Poor little Donald

Screaming about the vote

“They’ve stolen the election

Now the Democrats will gloat.”

Poor little Donald

Filling ears with lies

“I only need 11,000 votes

Come on and help me, guys.”

Angry little Donald

Gives yet another speech

“They stole your votes,

They lied to you.”

And his followers said, “Preach.”

They marched upon the Capitol

They battered down the door

They busted through the windows

To even up the score

“I’ll be there with you,” said the Donald

But they didn’t know he’d lied

He was nowhere near the building

On the day that Sicknick died.

They say he laughed with joy and cheered

Watching it on screen

He never seemed to care that much

About other human beings.

His followers screamed for blood

And smeared feces on the wall

While the terrified lawmakers hid

Within those hallowed halls.

What a day for white supremacists

Trying to steal votes

From black and brown Americans

Because Trump’s loss got their goat.

Donald said he’d won

So they tried to make it true

Why make a white man suffer

When there’s minorities to screw?

To this very day they tell their lies

That the election wasn’t fair

They damaged our democracy

Not that they even care.

May Trump go down in history

As a whiny little brat

He wasn’t much as president

But he certainly was that.

I know it’s still early, but Miya Ponsetto is definitely my nominee for Ms. Entitled America 2021. In an interview with Gayle King, Miya asserted that she was just as traumatized and equally as young as the young man she attacked, though we all know, at the end of the day, she is still an adult who jumped a child. I particularly appreciated the moment she held up a hand to shush Ms. King, an action that likely would have earned me, and probably Gayle, a smack in the face from an elder in our youth. Ahh the good old days.

Being a bit of a history buff, I appreciate those days for what they have to teach us. For example, I recently read a book by Carol Anderson called White Rage. I highly recommend it. Early in the book Anderson explains the events of post Civil War America, painting a vivid picture of that moment in history. Some say that Reconstruction would have been different if Lincoln hadn’t been assassinated, but we’ll never know. Booth shot Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, a Southerner ascended to the presidency.

It was a pivotal moment in American history. How would these newly freed people be integrated into American society? Perhaps, if Lincoln had lived, there would have been long denied education and land grants to help people become self sufficient. Instead Johnson’s sympathies lay with poor whites and he gave them land, including the land that the Union army had gifted to former slaves. He also offered pardons to those who had fought against the United States and generally spent his energies aiding the Southern whites he identified with.

Along with other factors, this empowered Southern whites to govern their own states again without a plan for our newest citizens. Instead we allowed the former rebels to rejoin the Union and rule once again over people they had already previously enslaved. In their mad desire to control the black population they made laws, the Black Codes. that, aside from allowing whites to kill blacks with impunity effectively made the ex slaves little more than slaves still, now tied to sharecropping the land.

If you read you will learn, or already know, that this led us down a road that we never should have chosen to trod. We had a moment in history. We had citizens that could have enriched our society and our country if we would just invest in their future. Make no mistake these people had skills useful for commercial purposes, not just the Plantation. There were other people calling for a different Reconstruction. Not everyone supported the idea that if 10% of a state took the Loyalty Oath they should be admitted back to the Union without consequence. There were people who wanted to educate and give land to and generally help us to fulfill the fabled American Dream for a new group of citizens.

It didn’t matter. Whatever talk happened in living rooms and court rooms and the back rooms of the times, in the end a whole bunch of black people ended up dead and that went on for a really long time. Read something if you didn’t know. Richard Wright paints a striking portrait of black life in the early 20th century in Black Boy. He tells a story about staying with an uncle who was a successful business owner until the local whites murdered him and ran the rest of the family out of town.

We know! The lynchings, the redlining, the Jim Crow, we know what we did! The earth here is soaked with their blood and the blood of others. You know. The Native Americans, Latinos and Asians. Poor whites asking for a better reward for their labors than the superiority of a lighter skin. Anyone who cried out for justice against the commercial interests.

When I first thought about what I wanted to say I thought I was just going to compare history to our current situation. The road we chose way back when we ourselves didn’t choose, led us through years of Emmett Till and Malcom X and Fannie Lou Hamer, and we know. Black people have never been given a fair and equal chance to fully participate in our Democracy and it truly has led to this day.

Back in 1865 we were way more worried about pleasing a group of powerful white men than we were about truth and justice. We know that there was nothing wrong with the ballots and that people voted Trump out because he is a bad man, but some people believe so strongly that they have invaded our nation’s Capitol leaving dead in their wake. We know. Now we hear people excusing and diverting in a vain attempt to evade the truth. Five people are dead because an unstable, selfish man lost an election and made up a lie to make himself feel better. We know.

I don’t want to talk about those hateful people because it’s not about black and white anymore. It never really was. It was always about right and wrong. It was wrong to have slaves and it was wrong to be a completely racist society and to continue to allow systemic racism and white supremacy to rule our country up until today. Am I wrong? If you think I am wrong and it is because you believe the Civil Rights Movement “fixed” the problem, I wonder if you saw the footage of the BLM protest compared to the Trump riot.

Sigh. I know “Fake news!” Or you already know. We know. We see the danger signs and we think about what we should do. I am not crying for impeachment and arrests and all that because nobody needs to hear me say that. When I began I thought I wanted to demand that we stop our systemic racism against black people once and for all because we always could have made better decisions, but we’ve been too fearful of powerful whites. Morals and decency were always too costly.

Then I thought I wanted to talk about unity, but we need to stop pretending that everything is okay now and figure out how we are going to truly come together as one nation from all different backgrounds and to hell with anyone who doesn’t want to do that. We could make this country great. If you are in a position of power, be a fair and decent human being and do your job regardless of the person you are serving. That is not what has been happening and it’s time we just faced it and dealt with it so we could move on.

When I started I knew I wanted to say that if we had walked a better road after slavery we would be in a much better place now. We would truly be making a great country and we wouldn’t have to walk around in red hats to do it. I would like to call for unity, but the ground is soaked with the blood of people killed by the antecedents of the same ones who stormed the Capitol. We turned a blind eye to the bully because he didn’t look threatening to us. Did you read The Hangman?

I want unity, but I want unity with people who want to make America great by demanding that our principles of freedom and justice hold for every person in our land and not just for some. If you can stand one more example from history I watched Trump’s 4th of July speech from Mt. Rushmore and I thought about Hitler. I know that is not original, but it is always worth a mention that Hitler set up enemies of the State and Trump started his list with the press and the Left, and now even Mike Pence has made it.

His supporters are confronting people in public. Make no mistake. I hold life sacred. I will not encourage hate and confrontation, but the danger is clear and good people have a responsibility to make our voices heard.

What kind of country do you want? Do you want to live in Trump’s America? “When good men are silent . . .” Do you remember? When I was young American meant white. We have a long history of pretending this country only belongs to certain people when this country belongs to everyone who has found their way here. Let’s start working on that. Together.

Brutus was a free dog, a five year old rescue when I got him.  At the time I worked with a lady who was fond of pointing out that her dog was an expensive purebred of champion stock.  That inspired me to write this poem.  When I read it again I smiled and remembered because it was true and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Brutus

My dog is not a champion

Or even very smart

Yet he always has

A place that’s special in my heart.

He scratches ‘cos his skin is dry

His coat can show some spots

Sometimes his dark brown fur

Has a lot of small white dots.

He snores and snuffles and coughs up stuff

With other dogs he plays too rough

That causes fights in doggy parks

With lots of growls and angry barks.

 

My dog is not a champion

But he loves me very much.

He cuddles close beside me ‘cos he likes to feel my touch.

He follows me from room to room

Or just lies on the bed

Covering the sheets

With all the fur he shed.

We take long walks together

And sometimes we will run

But tug of war for him

Is the thing he finds most fun.

My dog is not a champion

But he doesn’t have to be

I love him ‘cos he is

A faithful friend to me.

 

My dog, Brutus, is dying.  He has an enlarged heart and bad kidneys.  Back at the end of July I found out about his heart.  In mid-December, he stayed three nights in the hospital because his kidneys were failing.

It doesn’t seem fair.  He’s only seven and I’ve had only had him for two years.  Well, it will be two years twenty days from now.  And he’s already dying.  For the past three nights he has coughed and gasped through the night.  The sounds would quiet and I would have hope and then they’d start again.

A couple of days ago he started coughing and gasping through his days as well.  It breaks my heart to have him come to me and touch me with his paw as though he is asking me to do something.  Why not?  I am the one who feeds his hunger, who gives affection, and takes him for walks.  I am his caregiver, but now I am helpless to give him what he needs.

Part of the problem is, I don’t know what he needs, and I mean that in the worst possible way.  Right now he’s eating and he wants to go out, but he is clearly suffering as well.  It seems as though he can’t rest because when he tries to rest he can’t breathe.  That can’t go on for long.  When I see him coughing through the night, looking at me as though begging me to make him feel better, I think I should put him to sleep and end his suffering.  Then he eats a bit of chicken and wants to go for a walk and I think I shouldn’t end his life while it is still viable.

It is a terrible dilemma, an unanswerable question.  Once he is put to sleep there’s no going back.  It is a final decision.  I can think that I should wait, but that is to watch him suffering without relief.  When does the scale tip?  Do I wait for him to stop eating or moving entirely so his last hours are absolute misery or do I send him on while he can still have a final good meal, a final walk?

This is the point where I stopped writing yesterday.  Brutus was sitting beside me, panting hard.   Writing had clarified the situation.   I called the vet and made an appointment for this morning.  Then last night around seven he jumped up and ran out to bark at the neighbor dogs again.  When he came back, he was breathing really heavily.  He sat in front of me and his eyes kept closing and opening again as though he was very, very sleepy.  This is it, I thought and called the vet.

They were able to take him.  I stayed in the room until the final injection.  I sat with him afterwards and said good-bye.  There was comfort in the fact that the vet told me he probably wouldn’t have made it through the night in his condition.

Today I miss him and I cry a bit, but I also reflect on the lessons I have learned.  Buddhism teaches that life has duality.  There is no happiness if there is no suffering.  Neither can exist without the other.  I loved Brutus deeply and I believe he bonded to me just as strongly in his doggy way.  We all die.  To love deeply will eventually end in deep pain for the one remaining.  Would I refuse the love because of the pain?  The love was worth this pain, as fleeting as the time that he and I shared was.

And that’s another lesson.  I am a procrastinator.  There’s always tomorrow, only there isn’t.  I didn’t want to write this because I said, no, it’s too soon, but I have learned the lesson and told myself, do it.  Why wait?

I have wanted to take Brutus on a trip to a pet friendly place for a while now.  I finally booked the room and was going there January 17.  As it turns out, January 17 will be the first day I can pick up Brutus’s ashes from the vet.  He loved the beach and he loved to ride in the car, but I thought I had plenty of time to take him.  Obviously, I never did.

I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t drink in 2018.  My childhood was rough.  I was very fat because once upon a time I used food to block the pain.  Eventually, I found liquor and other drugs work equally well.  They have the same power to numb so that the pain recedes.  Food lost its allure some time ago.  Without that promise, perhaps I would have turned to alcohol again.  Instead I am stuck with feeling this pain.

I don’t want it, I don’t like it, but allowing myself to feel it shows me that I can bear it.  I can face it and I can learn from it and I can let it make me a better person instead of running away.

When I was very young, I heard the story of King Solomon.  God offered him any gift and he asked for wisdom, which pleased God greatly.  He could have had riches, power, anything he desired and he asked for wisdom.  ‘That is what I would ask for’, I thought, as a child.  ‘I would ask for wisdom’.

It is the law of life that wisdom comes far more frequently from pain than from pleasure.  So often we think that we should avoid pain and seek pleasure, but so often the lessons are in the pain and our pleasures keep us from being who we might otherwise be.  I have lived this truth.  Today I do not like the pain but I let myself feel it.  Today I choose wisdom.  He was only a dog, but his life meant something and I’m going to make sure that it does.

 

I like to drink tequila.  I have not made a secret of that.  Nor have I made a secret of the fact that I am capable of drinking copious amounts.  Being a binge drinker can be different from being an alcoholic, but, sadly, the health consequences can be very similar.

Weight is the attention getter for me.  I lost a tremendous amount of weight and ended up putting back on about 70 pounds of it.  When I drink I eat.  Pizza, burgers, wings, nachos, all the greasy, fatty food.  Beer and carrot sticks?  Yuk.

So 70 pounds later, give or take, I am at a crossroads.  My goal for 2018 is to just to not drink at all.  Not my birthday, not holidays, not a drop in 2018.  The purpose of complete abstinence is to change my mindset and remind myself that alcohol need not be an integral part of life.

Alcohol is ubiquitous in our culture.  If you google binge drinking, you will see that the statistics are frightening.    https://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/drugs-alcohol/difference-between-binge-drinking-and-alcoholism.htm.  This page says that “More than half the alcohol consumed in the United States is downed in binges . . .”  Other sources say older adults are drinking more alcohol and more inclined to binge drink according to statistics.  One page showed a CNN video saying that 1 in 10 deaths for people between the ages of 18 and 64 is caused by excessive drinking.

I am not suggesting a new Prohibition.  I’m glad that marijuana is no longer illegal and I don’t think Prohibition works.  I am questioning if we are right to have such a relaxed attitude towards intoxicants or if we need to give it more thought.

In my time, starting at the age of 12, I’ve had weed, alcohol, mushrooms, mescaline, cocaine, downers, and crank.  Once started, it was just a natural part of the growing up process.  At times in my life I have not used anything.  In fact, most of my drug consumption over time has been weed or alcohol.  As I said, sometimes nothing at all.

Once when I wasn’t drinking, or doing anything else, I had lunch with some people who all ordered Margaritas.  They expressed surprise that I didn’t drink and how good drinking was.  I just found that interesting from the standpoint that drinking was such an important thing that they couldn’t conceive of a person not drinking.  Why not?

I will end my meandering and come to the point.  Alcohol is not an important part of life.  Sometimes it is a destructive part and you should just leave it alone.  That is why I challenged myself.  No alcohol in 2018.

My trainer, Trung, is a pain in the ass.  Like any good trainer he always challenges me and doesn’t cut me any slack.  “What’s your accountability?” he asked.  “You say you aren’t going to drink.  If you do drink, what’s your accountability?”

Blogging is my accountability.  I’ve sent it out into the internet space that I won’t drink in 2018.  I will blog, not too wordily, about my progress.  Thanks for helping hold me accountable.  Thinking and reading tell me that alcohol isn’t just a harmless indulgence.  I want to step back and give it its proper place.  Perhaps at the end of the year I will decide that it is better to let it go for good.  In any case, I know that binge drinking is a really bad choice and I am not going to indulge again.

Unfortunately, like far too many of us, I was poorly parented.  In my case, this resulted in weighing almost 400 pounds.  Not blaming my parents, just saying where my own neurosis led me.

I was one of the fortunate few to find my way out of hyper-obesity, though it has not been an easy road.  I got down to 163, had surgery to remove the excess skin on my stomach, and ended up back at 220.  What I struggle with is my own habits of mind and taste.  I grew up with the typical American high fat diet.  My tastes still run to cheeseburgers and pizza although I try to avoid those a little bit more than I used to.  Sadly, I have a taste for alcohol, which does not help keep the weight down.  Just say no is harder than it sounds.

Trung, my trainer, always says that you have to have a goal because that is what helps motivate you to behave in a particular way.  That’s a paraphrase. Recently, he has been challenging me on what I want to do with my life.  I think I figured it out, which is why I needed to start blogging again.

Being fat sucks.  Maybe not for everyone, but it did for me.  I know that one thing I want to do with my life is have the healthiest body I possibly can, not for vanity, but for mobility and longevity.  I know I want to communicate to people that they aren’t stuck being overweight if they are not happy.  There is a way to lose weight if you really want to.

I also want to communicate that the path isn’t always smooth and flawless.  You can put some back on.  You could put it all back on if you let yourself go there.  I wanted to blog to communicate and to keep myself honest so that I stop letting habit dictate who I am and who I will be.  I told my friend, Kim, that if I got back to 250, I would be ashamed because I had this chance and I worked so hard and then I just threw it away.  For what?

It’s not the number on the scale, it’s the person I want to be.  I have been someone who does not like to put myself out there and face rejection, but that is really no way to live.  I turn 54 this year.  My life is passing.  I do want it to have meaning.

My dream is to run a summer program for overweight teens at my high school.  The program would focus on educating for a healthy lifestyle and I’d like to continue with weekly meetings during the school year.  When I think about doing something then I think I can’t do it, but I need to try anyway.  I actually have some plans in place so if I work there’s no reason why it can’t happen.

The thing that has the most meaning for me is to help other people.  I don’t know why it satisfies me so deeply, but it actually does.  When I first got my weight down so low I wanted to help other people lose weight, but it didn’t seem that my experience ended up helping anybody.  Maybe I just quit too soon.  Perhaps there is something worthwhile in sharing my struggles.  Well, I’m going to try.

I have been thinking a lot lately about paradigm shifts.  It’s funny that I have been thinking about that because I have long disliked the word paradigm.  It always seemed to me one of those phony baloney words people threw around to sound smarter than they actually are.  Then I read Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and I actually understood that word for the first time, which made it way less annoying.

Basically, it is a word about how you think about the world.  Your mindset.  That way of seeing is what affects your decisions and your actions.

So why do I care?  Losing the weight was only the beginning.  After I lost, I found myself indulging in some of the same behaviors that had gotten me into that mess to begin with.  Such as?  Pre-weight loss I was very very fat.  I weighed 370 plus.  Every weekend I drank.  I started Friday night and I finished up on Sunday.  Sometimes the drinking crept into Monday night, especially if I had a meeting at work that day.

My recycle bin was so full of wine and liquor bottles that at times I was embarrassed.  I could finish up more than a 750 milliliter bottle of vodka or tequila in a couple of days.  My favorite drink was a deadly concoction of red wine, sour apple liqueur, cranberry juice and vodka.  I was killing myself slowly and a part of me knew it.  The back pain around where I figured my kidneys would be told me I was not doing my body any good.

I was also getting fatter.  The empty calories of liquor is only one problem.  When you drink to excess you also eat, and the food you want is not usually healthy.  At the time I am describing my menu was pretty open.  I recall a fondness for Cheezits, good to munch with a cocktail.  Other favorites were cheeseburgers, fried chicken, and my beloved Chinese food.  This was the lifestyle I gave up when I started working out.

Recently, an occasional drink was turning into the same type of binge drinking that led to my health and mobility problems.  While my capacity is less now, excessive drinking still leads to eating.  The weight started to creep up.  160’s to 170 to 180 until I saw 190 plus on the scale, a number I thought I had left behind forever.   Trung suggested I ask myself why I drink.  I did ask, but that alone wasn’t the cure all.

Why does anyone drink?  It certainly appears to relieve stress, or at least you don’t care much about the things that stress you anymore.  Then there’s the buzz.  That delightful buzz as long as it doesn’t turn into spinning and nausea.  It’s been a long time since a room spun for me so the buzz remains delightful.  As someone on the tail end of the baby boom, I can assure you, we like to get high.  Weed, coke, crank, mescaline, mushrooms, and, of course, liquor.  It’s surprising I remember my youth so well and yet, I do.  Especially the constant partying that many of the people I grew up with seemed to be indulging in.

I guess you could say my paradigm was, getting high is good.  I need a drink.  I want to unwind.  Let’s go for cocktails.  The other drugs have been out of my life for a long time, but my old friend, liquor, legal and easy to purchase remains my drug of choice.  But now it was making me fat again.  I needed a paradigm shift.

Even Trung’s nagging was not having the desired affect.  We seemed to be drifting apart, and indulging my desires, long suppressed for the purpose of weight loss, seemed more important than our previously successful partnership.  He put me on the scale every session.  I bounced around between 183 and 192 with a one time high of 194.  I’m just a big disappointment to him anyway, my reasoning went.  As long as I can keep it below 200 what’s the problem?

One Sunday a friend called and asked me to meet her.  I had a drink before I left the house.  It had been my practice to buy a couple of shots or a half pint to control the amount I drank, but there was still some left in a bottle I had bought because I had company.  When I got to the restaurant I had several cocktails accompanied by several shared plates of bar food.  I was already pleasantly high, but I kept drinking anyway.  I was numb and everything was distant, even my friend.

That day just didn’t feel right.  Why did I continue drinking after I was really not going to derive any additional benefit from it?  My grandfather was an alcoholic.  I have been aware of that fact my whole life.  If I am not an alcoholic, which I don’t believe myself to be, why would I drink liquor in such copious amounts?  The knowledge that alcohol is a poison wouldn’t leave my mind.  For some reason, on that day it became clear to me what I was doing to my body when I drank more than was necessary.  Perhaps Trung’s words were even having their desired, albeit delayed, affect.

I did think about him as I got on the scale that Monday and saw that I weighed 196.  Four pounds away from the dreaded 200!  At the very least I didn’t want to hear I told you so.  And I do not want to weigh 200.   As an adult I had never  weighed less than 205, and that was a weight I stayed at for one very brief moment in time as a very young adult.  I was 51 before I dropped below 200 pounds and I want to stay on this side of it until I die.

Somehow 196 made me see that I could weigh 200 again if I didn’t stop.  That day was July 4.  Independence Day.  That day I decided to declare my independence from liquor by taking a break and not drinking again for at least a month.  I decided to include fast food and sweets in the ban just because they were other habits I had begun to feel too comfortable indulging in with too much frequency.

The main culprit with sweets was donuts.  One Sunday I decided to stop and get a donut.  That’s okay.  An occasional donut or cheeseburger is not going to wreck your life.  Again, the problem became that donut was starting to turn into a weekly habit.  A habit that would not help me stay healthy or keep my weight down where I wanted it to be.

In a moment of clarity, I saw that my weight loss has to have some meaning beyond myself.  For a long time, I have wanted to help people see that they can change habits and lose weight if that is what they want to do.  How could I send that message if I was not able to live it myself?  So no sweets and no fast food until August 4 because I don’t need them.  Liquor?  I realized stronger measures were necessary against the real enemy.  It has no redeeming nutritional value, no real benefit for my body.  I won’t be drinking again until I weigh 160 or less.

Even if I choose to indulge at some point, there must be a paradigm shift.  I’m pretty sure Trung figured I wasn’t listening, but I was.  One thing he talked about was about choices being related to the person we want to be, the type of life we wish to live.  Does excessive drinking fit in with the way I want to be remembered?  I am absolutely sure that it does not.  Another idea that resonated with me is that everything that you do should have a purpose.  What is the purpose of taking a drink?  What is the purpose of not drinking at all?

The Bible says if you receive a lot, a lot is required of you.  I did receive a second chance by the opportunity to lose such a large amount of weight.  If all I can do with my new life and body is see how much I can eat and drink without gaining  then I am throwing away a gift I’ve been given.  If I am going to teach that you can control your desires and manage your weight if you choose then I have to live that way as well.

I still think about drinking, but I did experience a paradigm shift that day.  I didn’t drink on July 4th and it wasn’t that hard because I realized that it was my choice to make.  My mindset had been the desire was stronger than me and eventually I would yield to temptation.  It finally clicked that I am stronger than the desire and the way I live every day is always my choice to make.  If I want to get certain results then my choices need to be in line with those desired results.  If I want to be a healthy person, and I do, I need to make the choices that a healthy person would make.  And that is the lesson Trung has been teaching me all along.

 

 

Although they are similar, maintaining a weight loss requires a different skill set than losing it.  Or perhaps a different mindset.  It’s just different, okay?

Why do people who have been successful at weight loss regain it?  Getting to the goal weight is the first process.  It’s exciting, it’s fun, it’s clear.  People tell you how great you look.  You feel great.  Carrying 200 extra pounds definitely does not feel good, at least in my experience.  So when the extra starts to drop off, your body feels better.  I found a journal entry where I had gone from 379 to 359 and I was already talking about how much better I felt because just that 20 pounds made a difference.

During the weight loss process, you will probably avoid or severely restrict alcohol, sweets, fast food, all those things that put the weight on.  It’s okay.  You can give them up.  You have a purpose.  You have a plan.  You have success.

Then you reach your goal, or close enough that the difference is insignificant.  My original goal was 160.  I think my lowest weight was 162.  My real goal was achieved.  I changed from morbidly obese to “normal.”  I shop in the misses section.  I can fit in the spaces an adult female is presumed to be able to fit in.  Last night a man gave me his jacket.  It fit.

Perhaps you can spot one post loss issue already.  I can’t help but contrast the life before and after.  I carry that fat person in my head still.  And please remember, I’m not talking about an extra 20 or even 50 pounds.  I’m talking about 200 excess pounds, pressing on my body, affecting my health and my life for years.

I know I still carry her around because when I try on clothes, I still sit gingerly on the bench in the dressing room as though it might break from the wall.  It’s automatic from the days when I would look at that little triangle and that tiny strip of glue and think, ‘How much weight will that thing hold?’  Am I complaining?  No way!  I am describing.

Life here is great.  Way more clothes to choose from.  Way more places I can fit and way more things I can do as a consequence.  And, frankly, it hurt my feelings  when some random stranger would talk trash about me because I was big.  I know, sticks and stones and all that, but in my heart of hearts I prefer acceptance to rejection and I can’t just pretend it doesn’t matter at all because the truth is, it does.  If that makes me shallow, so be it.

Besides those things, health is the primary consideration.  Feeling fit is an awesome feeling and not one I want to give up.  Since the weight loss, I have gone as high as 194.  The thing is, I have weighed myself every day since the beginning of April.  This morning I was within 5 pounds of that starting weight.  It’s on the wrong side of it, but I am also safely away from 194, a number uncomfortably close to 200.

Weight loss is exciting.  Maintenance happens when you realize you are going to be monitoring to one degree or another for the rest of your life.  But you did your time.  You want a cheeseburger or a beer.  You want a cocktail and a piece of cake at the party.  You don’t want to say no to all that for the rest of your life.

I like to drink sometimes, but I also like my new life.  I am still finding the balance between old habits and making sure I don’t slip too far back.  Perhaps, eventually, I will decide that some things I thought I liked aren’t as important to me as I thought.  Only time will tell.

In the meantime, I will continue to monitor day by day.  Deciding with each new situation the choice I will make.  Trung gave me the tools I need to stay at the size I want to be.  Now it is up to me to decide what size that is and what I am willing to do to be there.

Ultimately, I guess I would say, weight loss is clear and maintenance is an exploration.  I need to give a nod to Amy, a PE teacher, here because, although she never had a weight problem, she gets this concept and is always willing to talk about it.  She is a good role model, not rigid, but healthy.  I think as long as I keep good health in the forefront, I will end up making the right decisions in the long run.  Like I said, I like it better here.  That’s still worth making changes when necessary.

 

Thursday: Today I did a six mile run at the shoreline.  The wind was fierce and I was very slow.  On the plus side I wasn’t noticeably tired and didn’t have that feeling of struggling just to lift my legs.  It seems to be a rule that no matter how short or long the run I can’t wait to be finished with it.  But there’s another side to the run too.  There’s that thought, ‘Oh wow I’m running.’ The feeling of being free, of being a beast; that feeling of being alive.  Alive and able to run.  Cool.

I am the worst kind of procrastinator.  I was writing about the week’s workouts and then life got in the way and I trailed off.  I went to Trung Friday and I ran my long run Saturday, but the details have vanished from my memory bank.

The week’s blend into each other because they are similar.  I will work with Trung three days per week and I will run three days.  This week I only had two runs because I’m resting for my 10 mile run next week, building back up to half marathon distance again.

The thing I keep trying to figure out is how this habit was ingrained in me because there are some other, better habits I would like to build into my life.  Going for donuts every Sunday is not a great habit to get into.  Stretching regularly would be nice.  If I could solve the mystery of the way Trung trained me to log my food and work out regularly I could rule the world.  Haha, not really, but I could help other people build those same positive habits.

I fear that ultimately the desire must come from within.  I saw myself losing my mobility and I feared the future.  Since I must die one way or the other I prefer to go out in a blaze of glory and not by fading ignominiously away, needing someone to take care of me because I can’t do it myself.  At least I don’t want to end up in that condition because I couldn’t stop eating and drinking to excess.  You can’t control getting sick.

Obesity being the issue that it is for Americans, I keep thinking that if I analyze my situation it will help find a solution to the problem.  I’m beginning to think that’s a pipe dream.  I see people who are using scooters or chairs to get around who, at least by appearance, are immobilized by their weight.  Why didn’t they get scared before it got to that point?  Why did I?

It seems I remember feeling trapped.  I thought that I would be fat because that’s who I was and there was nothing I could do about it.  Trung gave me an alternative.  How do you help people recognize that there is an alternative to the status quo?  People are still very much trapped in their own heads.  I know I am.

I would find it difficult to lose or maintain the weight loss I have without exercise.  Getting started was so hard.  Now it is a habit to run three times per week and see my trainer three times per week for an hour.  I’m not sure what’s harder – running or working out with Trung.  I was so big and in such bad shape when I started with him.  One day he asked me, “It’s hard, isn’t it?”  “Yes,” I responded.  What I really meant was hell yes.  His reply comforted me somehow.  “This is as hard as it gets.  It doesn’t get any harder.”  Now I know it’s always hard, but that is how the improvement happens.  There is a saying, “That which doesn’t challenge you doesn’t change you.”  I’ll trade a few hours of discomfort for good health even though it might not seem like a good idea at the moment.

In the aftermath when you can climb a flight of stairs without dying or carry four bags of groceries into the house at one time you begin to think it might be worth it.  As difficult as the social ostracism was for me it has always been about good health.  What finally motivated me wasn’t the sneer of some random stranger.  It was seeing my own failing health and strength.  The specter of  a feeble old age frightened me to the core of my being and I was determined to take action to postpone that as long as possible.  We all want to be strong, independent, and capable.  You can get sick, you will get old if you live long enough.  Exercise is a way to take care of your body and help make it strong.

Sunday: 7 am session with Trung.  He is weighing me every session right now because my weight is up.  Neither one of us is happy with the number.  He gives me a pep talk/lecture about my food and also gives me my runs for the next six weeks.  Then we work out.

It is the same warm up every time.  Sometimes he adds an extra exercise at the end, usually burpees.  Today is one of those days.  I think I’m done and he wants me to do some squat jumps.  After that I get a very short break and then we start.  Today was barbell squat and push-ups.  Then kettlebell swing and plank walk up.  I also did sprawls, burpees kindlier cousin, jumping jacks, and lunges.  He moves back and forth between body parts for maximum time working out.  You’re working your arms while your legs are resting or vice versa.  That is one way he keeps the breaks short.  The breaks are always short.  Sometimes I will try to prolong one, but I can’t stall very long before he is telling me to move.

I have passed many hours in Trung’s small gym.  There have been times when I was afraid to do a move or I thought I couldn’t do it and we argued.  I don’t know why I don’t just realize by now I am capable of doing what he asks as our history shows, but my brain is telling me differently.  Today he asks me to swing my leg  and put it up on his tilted bench without holding on to the wall.  I am scared.  I finally manage to get my left up without holding on to anything.  I am never able to do it with my right.

That has been one of the most powerful things about working out with a trainer.  I am afraid and then I can do it and I’m not afraid any more.  There was a time I couldn’t do lunges.  Now I can.  The first time I stepped on a Bosu ball my legs wouldn’t stop their violent trembling.  A week or so ago a part of my workout was squats on a Bosu ball.  I can handle it now.  I am not afraid.  Unfortunately, fear is something I continue to struggle with in spite of all the changes.  I wish I could overcome my fear of falling and move with the confidence Trung expects but sometimes my brain gets the best of me.  Today was such a day.

Monday: My rest day.  Ahhhh.  I always try to catch up with work.  It sucks when there’s a meeting that day.

Tuesday: My first run of the week.  Four miles today.  Tuesday seems to be the day most likely for me to start off the run thinking to myself about how tired my legs are and why do I run because I can quit any time.  Then I run anyway because somehow I do have to run.  It’s a slow one, just under one hour, but I finished.

Wednesday: Trung today.  Ten clean and press then ten sit-ups.  Nine clean and press then ten more sit-ups.  There is a countdown on the clean and press until I only have to do one.  In between I do ten sit-ups every time.  Next are lunges, dips, and curls.  I begin the lunges awkwardly and Trung expresses his impatience.  We have been doing lunges for a long time so I accept that I should be better at it by now.  I finally realize that I am not bringing my body straight down.  Instead I am overcompensating towards the side where the leg is not going back.  This is giving me that off balance feeling that is messing up my lunges.  I concentrate on bringing my body straight down without leaning and I think it’s better.  There was a time when I wasn’t doing dips, curls, or clean and press with proper technique, but, since Trung doesn’t correct me, I assume those have all improved.  We finish with that damn hamstring stretch.  I can get my left leg up, but I can’t swing my right leg up to the level it needs to be without screwing it up.  I want to do it properly, but I am still afraid of falling.  Sometimes I want to give up because what’s the point, but in my heart I know there is one.

I trained a long time for a marathon.  The day I ran it I didn’t make the cutoff time at the half by a minute or two.  The guy at the finish line told me “You’re done,” and so I stopped before completing the twenty-six miles.  When I told Trung what happened he told me I needed to go out and run the marathon distance on my own.  My first reaction was to get angry.  It was so stupid.  I was too slow.  I tried and I didn’t make the time.  What was the point of running all that way by myself?

How do I explain it?  I was fat my entire life.  I spent over a decade weighing more than three hundred pounds.  Trung told me to run the twenty-six miles.  When I did what Trung said I changed from super obese to a person of normal weight.  I didn’t want to run that distance, but he told me to so I did.  I walked about a mile  of it when my knees bothered me, but one Saturday after that first failed attempt I went out and ran 26.2 miles, a marathon.  No crowds, no post race snacks, just me.  No cheers, no medal, but when I finished I felt good.  I had done what I said I would do and it satisfied something inside me that I didn’t even know was there.

There is magic in changing from I can’t to I can; from I will to I did.  That’s something inside a person’s heart and mind that I lack the words to express.  The struggles and triumphs that have happened for me inside that small gym have made me a very different person than the person I was.  So I will keep trying to kick my leg up in spite of my fear, and, if history repeats itself, one day I will succeed and then I will wonder, why did I think I couldn’t do it for so long when I had the power to do it the whole time.