Admitting Things

I've been avoiding writing this post for some time. I've been avoiding it because I really don't want to write another whiny diatribe about how life is hard and how I've been failing. I don't want to bore you all who are kind enough to stop by. But more than that, I don't want to admit it to myself and I don't want to see it in words.

When I look back through my posts, I am amazed at what I have written, what I have figured out and what I have forgotten. I'm a pretty with it kind of guy, when I remember to be a with it kind of guy. I've made some real insight into the emotional connections I have with food.

It's also clear that I am depressed. For the last 18 months I've dealt with a falling out with a pastor and the end of his friendship, the heart crushing months of watching my wife fall into severe mental illness and the loss of her income, my own demons and the shame of gaining all my shed weight back, plus another 20. I've dealt with a new position with the library, and now I get to report that I am losing that position due to severe budgetary cuts (I will not be out of a job, however...at least for now). And lately I have the task of deciding who on my staff will receive cuts in their hours. Raising kids, paying bills, and all the other “normal” stress anyone lives through has certainly not made living through the trials of the last year and a half any easier.

For this whole period, I knew I was depressed. I thought it was situational as I certainly had reasons to be stressed, anxious and depressed. But looking back, I think it is clear to me know that I have been mired in a true depressive episode triggered by my situation, but rooted in my illness. I've been here before. I've been on medication for nearly 20 years now, but most of the time it is merely maintenance, not catching up and knocking it down.

I am proud that through all the ordeals of the recent past, I kept it together, got things done, cared for my spouse and kept it from deeply affecting my job. However, now that she is better, I find myself falling apart. I expected the stress to go away once she recovered and once she found employment. What I find is that in releasing that stress, I am releasing the energy that had kept all the cracks closed.

A few weekends ago, I worked a Saturday shift at the branch library. When I came home, I found myself in the middle of a battle of wills between my wife and our teenaged son. And I lost it. Somewhere between trying to mediate a peace and being a parent, I broke down. I was making a toasted cheese sammich. And I gasped a terrifying breath in. I had been fighting tears and fighting feelings of losing control, but I could not do that anymore. In the middle of the kitchen, standing in front of the stove, I sobbed. Uncontrollably. I made it to the bedroom, and kept sobbing for what seemed like a half hour with my wife comforting me.

Afterward, we had a family meeting. My kids had never, ever seen me cry (except during sappy periods of movies). I had frightened them. I think they feared I had gone ill as their mother had a year ago. I don't know. The point is, we talked about not just “it” but about a whole lot of things. Of my wife's illness and recovery. Of her new job. Of our worries for the kids. Of their worries for us.

I'd like to say that everything was sunshine and lollipops after that. To a large degree, things were better. My son, especially, felt free to speak what was on his heart and broke down some of those walls. But for myself, not much has changed, except the realization that my depression is not rooted only in my situation in life...I need help. I'm getting it, though the wait time to get in to see a doctor is long.

In the meantime, the weight continues to pile on. I'm working very hard at not hating myself for it, but the way I'm feeling makes that pretty impossible from time to time.

I was reminded, however, that one of the central tenets of the Buddha is that life is painful. Not accepting that truth is what causes suffering. Spending all of my energy trying to avoid accepting the truth of my condition in my physical, mental, emotional, spiritual spheres is causing me to suffer. Perhaps right now is not the time to work on weight loss but instead work on getting my inner house in order.

I am a large man. No amount of blogging, talking, worrying or wishing changes the fact that at this moment in my life I am fat and unhealthy. I must accept that so the suffering can stop. And, hopefully, the healing begin.

So tired.

Me

Do I really want to lose this weight? Do I really want to be healthy; do the work it takes to be healthy? I'm been hemming and hawing, coming up with some striking insight, learning about my triggers, my fragile self image.  And I've been sharing it, here, online, for the world to see.

But, that is only an illusion of transparency.  I share what I want.  I reveal what is safe.  I write words that offer a shell of understanding.  Do I really believe whatever the hell it is I am saying?

Here's where I stand right now.

I am so large that even a Super Walmart did not have clothes to fit.  Despite changing my tone of The Jogging Clydesdale from a runner's blog to an introspective journal of weightloss nearly a year ago, I am at my heaviest and my largest. Ever.

And that's the truth.

I have a wife recovering from a serious health issue; one that prevents her even now from a completely normal life and the possibility of employment. I have children to care for.  I have bills to pay.  I have a job to perform.  I have issues of my own to deal with.  I am stressed beyond anything I ever imagined I could go.  And I eat to deal with stress.

I have a history with food as a great comforter, as a conveyance of love, as a link to a childhood.  And I eat to remember those time I felt loved.

I have discovered that there is some part of me that fears never having food again.  I don't know where that comes from.  I cannot remember a time when food was scarce; either in my parent's home or in my adult life.  I don't understand this one.  And yet, I eat to make sure I'll have enough.


I have bad habits.  I don't know where they all come from.  I know Sundays were always popcorn days.  Mom rarely left a gas station without a candy bar for us.  I have triggers simply because it's what I've always done.  I eat because it's what I do.

I eat when I'm bored.

I eat when I want to celebrate.

I eat when my stomach is upset and I think a little something will settle it down.  A box of granola bars is a little something, apparently.


I don't like myself.  I don't love myself.  I have grown a lot in this area and have taken great strides toward acceptance.  But I'm not there yet.  And I eat because I believe all the things I tell myself: you are weak. you are ugly.  you have no control. go on, feed your fat fucking face, you deserve no better.  I eat because I hate myself.

I eat not because it nourishes my body, but because food has meaning.  Food has emotions.  Food has histories. Food is a weapon and a reward.

And here's the thing.  I'm dying.  I am one glucose tolerance test away from diabetes.  The way I carry my fat on my belly and apron shows that I am statistically higher risk for a heart attack.  I am afraid of learning that my high blood pressure is back.  I am in very poor health.  I should care about this.  This should scare the hell out of me and prompt me to do something about it.  But the immediate reward of a binge has more immediate meaning than a long, hard path to recover that health does.

I am tired of this.  So tired.  I am tired of hitting this bottom time after time after time.

I don't know what I'm going to do this time, but something has to change.

I am too important to give up.

No Whammies--thud

Lately I've been dealing with my own issues of depression and self image.  It comes with all the expected bouts of binge and shame.  And of course it comes at Thanksgiving, a day designed for gluttony anyway.

Actually, I did very well (I think) this year on Thanksgiving.  Loaded up on the protein, stopped before I was gorged, and did very little snacking.  Really.  Even despite the bowl of chips and homemade French onion dip.  I'm not a big dessert man so that wasn't even a temptation.  Aunt Wanda's turkey gravy on the other hand....

Upon returning home from my cousin's house, however, all bets were off.  I just continued where I left off mired in my darkened inner self.

Depression is an awful beast.  Knowing I'm depressed doesn't make it any easier.  It feeds itself as it speaks to the inner loathing I have for my food weakness.  And it got a double whammy on me as I ran across an old evaluation I recieved in college that was quite harsh.  I'm 40 years old, and that damn document can still peg every insecurity I had in school.  Yeah, I should get rid of it.  But its one of those things that has a lot of praise in it as well.  When I read it in a better mind space, it puts me on cloud 9.  I'm pretty screwed up, ain't I?

New week.  New day.  Now.  Now is the perfect time to get back on that damn horse.

An autumn rain

I am standing at the front door watching the rain.  The cold wind bites at my face and I should close the door.  I don't.  I watch.  The grey clouds move from west to east; the sun obscured.  Everything is cold. Every thing is wet.  Water puddles along the curbside where dirt and debris has gathered.  It is a dismal sight.  It makes me long for sunnier days like the ones from my memories as a child on a small hobby farm.  When the summer days and the autumn nights were spent making my own fun in the woods, along the lane, in the rock piles at the back of the pasture.  Memories that will never be again.  I close the door and sit on my couch.

I am standing at the front door watching the rain.  The cold wind invigorates a face too warm from being indoors too much.  I should close the door.  I don't.  I watch.  The grey clouds race across the sky as a visual witness to the storm raging above.  Everything is cleaned.  Everything is washed.  Water flows from the streets into the gutters racing toward the drains; overflowing the puddles forming at the curbside along.  The sun may be obscured behind the grey clouds but I know it is there and is powerful enough to bring light to a glorious day. Everything is renewed. It makes me think of my own struggles to be renewed, to be cleansed and reborn. Of memories yet to come if only I am brave enough to reach out for it.

Two outlooks.  One rainstorm.

I close the door.  And I sit on my front step, soaking to the bone and become chilled.  I know I will be warm again, but for now, it is my cleansing.

Kevin's Plan

I have a plan.

I plan to run a 5K on Jan 1.

I plan to train for that run.  And I plan to run it with my son and daughter.

I plan on tracking my calories and whatnot on livestrong.com

I plan on knowing my calories, not counting them.

I plan on returning to my program once my wife is healthy and back to work.

I plan to work diligently on mindfulness; to avoid negative self talk; to tell myself I am good and I deserve health.

I plan on staying on this journey through the good and the bad; to accept that setbacks are unavoidable.

I am a good person.

And you are too.

There are a few things in this list I want to write more about in the future, but for now, it's a plan.  Not a goal.

Counting my blessings

I've been hemming and hawing about whether or not to expound on my thoughts about Maura Kelly and her recent blog blow up.  If you haven't read it, you can here and a link to a solid, sound response (the best I've found yet)* can be found here.  But to sum it up, Kelly put her foot in her mouth when she said that she would find it disgusting to watch fat people be affectionate on TV, indeed that watching a fat person walk across the room is too much to bear in real life.  And it gets worse from there, partly because she seems to be in earnest that she's really writing to help the overweight.

I don't have a real need to vilify her.  Plenty of others on the interwebs have done enough of that.  Instead, the whole thing has gotten me rather reflective about my own situation.  I've been rather lucky that I have not experienced a lot of prejudice and nasty comments from strangers.  And those I get from friends and family are mild and only on occasion.  Some of the stories are downright funny if you ask me.  A few years back a patron of the branch library, where I work as the librarian and staff supervisor, called to complain about customer service.  I took the phone call, listened to the gentleman, then asked if he knew who on my staff had treated him so poorly.  He said: "It was that really fat guy."  I responded, "Well, sir, I'm the only male employee here so it must have been me.  What can I do to make the situation better?"  There was silence, then he said "Well, I guess we're even."  Then he hung up.

It isn't to say that I have escaped harsh words and judgmental looks from others.  Simply that it doesn't happen too often to me. This brouhaha around Kelly's post actually reminds me how lucky I've been to have such a fantastic network of friends and family.  I have a feeling that it has partly to do with the fact that I'm male.  Most of my female friends have many more horror stories than my male friends in this regard.  Or it could also be that I'm just clueless, which actually tends to go along with being male. 

Still, there is one thing that many well meaning people in my life do that cuts deeper than most.  If they see me snacking, they'll ask "are you sure you want to do that?"  My former pastor was notorious for this one.  It bothers me because a flat out insult can be processed and ignored rather quickly in my headspace (ok, I'm not that laid back, but in comparison...) but these statements carry a stench of "Father Knows Best" that really rubs the wrong way.  And I can guarantee that it will have the opposite effect.  It doesn't work when I shame myself, what is it about these people that they think they can shame me into a healthier lifestyle?  Many friends and family who say that to me say it only once.  But some just don't get a clue.

Where is all this leading? I have no freaking clue.  Like many in my situation, the emotions caught up in lifestyles destructive to healthy living are complex.  If I write next week, I would probably come up with a whole litany of slights and insults, judgments and injustice.  But right now, I'm feeling pretty good about myself so this is really all the bluster I can muster after following the train-wreck at Kelly's blog.

*Update: Josh Shahryar's response is fantastic in its rational counter arguments and analysis, Jen Lancaster's response is simply brilliant.

But oh that magic feelin'...

I'm gettin' that antsy feeling.  The one you get when you know you're finally approaching the decision you know you want to make but for whatever reason you avoid it.  The one where you say to yourself, 'time to get healthy' and know you actually mean it this time.

I'm getting there.

Mrs. C's new regimen is doing wonders.  I cannot believe the improvement we are experiencing in only a week's time after 3 months of illness--spirit crushing illness.  The atmosphere in the stable is palpably lighter and there is laughter.  And I feel renewed.

Much of what brought so much stress in the last half of '09 through the fall of '10 has finally found its way to closure--and the friendship that was lost no longer troubles me.  I know it's a bit cryptic, but no one enjoys it when a friendship disintegrates, especially if it was for circumstances beyond one's control; especially if it needed to happen to protect one's boundaries.  I will need to live with the knowledge that the other party places the overwhelming majority of the problem at my feet and will never consider his own failure.  But given our last chance encounter, I find myself untroubled.  That chapter is closed.

Life certainly ain't perfect and I do have problems focusing on the goal.  I did stop by the 7-11 for chips and dip, knowing it was a mistake.  But it feels like my subconscious is trying to get in a few last hurrahs.

This isn't a "well, I'll start tomorrow" kinda thing knowing tomorrow never comes.  I'm not sure when I will start.  But I feel like the knots in life are unraveling and the clarity is returning.

Ramble On Old Man

I turned 40 last week.

I made jokes about staying in bed all day and keeping the curtains drawn.  I told people that my kids finally stopped asking why daddy was crying around noon. To tell the truth, I had a lot of well wishers and, in general, it really wasn't a bad day.  I did nothing all day except watch my favorite DVDs and gorge myself on popcorn made in an antique stove-top popper (the only way to make real popcorn, in my book, is on the stove).  Yes, in the end, it was a good day.

But still, turning 40 wasn't fun.  I did have moments of doubt, regret and sadness.  I just don't have a handle on what being a 40 year old means.  I do see my years rushing forward to the point where I have more behind me than in front of me.

My son ran in the county fair sponsored 5K last Sunday.  I watched from the stand as he passed over the finish line with 23:49.01 on the clock.  I was so proud.  To him, though, running is something to do.  Being part of the XCountry team.  It isn't something that is a part of him.  And I can't say that it is an inner part of me yet either, but I'm getting there. I am incredibly proud of his finish.  He finished 138th out of about 470 runners.

Why am I bringing up my son?  Well, first there's the pride thing.  But it also puts some things in perspective for me.  I'm 40, not 14.  I've got a 40 year old body that I've not taken care of very well, but I know what I need to do to regain my health.  I can't run a 6 minute mile like my boy, but I can run a mile which is more than I could two years ago.  I can't compete with other runners, but I'm at an age where I don't need to.  Completing the task is reward enough.

Last night's run was awful.  With the week off and the insane amount of crap I enjoyed eating, I could really tell the difference.  I was carrying extra water in my muscles from all the carbs, my legs felt like lead, my feet hurt, it was hot, I felt as if I couldn't breathe. I didn't think I could do it.  And, to be clear, it wasn't negative talk per se--I honestly thought my body would not make it through the run.  Some runs are just like that and your body will tell you to stop.

It is week 4 of the C25K program which meant two 3 minute jogs and two 5 minute plods with walking breaks in between.  The ground was uneven in places at the park with roots and rock and I just didn't want to do it.  My wife, however, would not let me give in.  She encouraged me to keep pushing.  She believed I could do it.  And she was right.

She almost always is.

I'm sorry for this rambling post.  I've just got too much to say and don't have a nice, neat way of pulling it all together.  Life is good.  Stressful situations are coming to a close.  I will regain my health. I can do it.

Reboot 2.0

Ok, so it's been awhile. 

It feels like the last 6 mos has lasted 6 years.  It has been a terrible time that dragged me through accusations and attacks on my integrity, destroyed friendships, feelings of betrayal and some of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make in my adult life.  It has included upheavals at work with sudden departure of my boss, uncertainty with budgets, and realizing that the whole thing is going to depend on how the management hangs together as a team.  It has meant turning to others and say "I can't make this work.  You'll have to step up and do what I can't do" and trust that they will indeed accomplish great things because I got out of the way. 

Stress for a depressed fat guy just brings on more excuses so eat and be a proverbial potato of the couch.

I've put on some weight.

But...it has also been a time of awakening--learning that when push comes to shove comes to blows, I can stand up for what is right.  It includes realizing that my wife is willing to risk a friendship to stand by her husband's unpopular decisions because she believes he is right.  It has taken me on a wild trip including a quick turn through Buddhism and learning what it really means to be mindful while realizing I don't know a damn thing about mindfulness.

I have come to the decision that life is not going to make accommodations for me.  It isn't going to let up and give me the space to take care of myself.  If I'm going to run a 5K this fall, life isn't going to make it easy to get out there to run.  It isn't going to let me lose that last 10 pounds so I can run without risking acute pain in my formally broken ankle.

So, tonight, I got out there and had a miserable 2 mile run.  Ninety degrees.  Muggy to the point of absurd.  My ankle hurt.  I couldn't breathe.  I was slow.  I was tired.  I was soaked in sweat and I was red.  It was then when I looked up and saw the most inspiring sight I've seen in what seems like ages.  Coming my way was another Clydesdale.  She was slow.  She was tired.  She was gulping for breath.  She was beet red with sweat pouring down her face.  And, when she saw me, she broke in to the biggest grin that just lifted my lagging spirit.  I knew right then I had a sister on this trip, even if she and I will never chance to meet again.

C25K, week 1, day 1.