned on keeping the workout short so I have the ability to stand for 7 hours. As often is the case, plans did not exactly work out. I was woken up by a phone call from the city of Sacramento wanting money for a ticket. Starting next week the hours at work are being cut and my already minimal paychecks are going to take another hit. Between all of my bills, I have no idea how any of this is going to work. The phone call this morning just sent me over the edge. When I finally dragged myself out of bed, I knew it was going to be a couch, junk food binge and television kind of day. Then I remembered my goals and everything that I was working for and I decided I needed to go to the gym, even if it was only for 15 minutes.

Begrudgingly I headed down to the gym, but I knew my workout playlist was not going to work for me today. I did not want upbeat songs. I was not in the mood for danceable music. Screw that noise. I needed something that appealed to my current state of mind, which was slightly bitter, somewhat anxious and mostly just angry. I knew I could find that in the voice of Mumford and Sons. The tempos are great for working out because when that banjo kicks in you just want to move as fast as humanly possible, but the lyrics and the vocals are thoughtful, introspective and rich with meaning. This workout was going to be quick and dirty and I needed to stay focused on my frustration. Mumford and sons was perfect for that.

The goal: 15 minutes on the treadmill. What follows is my own recounting of my time in the gym today.

Minute 1: Ugh, Maybe I should only go five minutes today. What is the point honestly? Nothing is working right now. Why am I even here?

Minute 3: (hearing Cause I know my weakness, know my voice,/ And I believe in grace and choice/ And I know perhaps my heart is fast,/ But I’ll be born without a mask) Why is my voice telling me to stop, that is not my voice. That is my fear, but my voice is not my fear and my fear is not my voice. I can push on!

Minute 8: Half way done. This is killing me. Why did I decide to go for 15 minutes? I am too fat for this nonsense. I bet if anyone came in they would think I am just some stupid guy who is going to quit his resolution in a few weeks. Maybe they are right. (then blasting through my ear buds: Now I'll be bold/ As well as strong/ And use my head alongside my heart "I'll be bold, as well as strong. I can do this." Did I just say that out loud? Yes I did. Time to turn up the speed a bit.

Minute 13: Two minutes until done. This was not too bad. Maybe I should go for 20 minutes. I can do this. Man this album is perfect for working out.

Minute 17: WHY?????? I can just stop now. I hit my 15 minute mark. Singing in my head: So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light/ 'Cause oh that gave me such a fright/ But I will hold as long as you like/ Just promise me we'll be alright Push it Kyle. see that light. Feel that light in the darkness. This too shall pass, right? Push through the pain.

Minute 20: Why stop now? Mumford sings of grace, heart, resilience, redemption and sacrifice. Am I not worth redemption? Am I not capable of sacrifice? I can do 30 minutes on a treadmill! Faster!!!

Minute 21: Why am I an idiot. This is so hard!

Minute 22: Mumford and Sons sings to me: But hold me fast, Hold me fast/'Cause I'm a hopeless wanderer/ And hold me fast, Hold me fast/ 'Cause I'm a hopeless wanderer
I will learn, I will learn to love the skies I'm under/ I will learn, I will learn to love the skies I'm under/ The skies I'm under And the banjo is kicking and Mumford is so full of life and trust in his voice and I am wrapped up in the poetry of the moment and I realize Mumford is talking to me. I will learn to live the skies I'm under. These are my skies, this is my life and I need to embrace it. I can embrace it. And most of all I can do 30 minutes on a damn treadmill because the alternative is watching television.

Minute 30: BOOM!!! Done! Nailed it! But what if I moved to the bike and put on Mumford's first album? No, I am done. Mumford sings: We will run and scream/ You will dance with me/ They'll fulfill our dreams and we'll be free I want to be free. I want to dance, run and scream. I can do a few minutes on the bike.


Minute 60: HOLY CRAP!!!!


Today I turned a begrudging 15 minute workout into an exhilarating 60 minute workout. I took myself to the brink of what I thought I could handle, and I jumped over that mental barrier. When the workout was over, I wandered for a few minutes outside and enjoyed the air and the sun with Mumford and Sons still blaring through my ear buds. Something clicked inside of me today. There was this spark ignited and I realized that the only thing stopping me is me. I killed it today and when it was done, I was not exhausted, I was energized and alive. If this post seems indulgent, I apologize, but I was seriously motivated through the lyrics of these songs. They spoke to me and helped me realize that hope and redemption are motivators. They showed me how resiliency and triumph can have every day functionality. It was quite a morning!

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.