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I had the rare pleasure of logging into MyFitnessPal today and typing in a number for my current weight that was less than the last time I did so. This is the first time this has happened in well over a year and represents the embarrassing first step towards returning to a state where I will be happy with my body. My lack of happiness is not self-hatred but something much cooler, akin to when a person you don’t like walks into a party and you have to politely smile despite their presence. My body and its capabilities wander around with me. Just like that annoying person, you will never triumph over them, but you’ll be rid of them and the enjoyment you have when they’re not there will come back. Sometimes I notice me out of the corner of my eye, sometimes I don’t, but hopefully sometime a year or so from now I’ll say to myself “it’s been a while since I’ve seen that guy”.

My mental model takes a while to update. Like many of the timers in my life, how I see me drags behind about six months. I feel fatter now than I did when I was 342. This time six months ago I weighted 310 and could still run a few miles. The next five months are going to be somewhat painful in terms of the Terry in my head. After that, it’ll get better. Interesting, my mental model of others also takes six months or so to update, resulted in quizzical stares months after someone hit their target weight and regained weight as I go “wow, you look great”. This faculty has saved me somewhat especially in people’s final months. My memory of the departed is never them at their worst. I suppose this balances not recognizing others progress immediately and mislaying compliments.

This bout of weight loss feels different. My life isn’t as crowded in some ways having a straight forward job that’s close to home, good pay, and reasonably proximate friends, and few involvements in Scouting. The only large time sink I have is studying. I figure I’m ok with maintaining weight vs. losing it if I’m passing exams and ok stagnating with actuarial progress if my waist is shrinking. Now I just need to convince my boss and/or doctor of that exchange. It also feels different in the same way the second trip to a distant destination feels different. There is no excitement in this passage. I’m revisiting places I’ve been before. I’m 112 lbs from virgin territory. Theoretically, I know I can get there again, but what if my previous success was from some unique confluence? In a lab setting, I walked 4000-7000 steps more per day. I had a shorter working day. Sex hadn’t entered my life yet which engendered a certain vanity. Just because I’ve driven the road before doesn’t mean I’m immune to flat tires and getting lost. And the vehicle I’m driving has more miles on it as it were. Regardless, I think I can do it. Right now, there’s no reason not to think so. This isn’t a statement of arrogance, only of ignorance.

The last time I worked to lose weight, I lost, on average, .245 lbs for about 800 days. I am going to shoot for a slightly more ambitious .3 lbs and see what I can accomplish in a year. During my last go, my weight loss regime usually stalled every few months as I need to change up to something new. This time, I hope experience will let me skip those. The flip-side of this is determination. Willpower, like the bicep is a muscle and it must be exercised. I feel that reserve isn’t what it used to be. Last time I weighted 330 and was losing weight, I had a lot of trajectory. Now I have much less.

Weight Goal: 220 during my September trip in 2015.
Fitness Goal: Run Broad Street Run in May 2015.
Stretch Goal: 5 pull-ups, Christmas of 2015.

Let us seem who I am.

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After four days I could now shuffle around the house at about 3/4s of a mile per hour.  This mobility was exhilarating for someone used to running and I did repeated donuts between the kitchen, living room, and dining room to celebrate.  In the mid afternoon, I was visited by the mother of a friend of mine from middle school.  She asked me a question I’ve chewed on a lot, “when did you decide to start losing weight?” and I finally answered it:
I never decided to lose weight.  There was no Damoscene moment where I resolved to be slim, in fact it was the opposite of a planned choice.  I had taken a very long road trip and managed to lose 10 lbs during this time by simply eating two large meals in a day instead of foraging interspersed with proper meals.  I hadn’t decided to start doing anything, but only to continue doing things that I had done almost at random out of the necessities of travel.  Each subsequent change was largely like this, I had found myself doing something that seemed to work and resolved to make it a habit.
This reminds me of how the body evolves defenses to infection.  The body spews out white blood cells until one of the variants works.  That one gets to reproduce and the other die.  Here, I tried a bunch of things at random from changing my treadmill speed to not eating hot dogs and if something seemed to work I stuck on with it.  Some odd things came out of this like learning that I do better having a very rich dessert after dinner but only if I eat three hours or so before bed.  This calorie burst seems to sedate me for the evening and I have no urge to snack before bed.
I didn’t choose to lose weight, I simply chose to habituate things that seemed to lead to weight loss.  So far that’s worked.  I hope it continues to.  She brought me fruit salad.  I hate grapefruit but the thought was nice.

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My opinions on Woodbadge are known and noisy and today they again came up. Councils often run this advanced adult leader training program bi-annually over the course of two three-day weeks and the staffs often spend a lot of time preparing for it, and that’s my problem. I don’t think Woodbadge is bad in any way but is simply inefficient. The staff spends too much time preparing and the training itself is too long. The National Leadership Seminar gets someone 80% there in two days which I consider preferable.

Bill Thompson and I butt heads over this every few months and we did again today. I feel bad bringing up my argument because it’s a “not good enough” argument. In Scouting, we’re often talking “good” vs. “not good” with few programs lying in between. I happen to think that Woodbadge is one of them.

At the end of the discussion, Joe Bell, Chris Crose, and I sat in the Dining Room of Totem and I smiled. Joe probably lost 60 lbs, Chris an impressive 110, and me 190. That’s two people’s worth of mass. Chris and I chatted about weight loss:

Chris: Do you find that you’re…. saggy.
Me: Yep.
Chris: Does it go away?
Me: Not really.
Chris: Someone said I should use it to remember how big I was.
Me: I think that person is talking like an idiot.
Chris: I do too.
Me: Any other changes?
Chris: I have a girlfriend. That’s kind of weird.

Chris, don’t tell her that.

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Him: So do you feel better having lost all that weight?
Me: No, not really. My endurance is much higher but I don’t feel more energetic.
Him: What about down there?
Me: What do you mean?
Him: They say for every 35 lbs you lose your dong gets an inch larger.
Me: Well, considering I’ve lost 195 lbs and don’t have a penis fit for use as a whiffle ball bat I’d say that may be an untrue claim.
Him: Oh.

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A year or so ago, I gave a friend my stash of XXXL blue oxford shirts. I visited him tonight and he was wearing one. They aged well and look good on him. I hope they never look good on me again. Midway through the conversation, I started talking about success with a ketogenic diet and he seemed interesting. We talked about food substitutions and how to get nutrients as well as some pitfalls. ONe wouldn’t expect it but cocktail sauce has some three times the net carbs as ranch dressing. We talked about what it’s like to be a large person and he railed at people who are annoyed when sharing public transit. He made the observation that “when I sit next to someone, we’re both crowded” and I don’t think most people recognize this reciprocity. It seems neither wholly wrong nor wholly right to blame the larger party but there’s no convenient way to communicate that middle ground.  Between genes, choices, and engineering, how does one say “I’m 60% responsible for this discomfort.”?

I hope he gives low carb a try and that it works. If so, the baby blue oxfords that served me so well and then him will pass on again and maybe serve someone else. I picture wrapping them up with a few typed pages on dieting.  They would make their way across the country making large men look a little bit nicer on their way to becoming a little bit thinner.

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I was driving to Cincinnati which is nothing new but this time there were people in the car in the form of Randy and Kelly Booz.  Driving with multiple members of my age cohort was nice as it afforded us to loudly sing the greatest hits of the 90s while stuck in traffic.  We each got to drive, we each got to nap, we each got to control the radio.  Teamwork.  We picked up Suzie and headed to the area outside Indianapolis where the Run For Your Lives event was happening and after a shoe run settled in.

I had a packed a zombie Boy Scout costume consisting of Scout pants and a shirt that I had while on staff years ago.  Here it is:

From 2012-06-23 Run For Your Lives Zombification

There was a time when I fit comfortably into that shirt. Now it takes two of us.

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1/2 a bagel with a 1/2 oz of cream cheese
A bottle of juice
An English muffin
2 cups of strawberries
A 1/2 can of ravioli
1/2 a salami sandwich
1/2 of chicken wrap
A small caesar salad
2 oz of cheese and crackers
An apple
A banana
A Fiber One bar
A Reese’s chocolate Easter egg

I ate constantly today but nothing over about 250 calories.

I miss the days when I could have three square meals consisting of two cheeseburgers and consider myself at par.

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My body has changed over the last 18 months.  I’ve shrunk, but legion other changes have happened as well, for instance:

  • For a brief period of time sweat from some parts of me had a vague peach scent
  • The distribution of hair on my chest has changed such there is a much more distinct center line
  • I get acne on the back of my neck due to pore blockage from sweat if I don’t stay mindful of it
  • It takes longer to shave as my face is less round and uniform

There are other ones as well that I can’t mention in mixed company but today I noted a disturbing trend, when I pass wind it sounds like someone choking a duck.  No longer do I thunderous flatus with the full-bodied timber reminiscent of a Viking.  Now it is a shadow of former self, all destroyed by months of doing seemingly innocuous glut lifts.

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I was born 10000 days ago.  Hazaa.

10 years ago today I was getting ready to leave for Florida Sea Base, a Boy Scout High Adventure Base.  I weighted 320 lbs then as reflected by my medical form.  Today I weigh about 318 so I’ve managed to lose about 2 lbs in 10 years.  At the same time, in June of 2009, I weighted 420 lbs so I’ve also lost 100 lbs in a little over two  years.  Very small displacement, very large distance.

I celebrated this confluence by singing show tunes at the Ockanickon Scout Reservation Magic Tournament.  No one would join in Brotherhood of Man.

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In 2009 or so, I started a list of all the reasons I didn’t want to be fat anymore.  An accounting of minor nuisances that I wrote that eventually numbered slightly over a hundred and this wasn’t for want of more, but for want of more index cards (this is the time before the coming of the small black book when I still recorded things on my hipster PDA).  Now, I’ve made a habit of every two months reviewing and striking off items from the list.  Some came off early like “having to undo my seat belt to open my gas hatch” and others will take a good while still like”doing a half marathon”.

I did my bi-monthly review and shaved off a few, nothing major, but my way of marking progress besides the enigmatic readings of my bathroom scale that transmit a number but with no visceral aspect to it.  There were the ones I removed:

  • Feel comfortable wearing a white t-shirt
  • Fit into a pair of size 46 pants
  • Fit into a size 20 shirt
  • Not seeing arm fat wobble while brushing my teeth

Small, but progress.  There was also one I was thinking of striking through that was “not having a waiter go ‘so what will we be having for dessert’ at restaurants” but that may be removed on the simple fact that some servers do this to everyone, although the “will we be having dessert” is probably more common.  Maybe I should keep tally.