Crutch

There are days were we go through the status quo and there are days were there is epiphany after epiphany. Today was a day of examination and resulted in realization ... an epiphany.

Tomorrow starts a contest that I am totally excited about. I know I mentioned it as it is a two person challenge with success measured on many levels with the foremost being weight loss. I needed this. I posted those pictures. I don't see myself like that and I was mortified. So this is great ... timing is right, photo's timing was right and then I got scared. What if I fail?

Well that is why there is really no failure built into this contest, Philip. Oh that is right. If someone gets to their goal before the end of the 75 days then guess what they win. If they do not then it is the one closest and the grand prize is based upon self evaluation of ourselves and each other. Cool.

So before the day ended I went to McDonalds. I ordered a bacon and cheese angus burger as it will be my last little bite of fast food for quite some time (maybe longer if I am able to do what I expect to do). As I was driving to work with this horrible meal besides me I flashed back in time. I think my subconscious had been tackling why did I get fat for some time. I have always known that I have this crutch to blame it on, but I know that I should not.

You see in 1988 I was a brilliantly stupid college kid, underage drinking, smoking and over extending everything from bank accounts, credit lines and not sleeping. I was doing some crazy decathlon sports event on campus and had gone from rugby, to basketball and was now on the racquetball court when it happened. I blew out my L5 disc. Pain was incredible. Next day paralysis of the left leg. Diagnostic clinic. Confined bed rest, flat on back, supposedly on a wooden board. Those were the days.

Then after time I was supposed to go therapy. I went once maybe twice and I said no way ... I can do this myself. Cocky little bastard I was back then thought I knew it all. But that was the beginning of my lethargy. My excuse was pain and pain I have lived with for 22 years. But it is how you live with it. I have used it as a crutch for 20 of those 22 years. I have lost weight remarkably well once and then last year with the strokes started on an amazing recovery path.

But I fell and broke my elbow at the beginning of the year and that became a crutch. I managed to maintain the weight loss due to purely not wanting to eat as much as I used to but also by using lent as a reason to change eating habits. But the elbow was a crutch. Thus I badly needed to refocus and gain back the momentum I had before. I needed to stop seeing food as comfort and more as a source of life. A source that cannot be abused by me as it can give life and take life if used poorly.

So I was flashing back to realize from where I had come, how I had allowed myself to become the whale of a man and refocus on the continued repairing, learning and living of the new me. So in about 12 hours I will weigh myself on a rather inaccurate scale in my house but that is OK. It is a basis of my measurement as I will use the same scale over and over again for the next 10.5 weeks and once a week share the weight with my Tammy. But in about 12 hours the focus and intensity starts again, the crutches are discarded and I move forward again.

For me. For Tammy and our life together. For my family. For my friends. For you.

If you have a crutch in your world find it, look at it, examine it and learn from it. Then when you are ready and only when you are ready let that crutch fall to the wayside, chop it up as kindling and burn it, allow mother nature reclaim it and move forward in your sense of whom you are now and not whom you have been.

My goal is 25 lbs in 75 days (personally I am shooting for 30). Let me see what I can accomplish.

Namaste