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

Running low

Confession 1: had a burger tonight - just a little one but I was famished. I had a salmon burger patty, cantaloupe melon and cucumber after working out and that was foolish. The fruit and vegetable are mostly water and I just did not think.

Image by srqpix via Flickr

Confession 2: I have been working later and later than I should. I am taking ownership of the issues and should delegate out more.

My argument to that second one is that the work load has increased by 40 percent on my team this month so far and there is no let up in the immediate future. From what I understand it will virtually increase by over 50 percent in the next two months. Job security on one hand but we have already been trimmed to a number that no longer meets the needs of those whom need our help. Thus tasks that could be done by others if I had the time to train them I take upon myself. I need my July vacation soon.

Confession 3: I really would have liked the surgery to happen this Friday for two reasons. 1. I would have them performing it to offer a resolution to my stroke situation. 2. I would have been forced to take at least two days off of work and possibly more. Thus a break before my July vacation.

Confession 4: I am loving the 30 minutes on the treadmill and trying to do this 5 days a week now that there is nothing planned in my immediate future. I want to fit in a tai chi class but have yet to find one that matches my schedule so I still contemplate how to do this. I do the treadmill on my lunch break at work. I am contemplating how to fit more in my schedule but am not there yet.

Confession 5 and the last one: I am really lousy right now at making sure I get three meals in a day. That is bugging me as I need to get in three moderate meals and two small protein snacks. So I am going to keep working on this too.

Good eats

Dinner today was actually me snacking on a juicy peach, cleaning and chopping a cucumber and cantaloupe (had to taste test both) so all I really needed was a turkey burger and edamame. Yummy.

But lets back up to the other meals. Breakfast: Good Belly and a peach. Snack: a traditional shortcake. Lunch: herb salad with walnuts, toasted sunflower kernels, cheddar cheese and my curry/garlic chicken. Snack: Banana. Then the dinner above.

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Solitary diner

Shrimp quesadilla with black beans and corn. Five onion soup and New Zealand water (my fav) and the band on the patio is playing Cheap Sunglasses. Nirvana for a solitary diner.

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Today is a good day.

I seriously walked today. My cousin's son is in Austin at the State finals for the last time and I am in Dallas wandering around 68 acres of gardens. He is clearing the 800 meter in 1:57 and I am taking 120 times that to wander around almost 3.5 miles of trails.

He goes and preps for the one miler tomorrow and I come home and every muscle, ligament, tendon and joint just lock up on me. But I feel good. I feel as if I have done something for myself today. I wonder about the sanity when we have a Orange Ozone alert but I needed to get out. I needed to walk. I needed to take photographs.

Dallas Botanical Gardens

A little while ago I wandered over to Marinik's Blog and read the Open you Hearts posting. This is one of the first blogs I have been tempted to speak my mind on and have posted twice now to her. She has an uncanny knack to have a post that resonates with something that I have just thought about or experienced. But I like her blog and hope that if you have the time you will read it to. I will not tell you the premise for her blog. It is for her to in her pages but I admire her heart and resilience.

Well I think I am going to go and collapse here shortly. By the way I am making it longer and longer with the BiPAP mask on. I actually had a conversation with a quiet man at work about an hours over his CPAP mask. He has had it for years and now cannot even nap without it. He takes it where ever he travels and just listening to him and his experience made me realize it is a way of life and there is no reason to fight it. I actually am beginning to feel a hint of security and need to have this mask on at night and to me that is a huge leap in the right direction.

I wonder if they will let me bring it to the hosptial. Need to ask them. Then again do I want it in the hospital?

See ya!

My nutritionist/dietitian

Change is not easy. Do the best you can with where you are. How do you eat an elephant, one bite at a time. You are chaning the course of your life 180 degrees. Sometimes there are skid marks. :~} Remember if you keep doing what you have been doing, you get the same results. Do what you can, where you can.