So it is now Tuesday January 15th and officially day 2 of my "Getting Back to Awesome" project. I was going to blog last night, but in all honesty i passed out about 15 minutes after getting back from my final workout. Ill go over my first day reactions in my next blog, but there is a topic I wanted to touch upon first.
Mind games. It is often said that we are our own worst enemies and I truly believe this 100 percent. Leading up to the official start date of Monday January 14th felt like a mental wrestling match with a 600 lb sumo wrestler. At some points I questioned whether I could go on with this project. I had to keep telling myself that I made a personal commitment and I was hell bent on following through with it. Sunday night i had finally committed myself to starting Monday, but it wasn't an easy road.
It all started Tuesday the "picture" day. Around 8 pm I had shown up to my close friend's house to take the "current state" pictures. Let me tell you, it was freezing. It didn't help that his studio was in his garage which was also freezing (nice one rob!). Normally I would have no problems taking pictures, but this was different. I was a mental wreck. I must have paced around for 20 minutes before finally committing to the shoot. It was a mix of embarrassment, ego, and a morphed self image that made things so hard to do. It is easy to take picture when you look good, but here you are taking a picture with your shirt off to be shown to everyone when I was barely comfortable taking my shirt off currently in front of myself! In a big way, I felt this was a critical step for me. It was acceptance of where my inactivity and poor diet had lead. It also symbolized my commitment to change. One of the things I learend over the years is that often times it is easy to ignore the problem. The saying, "Out of sight, out of mind" perfectly illustrates this point. It seems silly that you could literally ignore a problem like this. You could think how can you ignore being 336 pounds (my actual weigh in weight the day of the shoot), but you would be amazed at how easy it is to do. People do it all the time and they live in denial. It is not healthy and at some point you have to look at your self straight in the mirror and accept where you truly are before you can move on to make changes. Taking those pictures helped me accept my current position as well as helped me set my goals for the next twelve weeks.
With the photoshoot over I felt like my first hurdle had been cleared. The next step was preparing myself for the shock of the forthcoming project. I knew it was going to be a total change to my lifestyle and diet. Many times it is possible to make small change as to not shock your system too much, but considering how out of whack my life had become I had no choice but to make drastic changes. The training changes were going to be hard, but my biggest problem was going to be cleaning up my diet.
My diet has , on a regular basis, been what makes me or breaks me. I believe most americans are like this. I have met a few metabolic freaks in my life that can eat french fries all day long and stay absolutely ripped, but I was not one of those blessed souls. If I eat good then it shows, but if I pig out then I quickly turn into resembling a pregnant beached whale. I always looked at it as both a blessing and a curse. Regardless of what you look like, having a poor diet is bad for you. Just because your metabolism is abnormally fast and keeps you lean doesn't mean that living off of burgers and french fries is good for you. In fact I believe it is a crutch that lets people justify eating poorly. In the end, the poor eating habits damage everyone not just the people who actively show the added pounds. In this light I take my added weight as a blessing. Its more of a warning sign then anything. My body is literally sending out an S.O.S. screaming to be fixed. It was about time i got that message in a bottle.
Leading up to my start on monday i experienced a phenomenon i call the "pre diet binge". The truth is that im one of those people that really loves food. I especially like good food, but unfortunately I often tend to eat too much of a good thing until it becomes bad for me. Serving sizes have always been an issue for me as it is for millions of Americans. I always eat too much of everything. When I travel overseas I notice how much smaller food portions are and it often doesn't hit me just how big of a difference it is until I return to the states. I knew that going into this project I would have to re-assess my food portions if I were going to be successful.
Going back to the "pre diet binge", it isn't as bad as it sounds. I like to compare it more to a "last wish" for my taste buds. Im not saying that eating healthy food isn't delicious. ok maybe I am, fatty food is so much tastier then healthy food. I can't deny it! And the truth is that it is very hard for most people to let go of their favorite foods, or even to cut back. Under most cirucmstances I would say cutting back on your "comfort foods" would be enough but for the project at hand I wanted to show what is possible when you push things with training as well as diet. The bad food had to go. But it wasn't going away without a farewell party. Over the weekend I had a going away part for my taste buds as I sampled some of my sinful foods. I had a serving of lasagna with my workout partner over lunch, I ate at Panda Express(curse you delicous orange chicken!), and I even had cheeseburgers from Mcdonalds. I would like to point out that I resisted the temptation of paying 1 cent more to make them double cheeseburgers. Go willpower! Finally I had an ice cream sandwich from 7-11 to saturate my sweet tooth. All of this was spread out over a few days, so it may not have felt like what most people would consider a "binge" but in reality it was mental compromise that justified my diet. I am not saying its the way to go when starting a diet, it simply is my method to mentally prepare myself for the battle at hand.
As I watched the clock on Sunday night turn to midnight and Sunday rolled into Monday I knew the battle had begun. There was no looking back, twelve weeks lay ahead of me. In twelve weeks I would find out if I could beat my ultimate opponent, myself.
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