Squeezed into my slacks this morning, glad that the front fastener was not a button, because there would be a good chance that it would fly off. Looking back, one of the best decisions I ever made was to toss my fat clothes when I lost the weight. If that wasn’t the case, I’d be in the basement pulling them out of a bag, and I’d be on the road to fatville again.
I recenlty hard the term ‘muffintop’ to describe people with pants so tight that their belly hangs over their waistline.
Count me as one of them (sigh).
I’m trying to take my own advice. Things I’ve written here in the past that I ignore – let’s not even get into the ‘why’ of this, it’s just not worth it. ‘Stupidity’ will suffice as an explanation for those of you hell-bent on explaining things.
The advice I’m giving myself is:
Eat breakfast – when I lost most of my weight, I ate breakfast.
Eat at least every 6 hours – Atkins said it, I did it – and lost weight.
Drink 64 oz. of water at least – my own unscientific analysis seems to indicate when I drink lots of water, the weight seems to come off easier.
Sat Fat is Where It’s At – Be sure to get enough saturated fat. The more I ate, the more I lost (to a point). The most memorable time was when I ate huge bowls of chili where I did not drain the fat from the meat. I ate it for lunnch every day for a week – and lost 5 lbs in that week.
Breakfast was 2 hard-boiled eggs. I also guzzled down 50oz. of water. At lunch I bought some Boar’s Head Low Sodium Bologna – this qualifies as ‘comfort food’ AND a great source of sat fat to get the low carb engine stoked. Had 8 slices for lunch, and another 8 at 5:30pm – maybe a half-pound total.
When I got home at 7pm, I helped feed the kids – they got pasta and chicken. I helped clean potatoes, and watched my wife have a few yummy tarts. I kept away from the junk successfully. I grazed on some hamburger, lettuce, chicken, cheese, mayo, a bit of cream, and some pork rinds. I have some leftovers and open bags that need going through, so this was part meal and part cleanup.
In my household, there is little time for sit-down meals very often, so I frequently graze, which is what I did this night.
This morning’s weight: 209.8 – down 4.2 from the beginning. Encouraging, but not all that spectacular, as I know I’ve got a few pounds of water weight that I’m shedding.
I’m thinking that I need to come up with some new recipes, so I started reading through Dana Carpender’s ’15 – Minute Low Carb Recipes’ for some inspiration.
The ‘Other’ Issue
Note: The second half of this post contains material some might consider off-topic. It’s not, really, because it’s what going on in my head while I try to lose the pounds I packed on as of late – and my fat body is connected to my fat head – so there.
If you’ve read some of my other postings, you might have concluded that I think too much. It’s true. And as I look today, the stock market is up 600 points. But I’m angry, and getting angrier.
What’s happened is that the governments of the world decided to invent a lot of money. In the wink of an eye, without much effort, the United States created a trillion dollars out of thin air. All the bailout money didn’t come from any hard work – it just appeared. The Federal Reserve wrote a number on the back of a napkin, and it was real.
Now bankers across the country append a few zeroes to numbers in a computer somewhere and a catastrophe is averted. That’s great – if we didn’t do this, the amount of human suffering would be a lot worse.
But this got me to thinking: if they were able to do this all along, how could they allow crimes such as homeless children to continue unaddressed? I thought the reasoning was: we can’t afford it. Well, it seems they can afford it – in fact, if they used as little as 1% of the bailout – $1,000,000,000 – to make sure no child in America ever slept in a car or went a day without a meal, I’ll bet you it would last a while. AIG tore through 85 billion pretty quick – and got a lot more almost without comment. The people who help the homeless could probably stretch that 1% at least a little longer before coming back to the trough for more.
They could have done it all along – they just didn’t feel like it. Call me a bleeding heart because I don’t want to see kids suffering, but the fact is: we just don’t care – and to see how quickly we can spring to action on something we obviously do care about only proves what heartless bastards we all are.
What’s the arguments against us lending a hand again? The money would only be wasted? They are lazy and don’t deserve it? They want something for nothing? They think the world owes them a living? The money wouldn’t go to the problem at hand, but be siphoned off by the dishonest ones? The situation is just too complex to throw money at it and expect that to be of help?
Am I talking about the homeless or bankers here? Right now, with the way the world looks, it’s hard to tell the difference.
8 thoughts on “Day 2: Perhaps my purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others”
But think about the inflation!!!! They might have written a huge bill but the US dollar will be weaker as a result!
As for the low carb just hang in there buddy. Your an inspiration!
This was an old article, but I can’t help myself: the company that makes Twinkies has officially declared banktuptcy a few days ago – and just before they sent all the factory workers packing, the top execs awarded themselves millions of dollars of “bonuses”. Though I’m not exactly sad to see Twinkies go, telling the world you have to lay off all your workers because there’s no more money and THEN magically turn around and give all the top executives bonuses is a little nauseating.
My personal reply to you is to think back to my ‘Change your weight, change your life’ post. You can’t save the world if you don’t save yourself first. You need to focus on the civil war inside you before all else. It is not selfish to care about yourself first in this instance – it is foolish. Abraham Lincoln said: ‘you can’t help the poor by becoming one of them.’
Ah, thank you. It is. I’ve come to realize that a lot of my weight seems to reflect an emotional “baggage” – in the most literal sense. Looking back, the times when I gained most weight was the times when I was most unhappy. And when I’m down, I tend to get anxious and reach for food. It’s a uphill journey to learn to eat for pleasure/health again because it’s been so long since I’ve practiced intuitive eating. Reading your blog is like a breath of fresh air – thank you for putting dieting back into the context of life and showing that it’s not worth it at the expense of mental/physical health.
Also your blog reads like a breath of fresh air – sometimes I wonder if it’s so bad to be “overweight”. It’s just a size – a number on a scale – it shouldn’t be an indicator of character or one’s morals. If we strive to be a different size than the current one we are – I guess that is a goal worth striving for. What I am trying to strive for is to disconnect the link between weight = self-worth, even though it seems to be all the thing the popular media is telling us. Wish me luck 🙂
Don’t ‘wonder’ – you *nailed* it. You woke up. You get the prize. It *doesn’t* matter. Doctors do NOT have a clue how to induce healthy weight loss – and exercise and good nutrition will make you healthy without necessarily making you thin. In fact, weight loss done in an unhealthy way is more damaging than just leaving the weight where the body deems comfortable. You would be best served if you focused on your health first, in mind, body, and soul, and *then* determined if weight was an issue worth tackling.
James Campos wrote in ‘The Obesity Myth’:
The last American diet – the one diet that would actually “work” – is that (anti)diet that would grasp the almost Zen-like character of this truth: If weight is not an issue, then weight will not be an issue. If you want to achieve a healthy weight, stop wanting to lose weight and start wanting those things – an active life, good food, and the calm enjoyment of both – that, unlike weight loss, are unalloyed goods in and of themselves. If you can manage to do this, you may well lose weight in the process; but far more important, you will get to the place where the weight you lose has been lost precisely because you no longer care, at some deep level of self-acceptance, whether you’ve lost weight or not.
As for the media: they foist an anorexic mindset on us and promote unrealistic waif-like figures as some ideal of beauty when in reality ‘beauty’ is more complex than measurements and a weight on a scale. Check out http://www.mybodygallery.com/ – it shows what real women look like at various heights and weights. It helps to remind people that the women on the covers of magazines are about as rare as sideshow freaks.
Also – if you haven’t read this post you might want to consider doing so:
I wish you luck and I wish you the calm patience to persevere. Someone once said that life requires ‘A cup of love, a bucket of understanding, and an ocean of patience’.
Thank you for your well wishes. The readings you’ve suggested has really opened my eyes to a whole new world regarding what it means to eat food and be happy.
I’ve since taken to elimnate most processed foods from my diet and sugar and I’ve felt much calmer and clear-headed since then. It’s wonderful feeling not to be so obsessed with calories anymore. So, thank you. It’s a new freedom that I wouldn’t have thought possible before.
Low Carb Confidential 
But think about the inflation!!!! They might have written a huge bill but the US dollar will be weaker as a result!
As for the low carb just hang in there buddy. Your an inspiration!
Yeah, I know.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could just print money and make the problem disappear?
Oh wait – that’s what we *are* doing!
God knows where all this will end up.
This was an old article, but I can’t help myself: the company that makes Twinkies has officially declared banktuptcy a few days ago – and just before they sent all the factory workers packing, the top execs awarded themselves millions of dollars of “bonuses”. Though I’m not exactly sad to see Twinkies go, telling the world you have to lay off all your workers because there’s no more money and THEN magically turn around and give all the top executives bonuses is a little nauseating.
My personal reply to you is to think back to my ‘Change your weight, change your life’ post. You can’t save the world if you don’t save yourself first. You need to focus on the civil war inside you before all else. It is not selfish to care about yourself first in this instance – it is foolish. Abraham Lincoln said: ‘you can’t help the poor by becoming one of them.’
Ah, thank you. It is. I’ve come to realize that a lot of my weight seems to reflect an emotional “baggage” – in the most literal sense. Looking back, the times when I gained most weight was the times when I was most unhappy. And when I’m down, I tend to get anxious and reach for food. It’s a uphill journey to learn to eat for pleasure/health again because it’s been so long since I’ve practiced intuitive eating. Reading your blog is like a breath of fresh air – thank you for putting dieting back into the context of life and showing that it’s not worth it at the expense of mental/physical health.
Also your blog reads like a breath of fresh air – sometimes I wonder if it’s so bad to be “overweight”. It’s just a size – a number on a scale – it shouldn’t be an indicator of character or one’s morals. If we strive to be a different size than the current one we are – I guess that is a goal worth striving for. What I am trying to strive for is to disconnect the link between weight = self-worth, even though it seems to be all the thing the popular media is telling us. Wish me luck 🙂
Don’t ‘wonder’ – you *nailed* it. You woke up. You get the prize. It *doesn’t* matter. Doctors do NOT have a clue how to induce healthy weight loss – and exercise and good nutrition will make you healthy without necessarily making you thin. In fact, weight loss done in an unhealthy way is more damaging than just leaving the weight where the body deems comfortable. You would be best served if you focused on your health first, in mind, body, and soul, and *then* determined if weight was an issue worth tackling.
James Campos wrote in ‘The Obesity Myth’:
The last American diet – the one diet that would actually “work” – is that (anti)diet that would grasp the almost Zen-like character of this truth: If weight is not an issue, then weight will not be an issue. If you want to achieve a healthy weight, stop wanting to lose weight and start wanting those things – an active life, good food, and the calm enjoyment of both – that, unlike weight loss, are unalloyed goods in and of themselves. If you can manage to do this, you may well lose weight in the process; but far more important, you will get to the place where the weight you lose has been lost precisely because you no longer care, at some deep level of self-acceptance, whether you’ve lost weight or not.
As for the media: they foist an anorexic mindset on us and promote unrealistic waif-like figures as some ideal of beauty when in reality ‘beauty’ is more complex than measurements and a weight on a scale. Check out http://www.mybodygallery.com/ – it shows what real women look like at various heights and weights. It helps to remind people that the women on the covers of magazines are about as rare as sideshow freaks.
Also – if you haven’t read this post you might want to consider doing so:
https://lowcarbconfidential.com/2012/11/16/weight-loss-and-happiness-are-two-different-things/
I wish you luck and I wish you the calm patience to persevere. Someone once said that life requires ‘A cup of love, a bucket of understanding, and an ocean of patience’.
Thank you for your well wishes. The readings you’ve suggested has really opened my eyes to a whole new world regarding what it means to eat food and be happy.
I’ve since taken to elimnate most processed foods from my diet and sugar and I’ve felt much calmer and clear-headed since then. It’s wonderful feeling not to be so obsessed with calories anymore. So, thank you. It’s a new freedom that I wouldn’t have thought possible before.