In the beginning..... How sacreligious is that?

One summer in college, I worked for one of my fraternity brothers mowing lawns. We were mowing at the Nazarene church in our hometown and I had taken a break to refill the lawnmower. I took this opportunity to talk to the beautiful, young lady friend of mine that had stopped to chat. As I was chatting away and very distracted by her very large, round “features” I scraped the gas nozzle against the rim of the tank as I removed it the nozzle whipped around and splashed a substantial amount of gas into my face; specifically my eyes. I threw my hands firmly to my face as I shouted every curse word I knew, and even made up a few! “Shit, fuck, god damn mother! Fuck god! Oh god!” The preacher ran out of the church and calmly explained to me that god could hear the filthy words I was saying. I turned to him and replied, “Then that means that god watched while my distracted dumbass managed gasoline into my eyes and didn’t do anything to stop it! So I’m not particularly concerned if I offended anybody that would watch that happen and do nothing.”

I don’t know where I’m going with this story, but I can tell you from experience that questioning religion, or even blindly, wholeheartedly committing your life to religion you don’t fully understand, is what I like to call one of the million items you use to fill a size 62 pair of pants. What does that mean you might ask? Well, you see, nobody is born clinically obese, or an alcoholic, or a drug addict, a sex addict, a family-less workaholic, or even a criminal. Lots of people, smarter than myself, will talk about “nature versus nurture” and how much of our behavior is learned versus how much is engrained into our psyche, but I can say with absolute certainty that there aren’t any babies that are born that wear size 62 pants. You see, there isn’t just one bad choice that causes you to be fat. If only it were so easy that we could just find Marty McFly from Back to the Future, hop in his Delorean, and go back and tell ourselves not to pick up that donut or that glass of scotch, or that hit of cocaine when we we’re at a moment of weakness in our lives. Instead of one bad choice that ruins our lives, it’s this progression of bad choice after bad choice until we get to a point that it’s nearly impossible to correct our path.

Though I’ve traversed the gambit of all sorts of addictions and self-destructive behaviors, obesity is the one that was going to kill me. When I look back and try to think of all the bad choices I’ve made, I struggle to find a number. So how do I quantify it? Well, I’ve counted to a thousand before, and I’ve had one hundred thousand of something before so I guess a million is the first number that I really can’t conceptualize. So, for conversation sake, we’ll say that at my worst I filled my size 62 pair of pants with one million small mistakes. The problem is that you have to remove as many of those items as you can to get those pants to shrink and that is easier said than done. These tiny mistakes are all intertwined, like the cables behind your computer or television, and it takes focus, self-awareness, perseverance, and most importantly patience to whittle down those 62 britches to a more suitable size.

On December 24, 2007, the beginning of the better half of my life, I weighed in at 507 pounds. For 10 years at that point, I had succumbed to a family history of mental disease, specifically depression, and the fog that I had been living in had caused my life to completely spin out of control. I had been living in an efficiency apartment where I had hung bed sheets to block out the sun and the walls were lined with stacks of pizza boxes and newspapers from the floor to the ceiling. In the middle of my “fortress of solitude” was an old, worn out mattress and box springs that sat on the floor, because I’d broken the frame 50 or 60 pounds ago. I had my big-ass TV perched as high as I could so that whenever possible I could just lay and watch TV and zone out of my quickly deteriorating life while my garbage protected me from the evils that lurked in the world just outside my defenses.

I got started at a residential weight loss facility in Durham, NC. It was a great place because their program didn’t have any tricks to lose weight. The nutritionist was very straightforward. “You weigh this much, you’re this tall, you’re this age, you plan to exercise this much while you’re here. Well then here is the lowest number of calories that you can eat safely.” With that magic number in mind, I started planning my meals and they would prepare them. I quit drinking alcohol and soda. I quit smoking (yes mom, I smoked. Sorry!). I was drinking a gallon of water a day and exercising two hours a day. Inside, they had classes on proper nutrition, cooking classes, life management, meditation, and group and individualized therapy sessions.

After 1 year and 1 month not to mention the 6 weeks I spent in North Carolina, I have lost 172 pounds! None of those 172 pounds was ever lost because of surgery, starvation, or trick diets. It was all lost the good old fashioned way with hard work, determination, a lot of sweat, and painstaking planning! I’m still counting calories and I’m in the gym about 8 hours a week doing either weight training, boxing, yoga, or training for the Indy 500 mini marathon. I’ve plateau-ed pretty hard at 172 for a while now. I’m still slimming up all the time, but the scale seems broken. I’m not worried about it though because I’m really not dieting. I never did and I never will. For me, this is a lifestyle change and I give my body what it needs based on how busy my life is and how heavy I exercise and the weight loss is just a byproduct.

So, after a year, I’ve managed to shrink to size 62 pants down to size 42’s that I bought the other day from Old Navy. It was the first article of clothing I’d bought myself outside of a store specifically for fat guys since I was in high school! In keeping with the theme of the million mistakes inside my big-ass pants, I’ve managed to get half of that garbage out, but half still remains. The part I worked off we’ll think of it as the poor mistakes that my daemons tricked me into making. Now, if I’m going to make any more improvement in my life, I have to tackle those daemons, faulty ideals, and misconceptions and re-learn what it means to become a man.

Writing is my creative outlet so this blog is my therapeutic release. I need to relive my mistakes and that ugly trip down to the bottom of the barrel so I can learn where those daemons are hiding so that this whole voyage to hell doesn’t happen again. I don’t care who reads my blog, but all of my readers should understand that I’m telling these stories so that I can see them in proper perspective and to have my story heard, because everybody’s story should be told at least once. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, colorful ones at that, but I’m not proud of any of them. Please don’t think that I’m writing this for sympathy and I’m definitely not trying to tell people how to live their lives. I’m just trying to keep fixing mine.

Finally, the terms “Queen” and “rock star” are for describing my amazing girlfriend and “princess” is her seven year old daughter. These two women have taught me so much in such a short period of time. If you want to read an incredible story, read her blog. She is truly my source of strength and my inspiration and if you read her story you’ll understand why. www.rosieblankenship.com .

Enjoy the journey! I’ve found that it goes down a lot smoother with a beer or two….. Of course that would be light beer, specifically MGD light 64, and with a designated driver!!!!