Helplessness not long ago

August 2009, just 6 months ago, I felt helplessly fat. What happened to the thin kid I knew for 18 years? Gone forever. I hated seeing that I had “let myself go”.

It could have been worse, of course. So many people have severe weight problems and I feel for what they must be going through. I wasn’t morbidly obese. Not yet. Wasn’t getting any smaller though.

It became impossible to take a decent profile photo. I had neck fat in each one. The extreme shadows were my friends. Had to zoom in super close to my face. And zoom back? Forget it! I couldn’t suck my stomach in far enough, or angle the camera down far enough.

The baggy clothes I had to wear just made me look bigger. I had a fashion problem. I wanted to wear skinny clothes but my 44-inch-and-growing waistline was pulling me out of normal clothing stores.

I felt like I was headed into diabetes. I really didn’t want to formalize my bad situation by being diagnosed with that.

It wasn’t for a total lack of trying. Sure, I had moments of eating large pizzas by myself and thinking taking out the trash was exercise. Consistent effort was a problem for me.

Occassional exercise didn’t help. For some reason I always expect to see a thin guy after workouts, but the fat dude is still in the mirror. Maybe I expect more payoff for my hard work. Exercise was unrewarding. In fact, I wrote it off completely, having never seen results from my occassional effort.

I would cut back on food and nothing would change. Cut out soda. Ate lots of celery instead of snack food. Skipped dinner. Skipped breakfast (yeah yeah).

Fast forward to now

Now, several months later, February 2010. Still working on me, but hey, big change, no?

The weight loss goal was either to lose 50 lbs, or see my abs.

After 45 lbs of loss and now weight training, here come the abs. I am starting to see them for the first time since 1992! They’re still a little covered but horizontal shadows are appearing when I flex just right.

And my hip bones — totally forgot about those! I can see my knuckles when I grab the steering wheel. In the mirror, I see my cheek bones and jaw line prominently.

Seeing bones and muscles appear is the greatest thrill in the world, the fruit of a complete lifestyle overhaul.

Little tweaks are worthless. I had to completely change everything I did and was about.

I am totally unrecognizable to the person I was just months ago, both in appearance and daily routine and attitude. I am a different person: I eat differently, I sleep differently, I do different things, I think about myself differently.

I had to start from scratch learning about types of food, buying and preparing food, portioning, my caloric needs, eating protein, biking, gym-going, exercise machines, weights, and muscles. It was a crap load of new stuff, I am not going to lie.

The learning is far from over. I started learning about food, and today I’m learning about muscles. I think I’ll be stuck on the muscle thing a while. Slow gainer, ironically.

What did it mentally: anger, vanity, declaring war

Ain’t nothing pretty about it. And it takes no less. I have to fight past myself.

I tapped into my limitless inner vanity and self-obsession. It can be my friend.

Get mad at the fat: point at it and it will never stop getting attacked until it is gone. Eliminated. After a couple weeks it will still be there. Get mad again. Attack again. After months and months and months of this, there will be victory. That’s the direction I am going, thankfully.

What did it physically: diet, exercise, time

Sorry, I think the hard way is the right way. Just do it.

Diet. For the first time, thanks to Nutrisystem, I learned that starvation isn’t the answer. Not starving to lose weight is totally counter-intuitive for me. But I’d eat lasagna for dinner, and still wake up a pound lighter. Calorie control is the answer. I just ate a little less than what my body needed. Figured I burned 2200 cals in a day. So I ate 1600 cals, or so. After months, weight loss resulted. Yeah I had to count calories, more so after leaving Nutrisystem, but that is an excellent way to learn the caloric cost of eating.

Exercise. Walk, bike, do an elliptical machine for 30 minutes a day. Like I said, I am frustrated by the slow results of exercise. Diet is what brings the results at first. I think exercise is icing on the cake, for reshaping the thinner body. I expected too much from exercise because I didn’t understand how secondary it was to eating right. These days I am happy with where the diet has taken me, and now I exercise like a crazy person to reshape and tone my body.

What will I be like months from now?

It will be interesting to see where my current extremism settles to.  I promised Lori I would go to the gym frequently for a period of 2 years. (More of a bet than a promise, I guess.)

I’d love to say this will continue. It needs to, of course. After I hit a physical state I’m happy with I’ll likely not go to the gym 11 times a week like now. Maybe. We’ll see.

Would it be easy to stop all this and go back? You bet — that was the easy life! Oh how I would love to sleep in, pound food, be on the computer all day! Except… it was f-ing miserable! The gluttony and laziness was destroying me from the inside out.

Now I am proud of myself. I have a great long term goal of excellent fitness. And I have no good reason to stop.