Stopping the skid

He drives with confidence

upshifting and downshifting

like a professional driver in a closed course

leaving a cloud of dust and a sportscar logo

in his wake

until he is distracted

second-guesses himself

overcorrects

and hits an unseen gravel patch

the mountain road he so expertly manuevered

becomes a terrifying track

as he struggles to regain traction

overcorrects

second-guesses himself

and for a moment

he takes his hands off the wheel

in panic

in surrender

but the moment passes

he regains composure

decides he will not give up

and let the force of physics drag him

over the edge and down to the valley floor

so he grits his teeth

grips the wheel

prays with the strained whispers

and unvoiced screams of a dying man

and tries to stop the skid

===

This is me, gripping the wheel and stopping the skid.

I don't have an official weight for you, but i think i gained back about half of what i lost.

I let a lingering foot injury and my own poor reactions to external stressors determine my actions, so I haven't been to the gym in weeks. I'll be there tomorrow morning at six.

Official weigh-in back on, on Monday.

Over Easter weekend, I'll be committing to a trainer/nutritionist. I need professional coaching if I'm going to succeed in these early stages of the journey back. I'm currently looking at my options. If you have suggestions, comment or email.

Day 1: Going back to basics. I need to win today.

Week 10, Day 2 Weigh-in

Week 10 Results
Starting Weight: 504.0 pounds
Previous Weight: 491.0 pounds
Current Weight: 491.6 pounds
Weight Change: +0.6 pounds
Total Weight Loss: 12.4 pounds

===

I've got nothing to say for myself. In almost three months, i've only lost 12 frigging pounds. Which would be fine for someone with 30 or 40 pounds to lose, but not for someone who really nees to lose more than 250 pounds.

This makes me sick.

Week 9, Day 2 Weigh-in: Grrrrazing.

Week 9 Results
Starting Weight: 504.0 pounds
Previous Weight: 490.2 pounds
Current Weight: 491.0 pounds
Weight Change: +0.8 pounds
Total Weight Loss: 13.0 pounds

===

Started out the week strong, then got side-tracked by:

• Taking my sister out for Chinese and not making smart choices
• Grazing on the little sweets and things available at a wedding
• Not resisting the temptation of getting some ice cream

I've been really, really hungry lately. I need to accept hunger as normal, rather than go out of my way to avoid it.

Week 8, Day 1 Weigh-in: Better.

Week 8 Results
Starting Weight: 504.0 pounds
Previous Weight: 494.6 pounds
Current Weight: 490.2 pounds
Weight Change: -4.4 pounds
Total Weight Loss: 13.8 pounds

===

This is better.

Week 7: Shame.

Hey.

I've been avoiding you, because I fell off the wagon. Fell hard. I got caught up in personal stress and emotional unsteadiness, and true-to-form, I ate. I put away the food journal, and I just went off the tracks.

I even went to a pizza buffet. I know. I can't believe it myself.

I had a brief moment of clarity during the pizza romp, though. There, during Plate #2, I was scarfing a slice of meatlover's pizza when I heard a quiet voice in my head saying, "Dave, this is what's killing you. This right here. This is killing you."

I tried to ignore it, tried to keep enjoying the pizza, and the voice got louder.

"DAVE. THIS IS WHAT'S KILLING YOU."

"But I like it," I tried to argue. "It tastes good."

"Does it really?"

...And I realized--no. It tasted pretty awful. But I was mindlessly eating it because that's how I suppress pain and confusion and stress. That's how I medicate. The kick of the sugars hitting my bloodstream makes it all feel better, at least for a while.

I pushed the plate away, left the pizza parlour, and went off into the night.

But that didn't get me back on track. That took longer. That took human intervention.

I have a coworker whom I have treated poorly, because I always misinterpreted her attempts to show care as hatred. She refuses to baby me about anything, so I always saw her as an opponent or nemesis. But she's been a faithful friend, who's been honest and confrontational with me when others shied away.

Today, as I walked to my office door, she said, through the next doorway, "We need to talk."

Never a good thing. I always get that metallic adrenaline surge when i hear those words. So I went into her office, and she said, "You're not pointing your food, are you?"

No choice but to cop to it. No, I'm not.

We talked it out, and she begged me to get back on track. I needed that.

My pattern, friends, is to hide. To avoid people who hold me accountable. This is self-destructive, because I know I need this kind of support and challenge. But I run, because I'm afraid of letting people down and being a disappointment.

Don't let me run. If you care about me at all, don't let me hide.

If I don't post my weigh-in info each week, email me. Call me. Text me. Chase me down in public. Remind me that you won't stand by and let me hide in the shadows.

I hate writing this, because it honestly feels weak. But I am weak. I need help. Please help me.

Week 7 Weigh-in Results:
Starting Weight: 504.0 pounds
Previous Weight: 490.4 pounds
Current Weight: 494.6 pounds
Weight Change: +4.2 pounds
Total Weight Loss: 9.8 pounds

Week 5, Day 2 Weigh-in: Not Really Super.

No change.

I had some momentum at my mid-week weigh-in, but I stumbled through the weekend, and ended up overdoing it on Saturday-Sunday. So.

No change. Still 490.4 (or .2, depending on how the scale is positioned). I'm trying to figure out how to place the scale properly, because my bathroom has slate floor (read: uneven), and where I place the scale affects what my weight reads. But I can't blame scale position for the lack of progress.

I've nailed down two big mistakes I keep making in my no-loss weeks:

1) Not filling out the food journal consistently. We've discussed this before.
2) Drinking calories.

Re: #2, last night after my Monday night Bible Study (a weekly commitment that seems to introduce more dangerous food into my apartment than anything else), I had a couple of two-liter bottles of full-cal soda in the fridge, one almost empty, the other more than half-full. I thought about leaving it, then pulled them out, dumped the almost empty one into the sink and opened the other one. Dr. Pepper--a big weakness of mine. I took one satisfied swig, may have even sighed audibly in satisfaction, then dumped the rest down the drain like an alcoholic trying to get clean. It can't be in my house. That's part of the reason I didn't lose any weight last week--I kept the soda in the house after Monday, and sucked it down throughout the week.

It's not just soda, though. Milk. Juice. I abuse these things, and consume liquid cals on a regular basis. A diet soda, with a Dr. Pepper refill here. A glass of milk to go with my peanut butter sandwich there. It's got to stop, because clearly it's not doing me any favors.

So let's try this for a week, kids: no-cal liquids only, with two exceptions: I have a low-cal Gatorade that I drink during workouts, because I sweat a lot and need to keep my salt levels right. And then I have a protein supplement drink after I work out. Beyond those? Water or no-cal soda only. No juices, no milk, and for goodness sake, no regular soda.

The more water I drink, the better i'll do, anyway.

I'll keep you posted.


Previous/Current Weight: 490.4 (+/-0.2) pounds.
Total Loss: 13.4 pounds

Dave's a Loser, Too: Post-Workout Blahs (a Waddling Bison After Dark pro...

In which I talk about setting goals, feeling worn down, dealing with emotional lows, and not giving up.

My beard is very red.

I say "um," "uh," and "so" a LOT.

(Musical intro: "Basic Instructions" by Burlap to Cashmere)

Cutting the String

I posted my new weight in the Weight Watchers counter thing, and it actually warned me that I'm losing weight too quickly. I mean, I understand that losing weight at alarming rates can have negative health effects, but really--I lost less than one percent of my body weight. I'll be okay.

I was looking at the website, and it has this progress graph. I reset it to show my progress from my first day with WW until now. Here's what I saw:
See, I joined WW in January of 2006. That's right, five years ago. I've been paying a membership fee for all this time, even the stretches where I didn't track anything. I considered that my "fat tax."

You can see there my very first "Week 2" weight. I lost ten pounds that first week. I ended up dipping down to just under 411 in July 2006, before bouncing back up. That's the lightest I've been in five years.

It's interesting, isn't it, to think about five years of your life. Struggles, victories, relationships gained and lost, lovers, enemies, apartments, houses, friends getting married, friends having babies, friends divorcing. Lots of time.

In that time, my weight, as you can see, has gone up and down. You can easily track the moments in which I recommitted to getting serious, and the times when I gave up and gave in. Little valleys, that eventually led to new peaks. Each of those little dips? About 10-15 pounds. I'd get serious, work hard, and then fade out. And get heavier. From January to July of 2006, I lost 61 pounds. Then gained it back. In January of 2007, I lost 15 pounds in three weeks, and then gained it all back. Over a month in the fall of that year, I lost about 25 pounds. Then gained it back. Over six months in 2009, I lost 25 pounds. Then gained it all back. (Incidentally, it turns out that when i started this latest trip on the weight-loss train, I was not my heaviest ever. In March of 2009, I actually logged a weight of 505. At least, that was my tracked number--who knows what my actual heaviest was.)

I am the living definition of a yo-yo dieter.

I'm sharing all this because I want you to see the pattern I'm seeing. I get a little success, and then stop trying. When I start putting the weight back on, I get frustrated and give up, and end up worse than when I started. I mean, look at that graph! That's bad news!

We've even seen it in me thus far this year, haven't we. First week: big loss. Second week: no loss. Third week: gain. And now, I'm almost at that magic 15-pound mark.

It's clear to me that I need accountability and I need to be called out by caring friends, so that I stop falling into these patterns. So I'm asking for help. I'm tired of being a yo-yo. Will you help me? Comment, email, text. Call me out on video if I start slacking off. Get my attention.

My goal weight, is about 3 full "squares" below that plotted line in that picture. Which means I need a lot more of these 4-pound weeks. I need to stay focused. I don't want to give up. I'm gonna do everything I can not to give up.

But I'm not going to be able to do this alone.

Week 4, Day 1 Weigh-in: Back on Track

Okay, this feels better.

Starting Weight: 504.0 pounds
Previous Weight: 495.0 pounds
Current Weight: 490.6 pounds
Week 4 Change: -4.4 pounds
Total Loss: 13.4 pounds

Yeah, I feel much better about that. Heading in the right direction. Would have been a little more, but the diet went kind of sideways on Sunday. Back to it today.

Overall, I'm doing okay. My ankle's still giving me some trouble, so I'm going to try to get in to see a podiatrist next week and make sure nothing nasty is going on. But I've been getting to the gym, though not as often as I want to.

But it's a new dawn and a new day. So let's get to work.

And I do apologize for not getting a video out this week. Look for one in the next couple of days, hopefully.

Waddle on, friends.

Week 3, Day 2 Weigh-in: Let's Just Get This Over With.

I gained a pound last week. Actually, i gained a little more than a pound.

No excuse, no blame. I'm mad at myself.

I know what went wrong. When I started upping my workouts, I fell into the trap of upping my food intake to (over)compensate, because i was hungrier more often. Also, my pledge to recommit to the food journal didn't last long.

Lesson: Working out makes you hungry. Don't overeat and nullify its benefits.

And KEEP. THE. FREAKING. FOOD. JOURNAL. Don't be an idiot like me.

===

So I'm going to take my own advice, and just focus on winning today.

I'll post something in video form later in the week.

Starting Weight: 504.0 pounds
Previous Weight: 493.8 pounds
Current Weight: 495.0 pounds
Week 3 Change: +1.2 pounds
Total Loss: 9.0 pounds

Dave's A Loser, Too: Week 2 Weigh-in Frustration (Vlog 4)

Heres ya go.

Week 3, Day 1: Weigh-in Frustration

So remember when I said I wasn't gonna back down after a strong first week? Yeah. I backed down. But I realize where my big mistakes were. I'll talk about that in the upcoming video. In the meantime, here are my frustrating weigh-in results:

Starting Weight: 504.0 pounds
Previous Weight: 494.2 pounds
Current Weight: 493.8 pounds
Week 2 Change: -0.4 pounds
Total Loss: 10.2 pounds

Yes, you read that right--4/10 of a pound. What is that, 6-7 ounces? So basically, no change. No gain, yes, but I don't have time for no-gain weeks.

Okay, video forthcoming. Back to work.

Dave's A Loser, Too: Addressing the "Biggest Loser" Discussion (Vlog 3)

A quick video addressing the "Biggest Loser" issue that Trevor brought up this week.

AND: I added a comment in Youtube to clarify this, but: About 2:45 into the video, I say that you can't wait for an outside savior to rescue you from being fat. And it's clear within the context that I'm talking specifically about weight loss and the tendency of people to look for outside fixers instead of trying to address their own issues. But this wasn't a theological statement, and I will be clarifying this in the future, so at least anyone following me on Youtube will hear a clearer statement about the "savior" question.

So, like, don't freak out on me and accuse me of apostasy, because that's obviously not what's being said. Thanks.

Dave's a Loser Too: Week 1 Results (Vlog 2)

Week 2 video!!! And I look funny in a hat! Enjoy!

Week 2, Day 1: Weigh-in

It's been an interesting week. It's definitely strange, getting back into the "write down everything, point everything" mindset. But it's very clear from the get-go that doing so makes you mindful of just what and how much you put in your body.

I will readily admit that I didn't write down every single thing, and had a couple of meals that went a little off the rails, but for the most part, i was militant. I'm ready to make war against this disease in me--not obesity, but laziness.

SO. Things are going well. God is good. (He'd be good even if things WEREN'T going well. I'm just sayin'.)

Okay, here's the number:

Starting Weight: 504.0 pounds
Week 2 Weight: 494.2 pounds
Weekly/Total Weight Loss: -9.8 pounds

Praise the Lord for that.

And how sad is it, with simply changing my diet (I've been sick so i haven't gotten back to the gym--will do so this week), I shed a tenner. It's like my body is so desperate to be healthy that it jumps on the chance to burn off the excess.

Okay, body. Imma help you out from now on.

Waddle on, thunderin' herd.