The Will.

A document that directs what to do after you’ve passed on.

I have one of those.  My kids, my wife, all will be well whenever that day comes, hopefully many, many years from now.

In this case, it’s the will to be better.  To eat healthier, to skip the large portions in favor of the smaller ones that will fill me sufficiently, satisfy me reasonably, and help me be the person I hope to be.

Not mentally – I’m him.  I love my family and my life and enjoy what I do every day.  What I don’t like is myself – physically.  I’m overweight and can’t climb a flight of stairs without being winded.  I’ve tried over and over again to fix this but have yet to succeed.  Every time I try I can’t help but think I’m past the point of no return and give up.  I have no will.  No Will Power.

How does one re-acquire that?  I mean, I’m sure I had it at one point.  Several years ago I lost 30+ pounds by changing my diet and exercising regularly.  That was before kids, but am I blaming it on the kids?  It’s not their fault.  It’s mine.  It’s not sweets and sugars and such – I’m not a big fan of chocolate and desserts and all that.  What I need to watch is my regular eating.  I like food.  I am of the opinion that I need a full plate (or two) to be satisfied.  I don’t seem to have the will to change this.  I need to find it.  I need to find it now.  But how?  It sucks.

Around Thanksgiving I was somehow not feeling right.  It was nothing I could particularly put my finger on, but something was definitely off.  I knew I’d gotten to a point where I was genuinely worried about my weight and my overall health, but there was nothing especially alarming that supported that feeling, nor did my doctor think I had a lot to worry about.  Sure, he wanted me to eat better and lose weight, and we’d just gotten through several tests that determined I have severe sleep apnea, but really, overall, the status was definitely quo.

I went to the doctor the day after Thanksgiving to see if anything else was wrong, and of course, it wasn’t.  However, that was enough to give me a kick in the pants once and for all.  I can’t eat and/or drink with a sense of invincibility like I did when I was 23.  Exercise didn’t count if it was walking from my cubicle to the bathroom and back once every three hours.  Footlong clubs with extra mayo wasn’t the healthy eating the Subway commercials talked about.

I started eating fruit regularly, vegetables as much as possible, and even had a (non-low-sodium) V8, which was pretty much a salt lick.  I’ve been doing pretty well, especially considering the timing of my bodily renovation, with holiday turkeys and cookies and work lunches to celebrate dotting the calendar and stretching my belt.  I will say, however, that I’ve been successful.  I’ve been on the treadmill at least 4 times a week since then.  I don’t know that I’ve lost as much weight as I’d hoped – maybe just about 6 or 8 pounds, but I can really tell the difference every morning I get to the third notch in the belt, instead of busting my butt to squeeze into the second notch.

Today time constraints led me to an unhealthy breakfast.  Holiday celebration led me to a calorie-filled lunch, then I recovered nicely with salmon, green beans and long grain and wild rice for dinner, only to top it off with a few handfuls of chips while sitting on the recliner watching TV.  Let’s also not gloss over the four beers.

For the first time ever in any health kick I’ve been on, I honestly felt bad about it.  I didn’t eat well, but it wasn’t specifically because of that.  More so, it was because of the realization that this is the exact same kind of thing that derailed me so often in the past.  A fast food trip here.  A delay of exercising there.  Next thing I know I’ll be back up over 260 and hating the walk to my car every day.  This is exactly how I fall back in the rut – by allowing myself a “bad” day.

I just hope that this time I have the will power, and more importantly, the self-respect to hop back on the wagon again tomorrow.

Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

Regards,

phenom