Brought low by my own hypocrisy

This is a follow up to the last article I posted.  Earlier in the year, I was chronicling my very successful attempt to lose weight.  In May, I fell off the wagon.  For the last few months, I have proceeded to undo much of the good that I did before I fell off.  Several times I have tried to get started again, but found an excuse to stop.

Yesterday, as I wrote about not taking irresponsible chances with my life for my daughter’s sake, I was faced with my own hypocrisy, and realized why I failed back in May.

I took my eyes off the prize and lost my focus.  When I started my weight loss program, my daughter was the reason that I was doing it.  At some point, I was so proud of all that I had accomplished, that I forgot why I was doing it.

So, yesterday, as I wrote about other people being irresponsible, I realized that I could not hold them to a higher standard than I was holding myself.  As a result, the diet is back on (for her sake), and I got off my fat ass and walked today.  Stay tuned….

Taking no chances…for my family

Yesterday, I was reading a story about Andrew Lee, an ‘aspiring chef’ from England who bet his girlfriend’s brother that he could make a really hot sauce.  This inevitably devolved into a contest between the two to see who could eat the most of it and, of course, Lee proved that he was able to make a damn hot sauce.  Unfortunately, he lost the eating contest after it killed him. 

I am a guy, and I think I have a competitive nature.  I, however, do not understand why guys find the need to show that they are bigger, tougher, crazier and dumber than the next guy.  There is just no need for it.  I like hot sauce, and I like it hotter than most, but once the capsaicin is so potent that the food has no other flavor, I no longer see the point.  You might as well drink some battery acid and speed up the ulcer creating process, because ultimately that is all you are going to get out of it.

Obviously no one intends to die from eating hot sauce that is too hot or drinking too much water at a water drinking contest (check out water intoxication), but it seems every day we are presented with another act of needless bravado that results in someone’s death.  Perhaps when we are feeling all amped-up about something, it would be best to tap the breaks a little.

I will assume that in this particular case, the guy did not have a family, other than a girlfriend (though there is no guarantee of this by any means), which mitigates the tragedy a little.  However, in many of these cases people leave the world with a sad and confused family.

As a father (and even before I became one), I have developed some strong opinions regarding responsibility.  I really don’t care what people do with their lives before they get married as long as what they are doing is not hurting someone else or causing them to be a burden to society (see inexperienced climbers who decide to tackle Denali and have to be rescued: stupid), but I believe once you are married, and especially once you have children, you accept new responsibilities that should lead you to more responsible actions.  I believe that when we accept these responsibilities and limit our own selfish desires for challenges and expressions of bravado we effectively show love to our families.  Unfortunately many men even after they are married and have children approach life as if they are starring in their own movies, and of course, nothing bad ever happens to the hero of the movie.
For me, these responsibilities are far reaching, and affect my behavior.  I would not consider climbing Mount Everest (please refrain from personal shots at this point.  I know this is about the same as me saying, “I will not accept a date with Angelina Jolee.”).  The chances of dying are just too great.  I saw an article about a woman who died on K2 (the world’s second tallest mount which is considered by some to be tougher than Everest).  The piece talked about how brave she was, and what a pioneer for women she was.  It also informed the reader, near the end, that she was a mother of two, ages four and six.  I have to be honest.  This woman had her priorities all out of whack.  If you are a mother, that is your primary identity.  She was a mother before she was a climber.  Mothers, and fathers, should put their parental responsibilities ahead of their other petty desires for a challenge or even fame.  My feelings go farther than this needless act of irresponsibility, however.

Several years ago my sister and her boyfriend (who eventually became her husband) went skydiving.  I am not afraid to skydive, and think it would probably be an interesting experience, but now, as a father and husband, I just cannot do it.  I know that most people who skydive do not have any problems, and enjoy the experience, but I can’t do it.  The consequences of a mistake by myself or anyone else in this situation are too great for me to risk.  I am not motivated by fear.  I simply have too much responsibility.

It extends even further.  The best example that I can come up with is the motorcycle.  I live in the Dallas area, and commute some distance to work.  With gas prices as high as they are, it would be a lot cheaper for me to ride a motorcycle to work.  As a father, I will not do it.  There are too many other drivers out there that do not pay attention to the road for me to take the chance.  I owe my daughter and my wife too much to take the chance that something bad could happen to me.  If you are on a motorcycle, and get into an accident, you are going to lose, and it could easily be very bad.  Every day it seems like you hear of a local fatality accident involving a motorcycle.

Part of me showing love to my wife and daughter is to avoid these things that add needless risk to my life.  Raising her, helping her to be a good person, and being involved in her life are just too important to me.  I know that I still have no guarantees, but I am going to do my best to do what is right by her, and the things that are beyond my control, I cannot worry about.

As I wrote this, I was faced with certain issues in my own life.  I could not finish it without confronting them, but I will deal with that in the next post.

Crazy Days

It has been a couple of crazy weeks.  It started with the trip to Sea World two weekends ago.  During that weekend, my uncle died and I was asked to deliver ‘the message’ at his funeral last Wednesday.  My In-laws arrived Thursday evening to assist with things because my wife was having surgery Friday morning.

We woke up at 5:45 to go to the Hospital.  This is my normal time to wake up for work, but it seemed wrong to have to wake up so early if I was not going to have to go to work.  The procedure went well, according to the doctors, and she was released at 10:30 the next morning.  It only took the nurses about five more hours to get the paperwork to us which my wife recognized as papers that had been on her chart the whole time.  Maybe it took them five hours to find a wheelchair in the hospital.

The last few days have been spent entertaining the in-laws.  They have been helpful, but the between the trip, the funeral, hosting the in-laws, the four and a half days off and a holiday over the past two weeks, the eating out has been through the roof.  This is not good for a diet.  No matter how much you attempt to make good choices on a diet, food prepared at restaurants tends to have more calories and fat (and other things that you don’t want on a diet) than foods you prepare at home.

The exercise also took a big hit over the past two week.  Walking much of the day at Sea World was good, but much of that walking was very slow, and did not compare with the pace I set when I am walking to lose weight.  I did not walk while I was preparing for the funeral either.  Honestly, I was preoccupied with trying to come up with something good to say, and calling many of my relatives for information.  The day and a half that I was actually at work this week Left me no time for exercise.  I had to clean up from being off for two days, and prepare to be off two more days.  The hospital was even worse.  I felt like I needed to be in the room giving my wife and her family as much support as I could.  This meant sitting in the same chair with only moments of walking for short distances to refill my coffee cup for two days.

I made it a point to take my family to the park on Sunday and Monday.  It was not as much fun as usual.  Normally, my wife and I park at the City Hall and walk the greenbelt to the park and back.  This ends up being about a mile and a half each way.  The baby stays interested with the scenery and we get our exercise.  She also gets to play, once we get to the park, which she loves.  This time I drove straight to the park because my wife is on light duty, and the mother-in-law cannot walk well.  This meant that I had to leave the ‘fun’ and go off to walk on my own while they entertained the baby at the park.  By the time I returned, they were all pretty much ready to go.  I did not realize how much I would miss having them along with me on the walk or how much I would miss being seeing my little girl have fun while she was at the park.

The purpose of all of this is to justify the diet numbers that I have cranked out over the past two weeks.  I put on another pound this week, but all things considered, I actually expected to gain more.  Things should be getting back to normal now, and it’s time to get serious about this again.  I took the time to prepare my lunch for this week, and I plan to make time to exercise every day.

Turning it all into a positive, I feel like I have weathered the biggest storm of the diet so far without too much damage.  I currently weigh 265 and have lost 94 pounds total.  I am 45 pounds away from my reevaulation weight of 200, and am now making a goal to reach that weight before my birthday in late October.

 

Weight Loss Update

The 100 Pound mark continues to elude me.  This week I lost 4 pounds.  I am now at 261, and have lost 98 pounds in the last 18 weeks.  I am 70% of the way to my reevaluation goal of 220 lbs, and only have 41 pounds to go before I reach it.  It is becoming clear that I may indeed have ‘skin issues’ when this is all over.  I knew this when I began this process, and it looks as though I may have to see a doctor to see what needs to be done.  Hopefully, some of it will just go away, but I am trying to stay realistic.  In any case, I have no regrets about where I am now, only that I wish I had never gotten so big in the first place.

The Long Haul

I have definitely come too far at this point to turn back as far as my weight is concerned, but the heady and unrealistic goals (maybe more accurately said as dreams) that I had of the weight continuing to fall off rapidly are not meeting the harsh reality that it just does not work that way.

I want to preface this by saying that I am very pleased with my accomplishments so far, and in no way feel let down.  I have consistently met and exceeded my goals throughout this program.

I have lost an incredible 94 pounds in the last 17 weeks.  Tomorrow will mark the four month point since I began the diet.  That means I have averaged losing 23.5 lbs a month for four months.  It’s great, but it is no number for me to set my goals by.

The harsh reality is that with all weight loss programs there is a certain degree of diminishing returns as you go along.  Broken down into four week increments, I lost 33, 22, 16 and 20 lbs respectively over the first 16 weeks of the diet.  The last four weeks, I did a little better than the four weeks before it, but overall, there has been a significant decline in the amount of weight that I have lost.  This week’s three pound loss after a week of working out fairly hard, underscores the point, that I cannot keep using the amount of weight I lose to set benchmarks for the coming weeks.

I have increased both the time and the impact of my workouts, but I am getting to the point where they are what they will be.  I cannot work in any more time, and they are getting pretty strenuous.

What I am going to do now is to change my focus a little from how much I have lost, to how much I have left to lose.  Losing 94 lbs is great, but looking at what’s left, I only have 45 lbs to lose in order to reach my reevaluation goal of 220 lbs.  I will now concentrate on chipping away that 45 lb pound number until it gets to zero.  If it takes three more months to get there, so be it.  I am not going to let my attitude change.

 

Where’s the beef?

I have eaten a lot of fish and chicken on this diet.  I like them both, so that is OK with me.  However, I really like beef also, especially steak.  I have been getting my beef through soup and an occasional taco salad, both of which are great ways to get the great flavor of beef into your meal, but to also stretch it so that you are not ruining you diet.

This week, however, when my wife and I went to Cosco, we bought something besides the usual fish and chicken.  We bought a whole beef tenderloin.  They are expensive (I saw them anywhere from $50.00 to $75.00), but if you cut them into 6-8 oz portions, they go along way.  I got 15 fillets and a pound of stew meat off one tenderloin.  When you break it down, I only paid about $3.70 per fillet (not counting the stew meat.  That’s not bad at all.  It is important to note that if you do this you will have to trim a good bit of fat and silver-skin off the tenderloin.

The tenderloin can be used just like the chicken or fish in a meal (though it does have more calories).  For 6 oz. fillet, you only take in around 400 calories.

So, last night I got out one of the fillets, coated it with fresh cacked pepper and Kosher salt, and grilled it up.  I also grilled some mushrooms (almost no calories in these if you avoid butter and oil) and caramelized a little onion.  On the side I had a can on green beans seasoned with a few Bacos.  The steak cut like butter, and I have to say it was easily the best meal I’ve had since I began the diet, and probably for a good while before that.  This is not to say that I have not eaten well.  This meal was just especially good, and I will probably work it in about once a week from now on.

Week 16 Update:  This week I lost four pounds for a toal of 91 lbs. lost so far.  I am at 268, and am only nine pounds away from losing 100 lbs.  I am 65% of the way to my reevaluation goal at this time.

 

Accountability

Much has been made of accountability in exercise programs.  The effectiveness of accountability has been documented by many substance abuse programs including Alcoholic’s Anonymous.

When we began our weight loss programs, my wife and I made commitments to one another.  We have held each other to our commitments and have expectations that each of us will keep up our ends of the bargain on a weekly basis.

Accountability helps us because neither wants to have to admit failure to the other.  We encourage each other every week, cheering on a good week’s total weight loss, and consoling a bad week’s weight loss because we know the effort that we both have put into it.

I also feel accountable because I have decided to write about my attempts to lose weight on this blog.  My little girl also holds me accountable though she does not even know it.  Seeing her refer to the hefty male figures in her books sweetly as ‘daddy’ reminds me of my commitment to her.  All of these accountabilities have added up to help me hold myself to a successful program.

However, true person-to-person accountability is only as good as the commitment of the people who decide to be accountable to each other.  Don’t be afraid to hold people who make a commitment to you to their commitments, and don’t be afraid to ask them to hold you to yours.

 

Update: I lost 8 pounds this week and am now at 272 lbs.  That is 87 lbs in 15 weeks, and I am 62.5% of the way to my goal.  I am seeing the 100 lb mark on the horizon.  I hope to be there in three weeks.

 

Exercise

I probably should have written about this aspect of my weight loss program much earlier.  I feel that exercise has been an indispensable part of my successful weight loss up to this point.  When I started this program, I also started walking about 30 minutes a day.  Soon I increased that to 45 minutes.  Now I try to walk every day that I can between 45 minutes and 1½ hours.

At first, I had to make myself get out and do this every day, but now I feel jittery if I have not had my daily walk.  I have also increased my speed.  Eventually, I would like to turn this into a jog or run, but at 280 lbs, and with a history of knee problems in my family, I will hold that off until I am a little thinner.

Because I have a responsibility to take care of my child in the afternoons and evenings, and she takes late naps, I do not have a lot of time after work to get in exercise.  I use my lunch and breaks at work to get my walking done.  I am lucky to work at a place that has a large area where I can get out and walk.  I have a cell phone, and am always on-call when I am in the facility.  This works for me because the director has also been nice enough to allow me to take my lunches early before it gets too hot.  If I get a call while I am walking on my lunch, I simply put the walk on hold and service the customer until I can continue the exercise.

Another way I have found to get exercise is to walk to where I am needed at work.  I work at a large facility that has several large buildings within the same complex.  I can get called to assist someone anywhere on the grounds.  I have a cart at my disposal, but I have been walking to my calls lately.  It really does not take me any longer, because I do not have to wait for the cart to warm up, and I get exercise through the walk.

Finally, on the weekends, my family (me, my wife and daughter) go to the park on Saturday and Sunday.  There is a large greenbelt that is interconnected throughout the city.  We take our little red wagon, and park at the City Hall.  This allows us to walk 1½ miles on nice shaded trails to a park with recreation equipment where my little girl can play.  She loves it, until it is time to leave, and we get to spend some quality time together.  When we leave, we walk back to the car, and get that much more exercise.

I have had a lot of success so far with this program, and I hope you can find the time to walk also.

 

Update:   I lost only 1 pound this week.  These weeks are always a little disappointing.  I put in the same effort, eat the same things, but do not get the same results.  I guess that is just the nature of any weight loss program.  I will do as I have done in the past.  I will continue the program as is for another week, before I make any changes to what I am doing.  In the past, these bad weeks always seem to be followed up by a good week with no changes to what I am doing.

As of today, I have lost 79 lbs in 14 weeks.  I now weigh 280, and am 60 lbs away from my goal/reevaluation weight.

Motivation and Positive Self Image

I actually had a revelation watching Paul McKenna’s show.  I don’t think it had anything to do with his point this week, but as I watched the program, I began to reevaluate my own program and motivations.  His point this week was to help people to stop criticizing and start loving themselves (I like the way I said it better).  I do not think I personally have an issue with this.  I have a strong self image that comes partly from my religion and partly from my own ego.  However, there have been all of those failed battles with weight in the past.  What is different about this one?

I think that writing this blog has been a part of it.  I have committed to chronicling what is happening this time.  I also have kept statistics on my progress (See my other blog entries for more info on how I’ve done and what I am doing). 

But as I stated earlier, Paul McKenna’s program this week prompted me to look even deeper.  I looked at and evaluated my attitudes toward myself.  I asked myself, “Why do I have a positive self image while all of the other people in his audience have a negative self image?”  I began to think of the areas that give me a positive self image.  I’ll just deal with a couple of the biggies.  Since I am being completely honest, I think I am a pretty smart guy.  I don’t want to deal too much with this, however because I am quickly destroying my sense of humility which I feel is another good point.

These points are good, but they were no real eye openers.  I hit the nail on the head when I thought about being a father.  I’m a good dad, and I put most of my efforts into this.  As I’ve stated before, my wife and I work different schedules.  This has forced (allowed) me to be a much more integral part of my little girl’s life than a lot of fathers.  Helping her to grow into a good and happy person is my biggest obsession.  And, this is where I hit pay-dirt.  I realized that I have compartmentalized my weight loss.  I moved it from just being ‘how I take care of myself’ to ‘part of what it is for me to be a good and responsible father.’  I gave myself a burden when I began to realize that taking care of her is my biggest responsibility.  I want to be there for her, to see the important parts of her life (for myself), and to make sure that I can meet all of her needs.  I do not want her to have the burden of a 50 something sick parent that forces her to drop out of college to take care of him, or be guy that has the fatal heart attack and is not at her graduation or there to walk her down the aisle.

She is my motivation and my self esteem.  I am already a thin and healthy person in my mind for her, it’s just going to be a few more months before I get there in reality.

 

Tuesday Update:  This week I lost 7 pounds.  This puts me at 78 pounds lost in 13 weeks.  I am at 281 and am 61 pounds away from my reevaluation/goal weight.

 

I Can Make You Thin, Part 5: Your Perfect Body

Paul McKenna’s program dealt with self image this week.  One of his first statements in the show was, “I’m going to show you at home how to be confident in yourself.”

I’ll say this for the program as a whole, he has hit upon most of the big issues with weight loss.  On the practical side, his four rules, though nothing new, combined with exercise from episode four, is an effective diet (and it is a diet, no matter what he would prefer to call it).  As I said this is nothing new, and if people who watch his program or read his books stick to this plan, they will probably lose weight.

The other three episodes of his program have dealt with many of the psychological problems that lead to people being overweight and failing in their weight loss programs.  While helping people to deal with cravings and the negative self image that can cuase them to fail repeatedly in their attempts to lose weight is a laudable goal, it is Paul’s methodology that loses me.

This week he used something akin to role-playing to help people to “reprogram” (his word) their minds to ‘feel better about’ themselves.  The first part involved a symbolic removal and casting away of all of the bad thoughts they have about themselves (this seemed almost like a religious rite).  The second part involved imagining themselves in the body of a person that they assumed was confident in his or her own body, and then to transfer those thoughts to themselves, and finally, he encouraged them to look at themselves through the eyes of someone that they assumed to respect and love them.  They were then to transfer those thoughts to themselves, yet again.  All of these activities look like they come right out of a psychologists handbook (which, to me, actually elevates them above some of his other ideas)  I want to say here that I really hope these exercises do help his audience to feel better about themselves, since a positive attitude is integral to an effective weight loss program (tomorrow I will have a post explaining how my own program has dealt with this).

As I’ve stated before, I’m not a psychologist, but psychology was my major for three semesters in college.  I have about 20 hours of psychological theory under my belt.  The problem was that all of the classes I had only led me to become disillusioned with the field.  I used to say that psychological theories were largely based on psychologists coming up with ideas, throwing them against a wall, and if any of the ideas stuck, they went with them.  For me, psychology was developed by a group of men and women who were attempting to apply earthy answers to spiritual problems, and the roads seem to be littered with the corpses of psychology patients that failed to get emotionally better or got worse through the efforts of a psychological theory.

That being said, apart from the whole world becoming spiritually enlightened (and I mean through Christianity, as I am a Christian, and this global enlightenment is not very realistic), psychology is about the only alternative out there for people with real or emotional problems.

Paul McKenna’s program, TFT, self hypnosis and the like seem to take my problems with psychology a step further.  Here we have a theory whose only basis is to modify the way a person thinks through repetitive actions.  I will reiterate the fact that I have chosen not to participate in these actions (please view my other Paul McKenna posts for my reasons).

In the end, most of this theory looks like a big placebo to me.  That being said, the ‘placebo effect’ has proven that placebos can have a powerful effect on some people.  As I have stated before, I hope that lot’s of his viewers have success on his program.  However, I worry about those who are not affected in a positive manner.  Could their self image be even more damaged by yet another failure?  I guess that’s just how it is with all diets until you get one that works for you or you figure it out for yourself.

 

Good luck.

Paul McKenna Stuff

I Can Make You Thin With Paul McKenna

I Can Make You Crazy With Paul McKenna

Who Is Paul McKenna Anyway?

I Can Make You Thin- Busting Your Carvings

I Can Make You Thin- Supercharge Your Metabolism

I Can Make You Thin, Part 5- Your Perfect Body