Day 10 & 11: Gym Mirrors: Shame or Vanity? Probably both.

Day 10 & 11

My diet has proposed that I get 40 grams of protein right off the bat at breakfast each morning.  Most probably do not realize how much that takes.  I’ve been doing different combinations of bacon, tuna, and chicken.  It’s been my thought that I should probably go with the leaner meats but then I realized that I could eat a few eggs and get a crap load of protein out of it.  So for these 2 days I ate 3 to 4 eggs each morning with a can of tuna (yummy, right?) but I’ve found that at the end of the day it’s probably not the way to go.  I went back and reread some of “The4 Hour Body” again and eggs are suggested to be used “sparingly” and 4 eggs in one sitting is pretty far from that.  Also add the fact that at my last blood test I showed slightly high cholesterol, it’s probably not a good idea to gobble down 4 eggs.  So I’m putting the eggsperiment aside and going back to tuna and chicken because bacon’s probably not all that great for me either. 

Gym mirrors were made for him.

I’ve been going to the gym as often as I can, I missed day 10 due to simply having too many things going on but I still got in a little exercise by push mowing the entire yard.  On day 11, however, I did get to make it back into the gym and something really bothered me.  There are full length mirrors all over the place in almost every gym that I know of.  It serves the two-fold purpose of shaming the out-of-shapers and catering to the vanity of the fitness freaks:   For me it truly goes both ways.  As I am on the elliptical or the exercise bike I can look over and feel the shame pouring out of me as I am panting and dying with everyone around me going full speed while carrying on conversations with their friends.  I can barely utter a word when I’m on the elliptical, I’m good if I can breathe correctly, but these people are just chatting away.  On the other hand when I am lifting the weights I can look in the mirror and feel a little pride.  I’m not arrogant about any of it but I know that I’m in there pushing and pulling heavy amounts and I can watch myself and feel good about it. 

See?  Those mirrors shame him, I tell you!!

I know all of this is pretty simple and everyone probably already thought of this anyway but here was the thing that really got to me yesterday.  As I was in the weight room, I overheard a group of 3 guys talking about what they were lifting and so on and then one of the guys asks the biggest guy of the group what he weighed.  Ladies, guys can do this because we have no shame plus we have no real concept for what another man is supposed to weigh, if we ask one another it’s simply out of curiosity, not judgment.  The big guy replied “about 250” and my mouth nearly hit the floor.  I edged closer to this guy to get a comparison between the two of us because in my eyes he looked just as big or bigger than me.  This is where the mirror came in handy, I didn’t have to be creepy as I compared myself to him, I could just look and he would have no idea.  My conclusion is one of two things, either I’m some sort of freak that has extra fat storage hidden somewhere, my bones are made of iron, or this guy was a liar.  Upon comparison, we were nearly identical in size.  I was maybe an inch taller, our bellies seemed to have the same protrusion trajectory, and my head was a little bigger.  Maybe that’s it; I’ve got a huge head.  I’ve never weighed it individually and perhaps it accounts for 30% of my body weight or something.

Listening to them made me forget I
was in a steaming hot room, nearly
choking on the air and sweat.

 Nonetheless, it depressed the crap out of me.  I’m at around 290 right now and I’ve been eating right and exercising, but I’m not seeing the numbers I want.  When I graduated high school, I was around 260 and that is where I want to return to; 260 or less.  Most people, when they look at me don’t think I weigh what I do, but I’ve asked people before to guess and it’s usually in the 250 range.  I don’t know if that’s them being nice and lying or if it’s true.  Anyway, it depressed me a bit and after I worked out I went to my “happy place”; the sauna.  The sauna has served me as a place to rest, decompress, think, and sweat out all the worries and stresses of the day.  It’s like a meditation room.  I went in last night with my head phones in listening to Duncan Trussell talk to Joe Rogan on his podcast, (The DuncanTrussell Family Hour available for free on iTunes, by the way) and really started to lose the time.  I got sucked into my own thoughts and into the conversation they were having in my ear buds.  Normally I spend around 10-15 minutes in there but last night I hit a little over 30 minutes.  When I got out I was soaked with shame sweat and felt like I was going to puke or pass out or possible both at the same time.  It literally took the rest of the night to get over this feeling.  I got home and still felt awful. 

So what did we learn for these two days?

·         Eggs:  Good for protein, bad for heart

·         Gym mirrors are for shame and vanity

·         Don’t compare your body to someone else; you’ll only hate yourself a little more.

·         Duncan Trussell and Joe Rogan can talk you into sitting in the sauna to the point of passing out

·         Next time, you’re in the sauna…wear a watch

Day 7, 8, & 9: The Debate to Cheat (on a diet, not my wife)

Days 7, 8, & 9

I don't look this bad but I sure feel it.

Well, ok I know it looks like I got really lazy and haven’t wrote anything since Day 6, but life has done nothing but throw us curve balls every step of the way over the past few days.  This blog however is not about personal family drama, nay this is about losing weight which is something I’m proud to say that I have been doing a lot of since I last wrote and you read.  On day 6 I was struggling on when to do my actual cheat day.  I didn’t want to give in and eat a bunch of crap because I was scared that it would screw up my progress, even though the diet includes a mandatory cheat day.  I just didn’t see how I would fair well by eating fast food and candy bars all day and turn around and eat healthy again. 

If you haven't ate one of these, they are good
enough to make you consider suicide.

On day 7 I decided I would try it and for breakfast I had a Reese’s Peanut Butter Candy Bar.  Don’t get me wrong it was delicious and savory but I felt something akin to murderer’s guilt after eating it.  I thought, “Oh God, what have I done?”   I felt like I had just killed myself with deliciousness.  So for the rest of the day, I ate really healthy and went to the gym.  I’ve been eating spinach, broccoli, carrots, and black beans every single day.  So on that day I really pounded them.  At the end of the day, the candy bar didn’t really make a difference; I didn’t gain a pound.

Back in the day this was a mere appetizer

On day 8, I was clean the whole day….well except that huge spoonful of Nutella but who’s counting that?  Day 8 was a lot of gym work and honestly I kind of forgot to eat very much that day.  I’m not trying to be anorexic but it was like I literally forgot at times.  To put that weirdness into perspective, when I was in high school I used to be able to down a whole bucket of chicken with all the sides in one sitting, I used to get disapproving stares from the workers at Chinese buffets, and I was once asked to leave a Ryan’s in Atlanta (but that was more a combination of me eating too much and perhaps some THC-product)  So me forgetting to eat, is like Peyton Manning forgetting how to throw a TD.  It’s a scientific phenomenon.

Nonetheless, they are still yummy

On day 9, I thought back about the other day when I had my candy bar.  I thought, “Well, that didn’t seem to hurt anything” and so I thought I would do another slight cheat.  So I had a hamburger from Lynn Garden Restaurant and it was oh so yummy.  I got it plain but that was fine with me; I don’t like a lot of junk on my burger.  I like to taste the cow.  I like to taste its feelings and emotions.  I like to imagine it grazing around a field eating hay, hanging with its cow friends, crapping all over the place, and then Mr. Farmer coming along to put the cow into the “Patty wagon” and sending it off to slaughter.  Mmmmm so good.   What?  Was that a little too weird?  Sorry, I just really enjoy animal meat.  Chances are that whole little scenario is completely off anyway.  It was probably from a cow that was jammed into a 100 yard squared off patch with about 5,000 other cows being fed steroids and cow brains and slaughtered in the factory.  See my vision was better wasn’t it?  Anyway besides the burger I stuck to the diet, worked out hard, and am glad to report further weight loss.

As of today, I’m weighing in at 290 (I think, like I said we have Jackson Pollack-scales).  I started out at around 305 to 310, so that’s definitely some progress.  Katie is still on her HCG and hates it a little more each day.  I don’t think I could ever recommend that diet to anyone.  It messes with your hormones, it makes you sick, and you starve, but watch me get desperate enough to do it eventually when I hit a diet wall.  So today is starting off Day 10 and I have to get my day going.  I’ll end with “What did we learn today?”

·         Incremental cheating might be the best way to go (less guilt)

·         Reese’s Peanut Butter Bars are delicious but induce murderous guilt

·         Cows are delicious…no matter where they come from

·         We need a new house so that our scales will be accurate and I can tell whether or not I’m still fat.

Day 6: My dreams of Epic Mealtime gorging

Day 6

This was a day that I almost cheated.  I almost had my full blown, carb out, deep fried Cadbury egg milkshake day.  I almost did it but then something happened, I went to the scale.  The scale said I was losing weight.  The scale showed me that I was actually making progress.  Damn you, you stupid scale I wanted to eat crap all day but now I feel to freakin’ guilty to do it.  I was even at Walgreens staring at the Cadbury display, but I just couldn’t do it. 

I’m not eating like crap and I’m not starving myself either.  I’ve found a semi-balance of grilled chicken, canned tuna, steamed shrimp, and an assortment of veggies have nearly left me satisfied for the moment.  On top of that, it is now starting to yield results.  I’m allowed a cheat day but I may put it off for a couple more days until I’ve reached some sort of acceptable goal.  I think 10 lbs. is a pretty solid start, so that is what I am aiming for.  The problem with that goal is that I’m not 100% sure what weight I started out at.  We live in a house that is about as level and symmetrical as a Jackson Pollack painting and this causes our scales to spit all kinds of crazy numbers at us.  So I started somewhere between 310 and 300, so I guess I’ll call my starting weight 305.  When I weighed on day 6, the scale said 297.  Like I said, for all I know I could weigh 290 but when you are as a big of a mammal as I am, what does it really matter?  So I think my binge/cheat day will be when I see it at or below 295 preferably 290. 

I hate that I can watch one of the Epic Mealtime videos and notice that not one of them is really all that overweight.  The main guy looks big but he is just tall, he doesn’t have a gut or anything.  How the hell do they do that?  That would be my dream, on my binge day I get to hang out with the Epic Mealtime guys (if you haven’t seen any of their videos just go to YouTube) and gorge myself.

So that’s about it for day 6:

·         I fought the urge to pound Cadbury Eggs

·         The scale guilt tripped me

·         My sad dream is to hang out and eat with YouTube “stars” and gorge myself.

Day 4 & 5: Dieting shouldn't always be measured in pounds but also in Shame

Day’s 4 & 5

I combined these two days because they were simply a haze of dramatic silliness that rendered nearly impossible to either:  a) diet & b) write anything.  Stress is a big motivator for me eating.  When I’m stressed out and see a Snickers bar, it’s hard not to shove the whole thing in my mouth while unwrapping another.  Luckily, I didn’t give in.  I’ve stuck hardcore with this stupid God-forsaken diet.  I’m not seeing a whole lot of results on the scale but I am in the clothes.  I pulled a pair of shorts out from a couple of years ago that I hadn’t been able to wear in a while and slid them right on.  I’m able to go another notch in my belt and my pants are sliding down my flat butt.  So yeah, it’s working but I’m not having fun.  Timothy Ferriss, the author of this diet, stated in his book that he finds that most people on this diet think it is fun.  Hey Tim, I’m not having a good time yet!!  You didn’t include anything in the book about stress eating.  Although, God bless you, you did give us a cheat day and that day is creeping up very soon. 

In his book, The 4 Hour Body, he states on your cheat day, which is to be 5 to 7 days after you start the diet, that there are no restrictions.  None.  He talks about how he’ll sit and eat an entire sausage pizza and a box of doughnuts and drink some beer.  I don’t know if I’ll go that far out on my cheat day because I’m about twice the size of Ferriss, but I know for sure I’ll be getting a candy bar or two, some Nutella, and a freakin’ bacon cheeseburger.  The thing of it is though; Katie does not get a cheat day.  On this day I have to be incognito and not do any of my cheating in front of her.  She is having a heck of a time with her diet to the point on day 5 that she started throwing up.

It’s hard to tell whether she is sick from the lack of food, the stress, or a stomach bug.  I think it’s a combination of all three.  Stress always seems to make her sick and luckily for us, stress comes by the boatload in our family.  I’m currently writing this on day 6 and she is doing a little better but she is not getting to eat, in my opinion, nearly enough but she has lost 14 lbs. which she is pretty stoked about.  I’m not checking my weight daily because I’m sure it would just discourage me and make me want to binge eat.  Instead, I am just checking myself out in the mirror each morning to see if I’m any less disgusted with myself.  Day’s 4 & 5 didn’t really show me that much difference, I’m still disgusted with me but ever so slightly less grossed out.  So I guess that is progress, right?

So, what did I learn these two days?

·         Dieting should not only be measured in pounds but also in shame

·         My Cheat day cannot come soon enough

Day 3: Cigarettes are a Great Dieting tool

Day 3

See?  If it's good enough for Brad
Pitt to stay thin & in-shape with,
then it's good enough for me.

Well what can I say about  diet day #3 except to say that it has been a cruel, post-menopausal, schizophrenic, narcissistic, sociopathic day….oh wait, those were the words I had for my mother-in-law not the diet day.   The diet day has been relatively easy and the key to the “watching what I eat” portion of the day has been a combination of a natural plant substance that has been mixed with roughly 500 some odd chemicals, rolled into some slow burning paper, had a filter attached to it, and produces a sweet soothing, calming effect.  That’s right, I’m talking about cigarettes.  I know how bad they are for me, I know they cause cancer, I know I’m slowly shedding years off of my life, but if your day has been the steaming pile of llama turds that mine has been then there is nothing quite as great as a good cigarette.

I won’t get into all of the specifics of the insanity that constantly bombarded me and Katie all day (because that is more fitting for my other blog) but it was one of those days when your mother-in-law drives you to the brink of insanity and you just want to binge eat.  If I would’ve allowed myself, I probably would’ve eaten Bacon Cheeseburger Alfredo Milkshakes.  Katie would’ve done the same minus the burger part, I’m sure she would’ve been content with just a Bacon Shake.  Stress always makes me want to do one or two of five things:

1.       Eat to the point where I can no longer see my feet

2.       Practice being a supermodel and starve

3.       Smoke cigarettes until my lungs hurt and my mouth tastes like a bum’s dirty bunghole

4.       Have some strong drinks courtesy of the good Captain Morgan

5.       This option’s not legal in TN yet, so you’ll just have to guess

Doesn't this just scream, "Kill me faster!!"

Today I wanted nothing more than to do all but #2…all at once.  Luckily I restrained myself and only stuck with #3 and smoked half a pack.  Every time I wanted to eat something I just stuck a delicious Marlboro Light (or as they are now known in their more politically correct name, Marlboro Gold.  Which, by the way, does anyone actually call them that?  I like the look of the new Marlboro Black pack, it makes me think that I’ll for sure get lung cancer) in my mouth.  I did eat though but only the daily requirements for my diet and I ate 59 steamed shrimps, 2 cups of spinach, 1 cup of broccoli, a handful of baby carrots, and some cauliflower.  Today was the first time I’ve ever eaten raw cauliflower and hopefully the last.  I felt like I was eating elf warts and it’s exactly what it tasted like too.

As for Katie, since this was her mother that was wreaking havoc on life it made today that much harder for her.  She probably doubled my cigarette intake and she broke down and ate a teaspoon of peanut butter!!!  That sounds so ridiculous to even say, but her diet is hardcore on that stuff.  I doubt there will be any side effects and if there is then I call b.s. on the entire program. 

So what did I learn today?

·         Cigarettes make a great dietary supplement

·         Cauliflower tastes and looks like elf warts

·         A mother-in-law on a rampage makes a diet hard and you’ll want a teaspoon of peanut butter

·         Tomorrow is a new day and hopefully less cigarettes and cauliflower will be consumed.

Day 2: Cabbage, Water, and other things to make you hate yourself

Like this except less gay and
only mildly attracted to Mark
Whalberg

Day 2 is at a close and I sit here at 2:43 in the morning to hash this out.  For me today was a little easier, I went to the gym first thing this morning and I worked it out like a freak (or as freaky as a man my size can).  I did 50 minutes of cardio and did a lot of lifting.  By the time I was done I was human mush, I could barely move my arms, my body was void of energy, and I left a sweat puddle in the sauna that could be confused with a small pond.  The gym has been a vital component that I’ve missed over the past few weeks.  At the end of last year, I was at the gym 6 or 7 days a week, 2 hours a day.  Then a dose of life happened and I was in the hospital for a week and on home health care for 18 days.  I felt like Philip Seymour Hoffman in Boogie Nights minus the gay tendencies:  I was fat, out of shape, and felt wildly inadequate.  The working out is what I’ve been wanting more than the diet, the diet of course is an important component but the gym is going to be my saving grace.

The conclusions I can draw from today are:

·         Water may be good for you, but drinking over 100 ounces of it makes you feel like a whale that has forgotten how to swim.  It’s like drowning inside of your own body.

·         Cucumbers are only tasty when they have been soaked in some sort of brine or vinegar and spices and turned into a pickle.  Otherwise they are tasteless, gag-reflex-inducing, little circles of green garbage.

·         Panini makers actually double as fantastic tools to grilling chicken.  We don’t have an actual grill, we’re not supposed to fry it (because that would be counter-productive to the whole diet thing), and baking it makes it devoid of all moisture and yumminess.

·         Also an addendum to the water thing.  It gives you a completely unsatisfied feeling of being full.  You think to yourself, “I’d love to eat something with taste” but then you realize that your stomach has been turned into 6^th Great Lake and has no room for any other substance.

·         Veggies still suck

·         I’d rather watch Ron Jeremy get a rectal exam than eat or smell cabbage again.

Cabbage or Ron Jeremy getting a medical
procedure?  Sadly, I'll watch the rectal exam

Tonight I’ve had to address this veggie issue, so I bit the bullet and went out and bought broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, asparagus, and about an acre’s worth of spinach and greens.  Mmmmm, I can’t wait to gag down the first fist full of green leafs.  I don’t know how to cook any of this crap so I guess I’m just going raw, but I’d figure I couldn’t cook it anyway since neither Katie nor I can have any butter or oils. 

Speaking of Katie, she did well today.  She kept herself insanely busy all day but then ran out of gas around 7pm and lost all energy.  The only major mishap of the day was her attempt at boiling cabbage.  I guess she didn’t realize that when you boil cabbage you can’t turn it on full blast heat and walk away for 45 minutes.  I passed by the kitchen and I felt like my nose was being raped.  The smell of scorched cabbage is akin to cat vomit rolled around in motor oil with a 10 gallon bag of farts squeezed into it.  Not surprisingly, it also tastes exactly like that as well.  Cabbage is one of those things I’ll not be touching during this diet.

I think we all know that there is nothing
inside that blue raisin pouch

I better wrap this up for the night because I’ve got to get up in 4 hours to do it all over again.  Dammit, I just want some liposuction and some horse steroids….scratch that, I don’t want to go out like Kanye West’s mom and I don’t want my balls to be confused with raisins. 

Day 1: The beginning of hell and the quest to be less fat

Over the next 40 days (at least) I’m going to chronicle the diabolical, hellacious, unforgiving regimen of dieting.  I’m restarting Timothy Ferriss’s 4 Hour Body Diet where I eat nothing but tuna, grilled chicken, veggies, and beans.  No sweet, sweet sugary cinnamon buns, no decadent chocolate cake, no creamy milkshakes, nothing of any deliciousness will be allowed to enter my body.  I say restart because I tried this at the beginning of this year and stuck with it for about 10 days before giving in when I was being constantly bombarded by chocolate and biscuits and good stuff….and then I started again a few weeks later.  Unfortunately for me on day 3 I noticed that it was Cadbury Egg season and I can’t resist those delicious, creamy, chocolate shells of mysterious goo. 

I’m ready to start again inspired by my wife’s recent decision to start the controversial HCG diet (or as I affectionately call it the Ethiopian Diet with shots).  I read through all of her information detailing the painstaking torturous diet she was about to embark and realized that there would be less food in the house and it would be an opportune time for me to kick in with my diet as well.  I found that the ingredients to our diets were similar; protein, veggies, and enough water to hydrate the entire state of Rhode Island.  The main differences are that she gets only a restricted amount of veggies, a parakeet’s mouthful of meat, and a two fruits a day plus shots of HCG, B12, and Lipovite.  I get to eat all the veggies I want (which benefits me very little considering my absolute disdain for them), I can eat lean meat all day, beans, beans, and more beans but I get no fruit.  Needless to say these diets are going to be enough to kill two people who have an insatiable love affair with food so I thought it would be fun and quite possibly keep me honest if I kept a daily log of our ups and downs, trials and tribulations, and absolute misery of our weight loss journey.  I will try to make this as unboring as possible and be completely honest in the entire endeavor.  So that’s the introduction to this thing, so here we go.

Katie got to start on the HCG shots two days ago but she also got to do the only fun thing of her whole diet.  The first two days consist of gorging yourself to the point of hating food.  The pamphlet calls it “priming the fat cells”.  When Katie read that portion she asked, “What the hell am I priming my fat cells for?”  “The upcoming Armageddon that your body is getting ready to endure my dear” I told her.  She took full advantage of the “priming” and ate fried green tomatoes, chocolate cherry cheesecake, pizza, fettuccine alfredo, and  other horrible heart clogging delights.  Aww but today was a new day, today was the start of her strict 500 calorie per day veggie/meat/2 fruit dilemma.  Her day started late, and I do mean super duper late.  One the downfalls of the HCG is that it makes your tired, extremely tired.  Luckily she doesn’t start back to work for two more weeks so she can afford the luxury of sleeping until 1 pm.  To be fair she did get up at 6 am to give her first injection of the day.  I asked her why she didn’t just stay up at that point and she told me that she needed as few hours in the day as possible otherwise she’d be thinking of nothing but eating for the rest of the day.   

I started out with just drinking coffee, mainly because I was too lazy to make some bacon (how awesome is that?  Bacon in my diet!!)  I find that as long as I keep myself busy, I won’t get to hungry and luckily for me but unluckily for my son, he had to be picked up from school because he got sick and my morning was spent with tending to him and taking him to the doctor.  I didn’t get to eat until after 1pm and grilled Katie and I some chicken and made her the first plate of completely measured out and weighed veggies.  I was fine but Katie looked at it with the look of a kid being told for the first time that there is no Santa Claus.  I looked at the plate of diced up cucumbers like a plate of AIDS and skipped it and just ate more chicken.

Katie’s dietician explained when she went for the initial consultation for this HCG thing that the first week would be the equivalent to the 7^th level of hell.  He told her that she would be in crying tears of starvation, that she would beg to quit, that she would try to trick people into giving her food, she would have zero energy,  and all and all would be a completely miserable, moody bitch.  Well on day one all of this diet all of that came into fruition.  After lunch she had me hide peanut butter and Nutella, I had to give away any cake or cookie mixes to her dad’s restaurant, and I had to deny her first Iced Caramel Dunkin Donuts latte.  By the time dinner rolled around (and I say dinner in the ironic sense possible), the kids were home.  Now it would be child abuse to make them do a diet like this so we are trying to feed them healthy but reasonable but Katie still can’t look at their food without drooling like Hooch.  So to avoid having to see real food, she had to eat her grilled chicken and cucumbers and get the hell out of the kitchen.  She went to the complete other side of the house to avoid seeing them eat their pizza.  By 9pm, she was resigned to give up.  “I can’t do this, it’s impossible, screw it I’m doing Weight Watchers!!”  At the beginning of this I had agreed with her that no matter what I wouldn’t let her quit and encourage her as much as possible.  So we argued momentarily about me getting her a cupcake in exchange for sexual favors and as hard as it was to not buy the cupcake I had to resist.  In the end I did convince her to finally keep up with it, so onward we pressed. 

As for myself, I’m having a decent time of it.  I’m trying to keep busy and not think about it.  I did all the laundry, dishes, swept, vacuumed, and did all the general maintenance around the house to avoid the thoughts of cheeseburgers.  When I graduated high school, I was a nice, well rounded, muscular 265 lbs.  Over the years I have ballooned up to 315 back to 285 to 300 to 290 and at the start of this I’m at 300 again.  I plan on sticking to it and exercising daily, although it will be hard.  I wrote down everything I ate for the day and noticed that the only thing close to a veggie that I ate was a black beans.  So tomorrow, I will resign myself to a commitment of pounding away at veggies until I want to throw up.  Here’s to being not skinny but a lot less fat!!