insanity

I'm on the third week of the Insanity fitness program and it's every bit as intense and intimidating and painful as the advertisements suggest.

I feel like there's nothing left of me after every workout.  I'm pouring sweat within 5 minutes of the typically 40 minute programs and I'm completely drenched by the end of it.  I've never sweat like that before and have never felt so exhausted by the end of a workout.  My arms and legs are screaming and my lungs are gasping for air and I feel like I've just endured a boot camp session from hell.

But my title doesn't refer to the program.  It refers to my mental condition regarding my continual struggle to lose weight.  I noticed my weight loss started to slow down so I began the Insanity program to kick things back into gear.  Additionally, I started taking Alli consistently and have tried to cut sugar out of my diet.  I hoped the pounds would really drop with all that going on but they haven't.  Yeah, I'm still losing but it's still going so slowly.

I hit a plateau recently where I could not get under 200 pounds.  It was so frustrating because not only was I not losing any weight but I could not break that 200 pound barrier.  It was also frustrating because every plateau was time wasted.  When I committed to losing weight back in January, I wanted to lose 60 pounds in 6 months (10 pounds a month, average of 2 pounds a week, which is safe and recommended) but it's now the 8th month and I've only lost 44 pounds.  I'm very behind and it scares me because I do not want to be overweight for Christmas.  I know I have a few more months left and I even told myself that I had a couple of months of cushion room in case I didn't make my goal right on time but that cushion is slowly dwindling.  And now that I'm running out of time, I'm feeling the pressure to knock of these last 20-30 pounds.

But fortunately, I have finally broken the 200 pounds mark and I am down to 194.8 and it feels good but I am just so impatient and just want the weight to be off already.  I'm already exhausted from the Insanity workouts and frustrated because I can't eat pizza and all I want to do is inhale one so bad.  I know having a cheat day every once in a while is acceptable but not for me.  I'm an all or nothing kind of guy and I've put up a dam when it comes to food and as soon as I let a little grease slip through, the dam will break and I'll find myself on the floor, clutching a Little Debbie in both hands with lard dribbling down my chin.

Despite the 44 pounds lost, I'm still fat.  How much more do I need to lose before I feel good about myself?

There's been this wave of weight loss at work.  Several of my coworkers have gotten on these health kicks and have lost anywhere from 10-20 pounds and they are thin and look great and they didn't have as much to lose or had to work as hard as I have and it sucks because I've lost twice as much as they have and yet I'm still bigger than all of them.

They've reached their goal and can move on with their lives.  But even when I reach my goal, I won't be able to move on with my life.  This is forever.  I'll be on a diet when I die.

It also upsets me that I can't see my progress.  Well, I can.  I look in the mirror or see older pictures of myself and I can see a thinning in my face and frame but I still think my perspective is skewed.  I don't see enough change to be encouraged.  I have a problem seeing my body they way it is.  When I was heavier, I mostly ignored my condition.  I ate because I was depressed and couldn't see the damage I was doing.  I was in survival mode, eating so I wouldn't throw myself onto railroad tracks.

But when I finally faced it, I couldn't see how big I had gotten.  You have to remember, I was thinner in college, the thinnest I had been in my young adult life, so I graduated being as close to thin as I have ever been.  I fell into an intense depression after college and I went into my room at 174 pounds and came out of my room at 238 pounds and although it didn't happen overnight, it felt like it did.  I think in some ways I still saw myself as still being thin because the weight slowly crept up on me.  I was used to seeing myself as thin and since I didn't face myself as I gained the weight, I went along unaware.  I wouldn't have noticed at all except for the fact that none of my jeans or shirts fit anymore.  And they weren't just a bit snug.  I literally couldn't put my clothes on.

And now that I've lost weight, I can't see how smaller I've become because I've shifted my perspective to being "the fat guy" again.  I couldn't see how big I had gotten and it's only now that I've lost quite a bit of that weight that I'm starting to see how big I was/still think I am.  My body is always changing and my mind is always working to keep up with the bingeing and purging of fat.

It's hard but not impossible.  I'm going to keep going and I'll probably continue to be unsatisfied with my performance and the slow rate of weight loss, all along beating myself up for over eating and under exercising.  But it'll be all right because I'll get there.

But this is forever, remember.  So when I get there, I'll have to then shift my focus and fight to stay there.  No matter how much weight I lose or gain or maintain, I'll always be the fat guy.  I'll always have that mentality, always think about how what I put in my mouth will make me fat again.  My head goes to fat content and calories and the fear that comes along with it all.  There's no taste without trepidation, no dinner without despondency, no satisfaction without slicing myself open.