The Advantages of Being Broke

Apparently my plan to write on this weight loss blog on a weekly basis was a bit too ambitious as I’ve got another blog to showcase my creative writing project, a vlog, work (which I vlogged about), and various errands that tend to eat up the rest of my day until I pass out somewhere. Then I repeat the entire cycle until one of those things kill me. As you can see, I didn’t list working out or heading to the gym as any of those activities because, let’s face it, I’m either too busy or too exhausted. I’d rather be too busy to workout than exhausted because when you’re too busy, you really don’t notice the passage of time. As I’m about to go to sleep or take a quick nap there’s this biting guilty feeling that makes me feel like I could be using that time to go for a run or lift some weights or something when, in reality, I can barely lift my own head.

Last week was a fairly stressful week for me and not for the usual reasons. Well, the usual reasons were there as they always will be, but in addition to that I got a call from my bank. It seems that someone used my debit card number to have themselves a little shopping spree and log on to some dating websites (Ironically, some of them were Christian dating websites). Clearly the first thing to do was to cancel my card and I had to wait all week to get a new one. I had been staying at work a bit later than usual so by the time I got out the banks were closed leaving me without any easy way to get cash. A few years ago, I would have unconsciously just buy the cheapest food night in and night out, which usually turns out to be the worst kind. But I made a conscious decision to head on over to the grocery store and buy healthier food in bulk, enough to last me the week.

The only disadvantage would be that I had to prepare and wash and cook all my meals, eating away more time out of my day. However, I had forgotten how much I loved to cook. If I ever take the time to actually write down what I’m throwing together, maybe I’ll do a couple of posts where I discuss my recipes. That way those of you who know can tell me how much healthier I’m actually eating if I just make all of my meals. Of course, I’m pretty sure if I hadn’t had prepared my own meals, I would be scarfing down take out burgers and nuking some frozen pizza.  I’m sure we can all agree that that’s not the healthy choice.

While I don’t consider myself a religious person there are plenty of people around me who are pretty devout Catholics. After all, I used to be one of them. Seeing the black smudge on a lot of people’s foreheads could only mean one thing: Ash Wednesday was upon us and subsequently that meant that fish and vegetarian meals would be easy to come by and afford. Meat isn’t unhealthy per se but when one lives in a country where it is all too abundant… Well there is such thing as too much of a good thing and when you’re a chubby blogger like me, a vegetarian or vegan diet isn’t the worst thing in the world. And I managed to eat mostly vegan and vegetarian meals for the better part of a week resulting in losing just under 2 pounds in said week. Go me!

Without going into the details here my week was much more eventful than having to deal with a stolen debit card and not in a good way. Needless to say it was a very stressful week but forcing myself to make my own meals wasn’t just the healthy decision but it also rekindled my love of cooking. That’s right, ladies, I cook. It’s a little more effort than to just go and buy the pre-packaged food in a store or fast food joint or something, but to me it’s worth it. It clears my head and depending on what I’m making my mind is constantly trying to figure out what to do next, how much of something I need, what I need to chop or prep or wash, and on top of that there’s the time factor since no one like burned food.

I’ve commented before on how stress can lead me down a path of self-destruction as far as my own personal weight loss goals are concerned. The way I’ve dealt with it before is to engage myself in an activity that requires all of my focus. It doesn’t have to be a particularly daunting task for it to be enough to take my mind off of things. My brain just has to be preoccupied. Sometimes I’ll do something creative or play a video game but conversely I can get the same result if I find myself doing a repetitive mundane task at work. But the cooking thing not only works perfectly but I can also control my personal intake and monitor exactly what I’m consuming. I’d be lying if I said I never considered looking into making a career out of cooking, but I’m pretty confident I was built to sit in front of a computer in some capacity for a living. It is, however, a great hobby and my inner nerd blames Alton Brown for expanding my horizons. Thus far it’s been a long road to being healthy but it’s the little things like making a meal for myself that lets me know that I’m taking a step in the right direction.

This Thing's Still Here?

Bloggers bless me for I have sinned it has been nearly 2 years since my last post.  I’ll be brutally honest with myself and with anyone else reading: I totally dropped the ball on this blog. It started off as a way to publicly log my progress on the road to a healthier lifestyle and while it worked for a good long while I fell victim to something that anyone doing anything worth doing should never fall victim to: boredom, pure unadulterated boredom. And then my own mental weaknesses saw me fall off the proverbial wagon and instead of powering through to get back on the wagon I kicked my own self when I was down.

I feel like I lose the weight when I’m not thinking about, that the physical aspect of it, while challenging, is the easier aspect of the weight loss. The mental aspect of weight loss is one I continually struggle with. In fact, I contest that if I were much more susceptible to peer pressure in my younger days and took up smoking I would likely be a thinner man today. Sure, in all likelihood my health would not be any better (possibly worse) but I digress. My point is I feel that the biggest reason that it’s so easy for me to gain the weight back is that my overeating is more like an addiction to food. I’ll come out and admit that I eat when I’m stressed, depressed, or just bored. A lot of people eat when they’re those things but to exacerbate problems, I get bored of dieting pretty easily.

I put a lot of effort into eating healthy meals and working out consistently and while past workouts have solved the boredom problem, I still have trouble maintaining my enthusiasm for preparing healthy portions. And I tend to injure myself a lot when I work out intensely (especially in the feet). Then I lose steam and get deflated when I gain the weight back until I hit rock bottom for the hundredth time. The other day I realized I couldn’t tie my shoes without having to groan and struggle on my way down to tie my shoe laces, the buttons on my dress shirt were just barely keeping things together if I sat down a certain way, and I get winded after only three flights of stairs. There was a moment in the three decades I’ve been on this planet that I could go up five flights without breaking a sweat.

While I hate the idea of resolutions, I figure the start of 2013 would be a good place to start taking control of my life. On this blog I intend to keep track of (and be brutally honest about) my progress on the road back to 180 (for realsies, this time). On my other blog, I intend to get my creative juices flowing on a regular basis once again. It should be noted that the last time I engaged in such a project I still consider to be the most rewarding year of my life, despite how exhausted I felt at the end of it. And to up the ante on the creative end (and perhaps as motivation to get my ass moving and out into the real world, ironically) I have decided to start uploading vlogs on a regular basis for an entire year, at least one video per week.

Upon writing this I realized that a good chunk of my life will be propped up for the entire world to see, digitally speaking. That’s not to say that too many people will end up seeing my stuff but it’s all there for the viewing if anyone so chooses to view it and normally that would freak me out. But I actually find myself kind of excited, enthused in fact, that I’m feeling a different kind of vulnerable. It’s a vulnerable that I’m in control of and maybe that means this unfamiliar ground is one I should be treading. Maybe it’s a sign of a change that I need in my otherwise stale life. Whatever the outcome may be, I promise to myself to keep posting honestly and regularly for the following year (at the very least). Here’s to a great year!!!