Slimdude

Okay here is the thing : It is said that to have a Samurai / Bushido mindset you are supposed to live each day like it is your last. Right?

Okay then. I keep reading where sometimes people who suffer from extreme arthritis or pain conditions (whatever it is I have…) have to “pace themselves”. And that is true. On these days when I Gazelle, like… 10 miles and then I’m mowing the lawn outside and everything… well by the time it’s bedtime believe me I am in a lot of pain.

So maybe the next day I’m completely hurting from the start, right?

So they say on your “good days” to pace yourself so you won’t have a bad day the next day. But me, I get to feeling like “Oh I can tolerate the pain pretty well today.” and I end up doing all kinds of stuff I maybe shouldn’t. This week, Sunday was good but then Monday night I popped my chest. These past few days I’ve been in a lot more pain and discomfort but we have been having a lot of rain so I think that may aggravate it.

Well okay I’m on a profile now and I might get discharged from the military for all these medical problems and I hate that. It takes so much away from my pride and masculinity that basically all I can do is Gazelle. I haven’t even been able to do the Leslie Sansone DVDs. I can sort of lift my son, he’s about 30 pounds but that is my thresh-hold these days.

I suppose — from what I’ve read on the Net and Wiki, a lot of pain conditions will be bad for a week and then go into remission. So I keep reminding myself that Sunday I felt really really good into Monday and that will return.

Maybe I should be more “Tao” about things. Instead of wanting to Gazelle a Marathon, perhaps I should use that time and energy to do something less physical that would mean something to the world. Like maybe spend the 8 hours writing letters to children or something. Or something like that.

Because Gazelle-ing 8 hours is going to kill me for the rest of that weekend.

I need to get away from the mindset that these physical accomplishments define me.

I guess… before when I was so athletic and slim physicality was so important to me… being slim still is and I am getting there slowly but surely. But I just can’t do too much physically anymore.

As sad as it sound, sometimes GAzelle-ing briskly for an hour or two is very very difficult.

I need to find some new focuses besides working out, physical stuff… I need to redefine who I am—

Perhaps I will make a rule to limit myself to 90 minutes of formal exercise at the most each day. And I should maybe focus more on my family, spirituality, and humanitarian things.

Any suggestions as to hobbies or good charities or good projects would be mucho appreciated.

—Matt

I am really sorry that this post is probably going to be a “downer” fellow BSers. I try so hard to be positive but I have just had a bad day, period.

I was feeling so great about everything, including weight loss… depending on when I weigh myself it’s around 146-150 and that is lower weight than I have had in over a year at least. It’s not quite to my goal, but hey… down from 172 in Jan ‘06 and down from 163 since I joined BuddySlim so I’m NOT knocking that.

Anyway, it’s become pretty obvious that I will never get to my goal weight and maintain it no matter how healthy I eat and how active I am if I can’t break the “binge” habit… or snack habit or however you want to put it. Plus, even if I could lose weight and binge like that… there are other factors besides weight loss… it is not good from a health and psychological standpoint to sit there and eat 1000s of calories in one massive go.

 So I was on sort of a good streak starting Saturday… well… yesterday (monday night) work was just insane. I work on Jets for the USAF and my job is to fix the computer systems on them. This requires a lot of physical work anyway. It’s a lot of walking around and carrying laptop computer and climbing up and down  the ladder over and over to work in the cockpit and hooking up massive power lines and hoses to the plane… anyway the point is, when I say I work on the computers and electronics… don’t think I am sitting on my butt all night. Sometimes I do if we don’t have any work.

But that is rare. Complicated jet fighters break a lot. And it’s my job to fix them. We only have about 8 people on MidShift. Dayshift has about 30 and SwingShift has 20. Nevertheless, we had a TON of jobs last night. Keep in mind that the Air Force almost always works in pairs in flightline maintenance. It’s part of our wingman concept and it’s just the way things are done. Two people work a job. And many jobs actually need two people (such as component replacement) because you need the hands and the help. But lately we’ve been working one to a job.

So first of all right there I’m doing this one job solo which means I am doing all that physical stuff myself. And as the night wears on, I could really start feeling my body giving out. Then I tried to push on a piece of equipment and something in the upper rib bone structure of my chest kind of popped. It doesn’t hurt too much but I can’t really put any weight on it.

I really think there is something wrong with me that I am falling apart like this. I feel like Mr. Glass in that movie “Unbreakable”… the Samuel L Jackson character.

On top of that, the computer system on the jet I was working was kicking my ass. I have been doing this for about two and a half years now and I was trying everything I could think of and I could NOT bring the Avionics “on-line” which means the jet could not fly. I worked on this for 8 hours straight and I barely even took a lunch break. Just enough to wolf down my salmon and veggies but they were good.

So here I am, sore body—popped chest— bad jet — and then after I came home and went to bed at about 8:30am… well at 9:30am I woke up with this weird massive frenzied urge to binge and I totally caved in. I ate about 1200 calories I estimate, which actually is a lot less than I can eat. When there is peanut butter in the house or ice cream I tend to eat those right out of the carton and I could easily rack up 5000-6000 calories in about ten minutes. Sounds bad but it’s true.

Anyway, here I am stuffing my face and I had just sat down with a Lean Pocket when I saw my wife pull up in the car outside and I was embarrassed about being up and eating so I was rushing to “hide” my hotpocket and I went into the bathroom in our master bedroom and I knew she would not come in there at all because she would think I was sleeping and my wife is so good about not waking me up during the day… she is such a sweetie… (okay that’s a positive thing right there!)…

sorry about this post being long, BSers… but bear with me!!!

And I dropped the plate and it broke. So here I am thinking “This is so ridiculous, a grown ass man hiding his worst habit and now I have to clean up this plate and I should have just drank some water or diet cola and gone back to bed!”

I really have to stop this.

Well I did fall back to sleep at about 10am, and when I got up at 3pm I decided not to beat myself up about it and just try to mitigate any damage. So I’m just gonna lower my calories a little to about 1200 today but still eat normally, about three hours apart.

And I will try and do the Gazelle for about 12 miles. So I’m essentially trying to burn off the binge from earlier in an easy , non-guilty way. One thing I have never done is throw up. I don’t know that I could do it but I could see how people get themselves into that situation.

Anyway my wife came home while I was Gazelle-ing and we talked and it was SO SO SO hard to admit to her but I told her about the incident with the plate this morning. She could always read this Blog she knows about it but I don’t think she ever does. So I told her and she was like “Oh, honey you know I never judge you for that…” and it’s true. She knows I struggle with my eating… she knows it bugs me that I gained all that weight and lost my abs. But she has never ever made me feel badly for it.

I think I am at least a little bit eating disordered because it does bug me so much that I used to be slim and have abs and everything and now I don’t and in the quest to get that back I seem to have developed this whole binge at night thing. But really I have tried everything and every little trick I have read and people have suggested and I admit it…

I am at the point to where suggestions from others bug me. I appreciate they are only trying to help but really what I need to do is break the habit and on nights when I really want to eat I should eat my celery or pickles and maybe a few sugar-free things. I have proven to myself over and over again that if I can get through that first urge, it goes away and even when I wake up for the day I’m usually not hungry.

I have a theory as to why this happens. I think that about an hour after I fall asleep, my body realizes it will have to dip into fat stores and it releases chemicals that say “NO NO NO! Keep your fat! Wake up and binge!” and that’s why I wake up with a feeding frenzy mindset. But once I ignore it… give myself some water to feel full or maybe some diet soda to satisfy the sweet tooth my body does start to metabolize fat and that causes the hunger to stop.

So : stressful work day plus a binge plus I had to call Medical a million times to leave a message so they will call me back with my lab results. And I bet you anything they don’t ever call me back. I am going to have to go over there I bet.

Okay as if that was not enough, my baby python died. I found him in his cage biting himself. I wrote that he finally ate the other day after a month. Well, I think it was too little too late and he was starving and could not metabolize the mouse fast enough. That is the only thing I can think of since, like I said… the position I found him in he was trying to eat himself it looked like.

And I know to some of you it probably sounds ridiculous but I really really liked the snake and I am very saddened that he died. I want another one but it doesn’t take away the sadness about him dying.

Oh well. At least I still have my wife, my son, television, The Gazelle.

Oh and hey The Biggest Loser comes on tonight and I love that show!

The rest of this week will be better.

I know it was a long post, and I know it was mostly a downer but thanks for reading BSers.

—Matt

I feel so tired tonight. Like, unbelievably level “10″ tired, and I have to go to work in less than an hour… I got home today and fell asleep by 9am but by noon I was back up again.

This past weekend I decided to take a road trip and visit my Mom on the other side of the FL panhandle and my wife had to work so it was just me and The Boy and we had a pretty good time but my sister , who is about 12 or 13… well she spent the night with us while I was out there and she is so good but she was sick and she just got sicker as the night went on so there was that… and also for her age she seems so UN self reliant. Maybe I’m wrong but I think by the time you get that old you can start doing things like get your own drinks and food and snacks and … I don’t know. She just makes you do everything for her. She’s nice about it and polite but I don’t remember being that sheltered by my mom. She’s definitely raised her daughter differently than my brother and me.

 Yeah I’m 27 and my brother is 25 but my Mom had a girl later on and I think she’s 12. Maybe 11. Maybe 13. I forget. Like I said she’s a good girl but she just… she doesn’t do things for herself. Plus she was sick so that made it worse.

At least The Boy was good. But anyway I had Sunday nite off for Columbus Day so I returned home on Monday but I knew Monday morning at 9am when I felt exhausted from the weekend that it was going to be a tough one… oh yeah and my car got stuck in some mud and I had to get a tow truck to pull me out which cost 115 bucks!!

So yeah I was exhausted driving home on Monday and then my wife was sick but she went to work ANYWAY when I told her just to call in sick. I napped from 8pm to 10pm but I was dead tired all night I had no motivation to fix anything and all the jobs I got assigned I never could do because of some reason or another so then at 7am, like 30 minutes before I’m supposed to leave they give me some BS job and I was feeling tired and sick and I was pissed that they waited until 7am to even give me this so I didn’t end up leaving until after 8am and I missed an appointment I’ll have to make up later but anyway I got to sleep by 9am and woke up and fought off one binge at about 10:30am but around noon I got up with just a slight craving and I gave in… what’s worse is I wasn’t even really hungry at all and I remember thinking the food wasn’t even that good.

I’m so retarded I should have just gone back to bed but instead I felt too full and sick to fall asleep… I added up the extra calories and it seemed to be about 1600 so I decided to walk 8 miles = 800 calories plus skip the first two meals of the day… another 800 and I’d be okay. Up at noon?? Am I crazy? I’m running on THREE HOURS of sleep.

I know it seems a little weird but with everything else going badly the last thing I wanted was to gain weight. So I decided just to do it and then start fresh. And you know, the scale still shows me steady at “150″ and “151″ depending on when I weigh.

Argh.

I know this seems like a downer post but I’ll get thru this. It’s just that right now I’m tired and I’m not eating right and all… but it’ll get better.

It always does.

—Matt

P.S. Here’s one more Positive Note: my back is killing me. (note sarcasm)

Got home this morning and took some UniSom to get to bed. I slept from about 8am until about 2:30pm so that’s not too bad. My weight is stabalizing around 150-152  depending on when I weigh-in. I really think I’m going to break 150 by this weekend.

Oh but this morning I kept hearing the “siren’s call” to binge… at 10am I actually got up and poured out a bowl of cereal and then had a Hot Pocket going in the microwave… a “Lean Pocket” actually… and I could feel the usual frenzied urge inside my head and I knew it would never ever end at just those two things. So I poured the dry cereal back in the box and when the LP was done in the Microwave I just wrapped it up in aluminum foil and put it in the fridge. I drank a bottle of water and cracked open a Diet Rite and took a few sips on that… I calmed down and went back to bed.

A few hours later I was up again and the voices in my head (not literally, ya’ll) were telling me to eat that Lean Pocket and then work off the calories but I told myself, “No this is not about the calories, or the weight-loss… this is about ending this habit.” and again I went back to bed.

So I’m very happy with myself that I made it through yet another day and fought off a binge.

 In other news…

Job is going well these days. The planes have been doing very very well. My snake won’t eat. He is still a baby and supposed to eat every week or so. I’m still trying…

My wife is sick and I bet I catch whatever she has.

My son is well. And tonite is The Biggest Loser on NBC.

—Matt

So this morning the scale said “151″ pounds. I am really happy that I have been able to resist binge-ing at night. I had one little incident with a bagel earlier this week but at least it ended there.

 Yesterday after work I Gazelled for five miles and I told myself I could have two “No Sugar Added” fudgesicles as a reward. That’s about 80 calories when the walking itself burns off about 100 per mile. That’s my rule of thumb no matter what the read-out says. Also we did a Flight-Line F O D (foreign object) walk yesterday that covered a lot of ground.

I saw some video this morning on MTV where the Marines in the video loaded the casket into a hearse with the head (stars) first. That’s not right and I’ve never seen that ever. You always carry and load FEET first. But whatever. Would not be the first time music videos had something jacked up.

Last night my son woke up at about 10:30pm and wanted us to let him sleep in our bed with us. We have done this a few times since we moved into the new house because he was sick so now he’s starting to get used to going to bed in HIS crib and then waking up and crying until we let him sleep in our bed. So I just stood in there with him hugging him and all that mushy Dad stuff while he cried and I just kept telling him he had to sleep in his own bed. My wife kindly offered to stay up but I wanted her to get some rest because all I did all evening was sit on my ass and watch TV and play with my Python (heh heh heh) while she was putting together all this cool stuff she got from Wal-Mart for the house.

So I finally picked him up and held him and he cried less and less. I considered taking him into the living room and watching TV with him until he fell back asleep, but I was worried what kind of habit THAT would form. When he stopped crying and got really tired I finally asked him if he wanted to lay back down in his crib and to my great surprise, he gestured towards the crib and I layed him down and he fell asleep! Wow!

I really do have such a good son I am lucky he gives us almost NO trouble at all. Sometimes when he doesn’t get his way he pitches a little “mini-fit” where he cries a bit and falls to the floor face first and kicks. Which I think is so funny and when he sees that I just laugh and smile at him, he just stops and finds something else to do. I usually just tell him “Look, you Can-NOT play with this, it is not for you… find us a BALL instead or a BOOK, okay?” and he does. I consider myself very patient with people and I think that extends to my son as well. Even at his worst, I never lose my temper with him. And that is something I am really proud of. I’m not saying I’m like the best Dad in the world, but I’ve seen the way some fathers interact with their kids… and some of them seem really detached from their kids and really act like their kids are such a hassle. Maybe it’s just me?

Okay so then late last night I woke up again and I REALLY wanted to eat. I thought about all those “mini-packs” 100-calorie this and thats like cookies and even those teeny weeny cupcakes they have… oh man I wanted to go nuts, but I KNEW if I started I would not stop. So I forced myself to have a Diet Rite soda and watch a little MTV (”Next” was on) and the craving went away.

You bet your ass I am proud of myself. This morning I did my circuit weight routine and Gazelled 3 miles and had a decent breakfast and today I am off, 3 day weekend. I plan to go over to my friends’ house and swim. We are all best friends and we are considering dressing up like The Flintstones… they would be Fred and Wilma and their 20 month old could be Pebbles and we could be Barney and Betty and Bam-Bam.

And then my Dad and Step-Mom are visiting this evening. It’s going to be a great weekend, hope all of yours is equally great.

—Matt

I had a few commenters who were concerned that I was not eating enough, and I do appreciate the concern. I guess what got confusing is me saying I only ate 600-700 calories in my last post. But that was a the END of a Graveyard shift Cycle.

 In a normal 24 hour period, I do eat about 1500 calories. Sometimes it’s probably a little less and sometimes a little more, but I aim for 1500 calories. I eat 3 meals of about 400 calories each and then two snacks that total somewhere between 150-200 calories each.

And then sometimes I’ll splurge and have a low-calorie treat or Rum and Diet Coke and that might bump me up to around 1700 or 1800 for the day.

But again, I do appreciate those who commented… that’s why I joined BS in the first place. BTW, I have been scale-hopping a lot this week and it will usually show “151″ in the morning and about “154″ in the evenings. So I’ve done well this week. I’m having many many more “good nights” than bad ones in terms of the binges and snacking. In fact, I’m pretty sure last saturday night was my last binge.

So yesterday was “one of those days”. I ended up with a job that totally kicked my ass all day. I was supposed to be training two new people on how to fix a certain software problem on the plane and it was being a royal you-know-what. And since it was parked waaaaaaay out on the line we did A LOT of walking. I’m sure we met our “10,000″ step mark easily. And it was hot, too.  I mostly really enjoy what I do but dang, yesterday was just…

My wife is working more and more at her job, and now she is not liking it as much but she made a commitment to stay thru the holidays and she is trying to honor that. She has also started adding in exercises to her daily routine about 3 times per week and she is learning to eat every three  hours or so. Oh yes and she wants to add one piece of fruit to her day.

Seriously my wife eats NO fruits or vegetables at all. It concerns me a little because she is becoming “calorie-conscious” and eating at proper times but what she eats is stuff like Lean Pockets and those 100-calorie snack packs. Which is fine from a weight-management aspect but still… you are eating 100 calories of cookies… anyway, I’m proud of her everybody has to start somewhere.

Today my meal plan is to have egg whites, a Boca patty, fat free cheese and salsa… some fruit and some coffee for breakfast.

For snacks I am packing South Beach cookies and some sugar free pudding. And then later some popcorn and a cheese stick. Lunch will be a South Beach Chicken Salad Kit and an apple, and dinner will probably be fish and veggies. And maybe some Sugar free Gelatin.

Exercise for the day is Power Yoga DVD and maybe tonight some Gazelle action.

—Matt

I’ve had “good diet nights” and “bad diet nights” and last nite was yet another “blow it” kind of night. WHY DO I DO THAT?

 Eat healthy all day long, and it’s not like I’m eating seaweed or something (although I’m sure there are folks who love it…). I’m eating delicious healthy food that I enjoy and yet at night here I am polishing off Danishes and fried chicken at midnight?

So. Enough is enough. I stepped on the scale this morning and it says “156″ pounds. Not too shabby but not where I want to be.

So I tell myself, “Matt, if you ever want to get your flat abs back… if you ever want to see that thin 140 person again, you have got to get serious here!”

So I am. And I’m laying it out for you BSers. If I calculate a modest weight loss of 2 pounds per week I should be able to lose this last 16 pounds in 8 weeks. That is SUNDAY, November 18th, 2007.

The week before Thanksgiving. I will exercise, I will eat healthy foods and I will stop bingeing at night! And I will meet my goal by then or before.

REWARD : a Nintendo Wii!

I will continue to use BuddySlim to find support and motivation. Also, I have decided to keep on walking in order to meet that 300 mile challenge by Thanksgiving. In addition, I will start doing the Ashtanga Power Yoga routine in P90X. It is about an hour and a half. The first 45 minutes is the tough part with the vinyasas, and then it is more stretching and balance postures and also some pilates type core work. Pretty intense. I will also do the P90 Circuit weights routine with Abs 2x per week and then the Leslie Sansone Walk DVDs 2x per week. I think this will give me a pretty good fitness mix.

Also I continue to work on my push-ups and sit-ups. Sometimes I can do as many as 30 but sometimes I can only get to 15 or so. I want to be able to do 50 of each in a minute…

It’s a lot of fitness goals but I think I can handle it.

In other news…

Still organizing the house. It’s getting better and better. We got such a great deal on this place I hope nothing starts falling apart! I think the previous owner had to sell in a hurry due to bad circumstances, that was the Vibe I got. Because everything else around here is about $30,000 more than this place and even our place was appraised by multiple sources at about $30,000 more than what agreed to pay.

I hope it’s not “The Money Pit”. remember that one?

I’m on Graveyard Shift this week. That is always weird. Working out and eating right is more of a challenge because of the wonky schedule.

My wife bought me a snake for our anniversary. He’s cute. He is a baby ball python. He’s about 2 feet long now but he’ll get up to five feet. He just sits in my hand and watches TV with me.

I have to go now and mow my lawn for the first time. And no, I’m not counting the miles for the mowing towards the challenge.

Well, BSers… the results are in, and I gained four pounds this week to put me back at 158. Now, I could choose to be all broken up about it, but instead I am pushing forward with a positive mindset.

I tell myself all I have to do is get back on track this week, and for me that means I have to “Just Say No!” to raiding the kitchen at night. And I will. I think I can shave this four pounds back off in a week.

And then it’ll be just four more pounds to my mini-goal. 150.

I had a blast last night at the AF Ball and today is going to be super-busy in terms of moving all the furniture. I’m still going to sneak in some Gazelle-ing before we start, though. I’m thinking of doing six miles.

Tonight will be our first night in the New Place and I think it’s a great time to face down that Night - Time Binge Goblin and start fresh. But I won’t have the internet again until Tuesday or Wednesday. So this might be my last post for a few days.

Take care of yourselves!

—Matt

Well, BSers… I have had what seems like a very long day. But also pretty fun. I’d be in an even better mood if I wasn;t in pain. I know you get tired of hearing it. Believe me, I get tired of feeling it.

Despite that, I am proud of myself for the things I do even with this problem. Marathon Girl asked if I had an injury. If you haven’t read my background blogging entries : I have some kind of arthritis that affects my feet and it has also caused degeneration in my neck spine discs. The discs slightly press on my nerves and they cause pain in my neck and shoulder area and back. Anyway. I am always in some kind of pain, it’s always a matter of degree of pain. I usually start the day at about a “5″, take some Celebrex and it goes to a “3″ or so before I exercise.

I’m on Robaxin during the day, and then at night I take Flexeril. But the point of this post was not to complain about my aches and pains. I still feel lucky to be able to do what I can.

And Today that was This : My son woke up extra early at 5am, so I layed down with him but neither one of us really slept. At 6am we got up and had breakfast and then we watched SpongeBob until it was time to get him to school at 7:30. I cleaned the house a bit until 8:30 and then I did The Gazelle for six miles while watching Regis and Kelly, and Kathie Lee was on there…

Then I had a small break and a small nap before packing up the car with my closet stuff mostly… you know, clothes… and since both my wife and I were off today we decided to go out for lunch. On the way out to the New Place we saw a turtle in the road and decided to rescue it. I don’t know anything about turtles but now I own one.

So we dropped off the Stuff at the New House and put the turtle in the bathtub and then we went to Sonny’s for lunch and I had a grilled chicken salad with fat free ranch. Then we went to Pet Smart for turtle stuff and also to the Mall so my wife could get some gloves to go with her dress.

Then we came back to the Old Place to get ready for the Ball and even though it wasn’t terrible, I felt chubby in my blues. Because I weigh around 160 and they were issued to me at 140 and I keep refusing to buy new pants. I knew there would be pictures taken and there were and they are nice photos but I can’t help but feel as if that is NOT ME in those pics!! Oh well. More motivation to lose 20 pounds, I suppose.

We picked The Boy up and took him to our friend’s house because she was babysitting for us, then the Ball itself was fabulous. My wife looked stunning and we met a lot of interesting people and I even danced for about 30 minutes to some old school funk and disco before I just had to sit down.

And here I am getting ready for bed and I wanted to share with you my day. Tonight I may indeed get back up and if I’m right, it’ll be about midnite when my Urge first hits because that’s about an hour or two from now. But I am tired of this habit and I know I can lose the weight if I stop eating at night. Also I don’t want to carry this habit… this demon… over into the new house and tomorrow is our first night over there. I want to leave that Poltergeist in this house, the Old Place and not taint the new Place with this!

Goodnite!

—Matt

Today is almost seems silly and flippant to write anything about weight loss and diet and fitness. Today is the anniversary of the day those terrorists flew the planes into our towers and changed the course of American history. I’m sure there will be lots of Blogs, on CNN and other channels about everything.

I just feel like sharing a few thoughts : America and Americans are strong. We are stubborn and courageous. A few planes into some buildings is not going to stop us. Let me tell you, I work with some of the smartest, most motivated people on the planet. America is never going to give up, and we will never lose the fight… because what we fight for is so precious.

The freedoms we want, and we want our parents to have… our children and our grand-children. I could probably come up with a lot more to say but I am in a time crunch this morning.