FatBlogger

I'm still here....

Just trying to get through this plague that seems to have descended on my house since the kids went back to school. Sickness after sickness...everyone sick except for me. Weird. I can only chalk it up to fish oil pills, because I sure as hell don't do anything more healthy than that right now.

More soon, when I have time and don't have to nurse 3 people back to health. 

Follow Me On Twitter

Yes, yes, now I am hip too. I signed up for the dang thing awhile ago, hardly can remember to use it. But I do see the value in actually getting it going, being able to track others progress and show mine...if when I actually make some progress that is.  

So if your into this type of shallow communication of 140 characters or less, you follow me and I will follow you, as long as your not too creepy....or needy. I need my space, and believe me, I need A LOT of space. 

Top right, if your interested. 

Or just click here. 

The Pros and Cons of Counting vs Abstinence

Counting Calories

Pros:

1. I am familiar with it.
2. Writing down what you are eating in a journal is a proven method for losing weight.
3. I can be sure that I am not eating more calories than I need.
4. If I can stick with it, I know it will work.

Cons:

1. limits the freedom to eat what I want.
2. Can be a pain on special occasions.
3. When I stop counting, I binge or over-eat.
4. I have never been able to maintain it.

Abstinence

Pros:

1. Admits that I have a problem that goes beyond food and calories
2. Is a very simple alternative to counting calories.
3. Targets the main problem area I have.
4. Does not have to be turned "on" or "off', can be used on any occasion.

Cons:

1. I have never, ever, been able to do it.
2. Seems like it might be a very hard thing to do for a lifetime.
3. There is no guarantee that I won't create another "problem area" to compensate.
4. I don't know that I can trust myself with it.

The Dilemma

Essentially there is probably only one way lose fat, and that is to cut down on your caloric expenditure. Now within that simply formula there is a whole host of paths one could take, but the bottom line remains the same..burn more than you take in.

For me, knowing what I know about me, my experience with losing and gaining weight over the decades, there are only two ways to do this really.

1. Count calories. This I have done with success at times. Though if you measure success by the fact that you KEEP doing it year after year, then no, I would be a failure at it, like so many others. 

2. Addiction strategies. Admitting you have an addiction to over eating and making one simple rule to remove the problem area. An alcoholic would have a no alcohol rule, an addictive over-eater like me might remove a certain food for life.

But for me, removing one food is not the answer, my problem area is not a single food, it is a single time frame, after dinner to bedtime...the dreaded "4th meal" if you will. What makes me obese is just 500 extra calories a day, and I get that routinely by eating after dinner, nearly every night. 

My last post I said I was going to try to eliminate it, but it proved MUCH harder than I thought. I needed something, anything, and when I took a little something, it invariably turned into a BIG something.

It is what some psychologists call AVE, or Abstinence Violation Effect. In for a penny, in for a pound kind of thing. 

So for me the dilemma comes down to trying again what I have tried so many times before, and hope that I am a little wiser and better able to carry if off, or try something new that seems like a colossal struggle, but no less what a drunk might go through giving up booze...simple, but difficult.

One Simple Rule?

You have probably seen the ads..they are everywhere..."I lost X pounds using one simple rule". The simple rule turns out to be Acai berry juice that they want you to buy. Apparently they claim that it can suppress the appetite and at the same time flush the "sludge" from you intestines....sounds wonderful. Honestly, I do not understand the fascination that America has right now with being "regular". from Activa to Acai, we somehow think that ridding our body of waste product is actually losing weight?

If I was going to put up an add like that, my one simple rule to lose weight would be this;

"Don't eat after dinner"

Its one rule I wish I could keep myself. I am convinced that I would lose all this excess fat if I could just stop myself from seconds, thirds or desert. You know the drill, you are relaxing and sitting in front of the TV and you want something to enhance the experience, so you reach for the leftovers, or the ice-cream, or the chips.

Now, perhaps if one was to adhere to such a rule, one might overeat to compensate during the day? And of course there is no nutritional rule that might govern what you eat either. But all things being the same, and the fact that those extra calories at night are what has applied the extra fat to MY  ass, probably yours as well, that one simple rule could very well be all we need to get it off.

I have often felt that over-eating is an addiction, with severe ramifications for you and your family, not unlike alcohol and drug use. Over-eaters often complain that "they can't stop eating", like an alcoholic can "just stop drinking", or a smoker can "just stop smoking". Perhaps that one simple rule could be a substitute for such abstinence, something to be adhered to religiously like 12 steppers. 

DON'T EAT AFTER DINNER

I'm going to give it a try, and see just how hard it really is.

Perhaps we NEED each other.

Maybe I can't do it alone like I want. Maybe I need a little help, encouragement, goading, a whack with a stick of compassion. Maybe I just need company.

Hey, I am married, half my life is over already. Where is the motivation to not be fat? Who in the hell actually gets MOTIVATED by simply wanting to improve ones health?

Sex was always a good motivator...and worked too. But like I said...I am 19 years married...nuff said.

It is difficult...near impossible actually... to change tracks, or habits, in middle age, with out a shock of reality to jolt one out of themselves.

The alternative is to seek others with the same problem, join the herd..excuse the pun. There is strength in numbers...sometimes there is even motivation in numbers.

I have no idea how many people come here anymore...but if you are out there...and like me...maybe we can do it together...walk this tough path together. I am willing to give it a try if you are.

What have we got to lose...except fat?

How about July

Thanks to (most) everyone for the nice comments regarding my last post. It was actually something I wrote awhile ago and came across by accident. I thought I would re-post it.

I lost 5 pounds in May. I wrote everything I ate down in a journal and got the occasional exercise in at the gym. I gained it back in June when I stopped writing down what I was eating. 5 pounds is not really much when you are already considered obese, so I don't put much stock in a loss less than 10 pounds.

I can't say why I went off track in June. Events I suppose, they seem to dictate to me when I should be "on" and "off". For example, take July, The 4th is this Saturday and usually I would be inclined to procrastinate until after that date, which really means about 3 days later if there are enough leftovers. But then another event is on the horizon and I push my "start" date to that..and so on down the line. Pretty soon a decade has gone by and your ass has spread to unwanted proportions.

There are about 20 or so such dates in a year. Even if someone who needed to lose took those days "off", plus another 16 for good measure, that still leaves 329 days of healthy living, 90% of the year. I wish I could see it clearly like that all the time.

Losing weight is really a very simple matter....

Despite all the myriads of books, ideas, diet plans, it only comes down to three things; eat less, exercise more or some combination of the two.

Yet there are millions, like me, who are dumbfounded to find a way to do this. For us, it is more than the mere calculation of what we digest and what we burn, for us, we do not eat to live, we live to eat. Food becomes the salve we slather over our emotional burns and scars. Food becomes the healer of our soul. We turn to the one thing that does not judge, it’s only purpose to provide comfort. That comfort is fleeting, so we need more..and more..and more.

The very notion of a “diet” makes us ill. Like we are losing the only friend who has really stood the test of time. Food knows me well, knows my darkest secrets and yet remains and I want to throw that friendship away? Food has protected me over the years, provided a much needed extra skin with which to suffer the indignities of rejection. What other friend can you blame ALL your problems on, and yet still keeps coming back for more. My dog is like that, but I refuse to eat him.

So many times I have said goodbye to this old friend, I have reached the peak of perfection, only to tumble to the bottom again. More often than not, I say goodbye, only to traverse the base of the mountain, just looking at the top, coming full circle back to my friend. He is still there, waiting. Good friend.

There comes a point where this friend becomes deadly. Choking the flow of my very blood, raising my sugar level intolerably. There are times when I can no longer bear the weight of my friend, as he pushes down on my very joints, slowing or stopping those things I most enjoy in life.

Others look at me and see weakness. That is OK, I look at me and see weakness as well. I see a doormat, being walked all over by this friend, I see someone unable to let go of things past.

I want to live, you know? Not forever, just well. I want to live with purpose and meaning. I want to make a difference and validate my existence beyond propping up the Lays / Pepsi Corporation. Does being fat stop me from all that? Yes. It becomes something to hide behind, to peer out from and see what is going on, then dart behind again for protection. Unfair. Being a coward is unfair to the rest of the world. It takes from it that small bit of uniqueness that is you, that tiny infinitesimal part of your potential that fits some niche like a peg.

For sure, there is more here than meets the eye. There is a strangling mess of guts, deep wounds that sink into the caverns of our innards, growing rotten as they go unnoticed. There are nerves like wires that carry old impulses and learned behaviors, like electricity to the brain, causing knee jerk reactions to dangerous and feared stimuli.

Courage then becomes the word of the day, the ability to overcome habitual fears. To have the courage to crush this fatty armor, pulverize it into submission until it melts away. Even more courage is required to let go of that quest, let it slip from your mind, your fork and spoon. Still more courage then to pick up the challenge for things more daunting and scary, for things that move the world. Courage to be a part of that world, instead of just on it. 

April 6 2005

That was when I had my first post on here, 4 years ago to the day.

Yes, of course I have done the math...instead of searching for the perfect weight loss plan that would help me lose more than 1 pound a week, I should have chosen the imperfect and flawed plan where I only lost 1 pound a month. My weight troubles would be over by now.

Let this be a lesson to all you fat newbies out there. Stop looking, start doing, even if it is tiny progress, because sooner rather than later it adds up.

Of course I said the same thing on last years anniversary too.

Thanks to all you my loyal readers and commenters out there.

Back Again?

Who knows.

I actually went to the gym today after about...well over a year anyway. It felt good...it felt right. And no, this is no April Fools joke.

Now, lets see if I can get through one night without binging.