I have a real bad relationship with sleep. In general, I’ve found that I have some sort of ridiculous ego trip that causes me to resent things that are forced upon me. I’m pretty certain that resentment is one of the foundations many of my problems are built upon, such as food (I have to eat), sleep (I have to rest), and timeliness (life tends to demand you are certain places at certain times). It’s clearly a ridiculous problem (and certainly not the only thing contributing to those issues) but it’s definitely a part of who I am. However, my issues with sleep go well beyond that – and I’m not the only one.

Insomnia seems to haunt the members of my family like some sort of familial ghost. When I was young, my grandmother told me our ancestors must have been from a different planet where the day and the night were opposite of those on Earth. I’m pretty sure she was sincere, which confused the hell out of me – even as a little kid I was fairly certain the universe didn’t work that way. The fact that she was suggesting we were from another planet, however, didn’t phase me at all.

Whether it’s my father, who I suspect has the same resentment issues I have, my mother, who certainly doesn’t, my brother, my grandmother, even my sister, who’s about as normal as my kind come – all of us regularly face the spectre of a long night awake and alone. Though I’ve often wondered what it is we all have in common (other than our alien DNA of course) that might be the underlying cause of our shared sleep deprivation, I’ve never really come to a good answer. At least, not until recently.

My brother is friends with a Shaman who oversees Ayahuasca ceremonies up in Humboldt, that he often turns to for advice. In a recent conversation, I asked my brother if he’d ever asked his friend about his trouble sleeping and if he’d had any suggestions. He had, and the Shaman’s answer had been (something to this effect):

The cure for insomnia is to go to bed proud of the day you’ve just lived

As I lay here tonight, unable to sleep, I’ve been asking myself – Could I have accomplished more today? Could I have utilized my time better? But I think those are the wrong questions. In fact, I think those questions are the root of my problem, as those same questions have sort of been the unspoken dialogue to my thoughts many a sleepless night. Always fretting about what wasn’t accomplished. Always replaying mistakes in my head.

Until recently, I don’t think I’d have ever thought self-image could be at the root of my insomnia, but now that I’m considering it, it seems plausible. I was productive today. I ate well, I worked, I went out and watched a movie with my family. By nearly any objective measure you could come up with, my day was a success. So the question I should be asking is – Why can’t I be proud with what I’ve done today?

Either my weight has been been ridiculously stable the last few days, or my scale is not functioning properly. I’ll have to keep an eye on that.

Regardless, I’ve found it’s annoying to weigh yourself every day and not see the scale moving down – though my eating has not been on point, so I don’t know why I would expect that to happen.

The easy way to stop being annoyed by it would be to stop weighing in, the correct way would be to give the scale a reason to move in the direction I want. It’s interesting how a choice like that, when laid out clearly isn’t really a choice. Rationally, the correct answer is obviously to eat better and lose weight, it’s getting yourself to emotionally come to that same conclusion which is difficult.

It does seem as if every time I write about how I have plans to do more around here, I immediately stop posting. Not sure what that says about me, but I know it’s accurate. In fact, if that doesn’t encapsulate who I am, perhaps nothing does.

Shortly after my last post I went on a family vacation to go see my brother Johnny’s senior performance as a percussion major in college. He was awesome – absolutely incredible. I am so proud of him, there weren’t (and still aren’t) words to really describe it.

Now, like most recent college graduates, Johnny is doing which of the following?

a) Coming back home and trying to find work to settle into a more permanent life.
b) He’s moving to Ghana for year to further study percussion and further expand his knowledge and experience.

If you answered a, you probably would benefit from b. (Good luck Johnny!)

Upon returning from vacation I found I’d gained about 5 pounds putting me at right about 309. Since that time I’ve been watching my weigh-ins (though neglecting to input them here) and simply been hovering right around that mark. While I don’t have a problem with gaining 5 pounds over a vacation – I definitely have a problem when I sit in limbo for the two months that follow it.

There are plenty of reasons (okay, most are excuses) for why I haven’t jumped right back into my efforts at a healthier lifestyle, but I’m not sure listing them matters. Suffice it to say I am back, yet again, and this time, I think, for good (more on that to come in a separate post.

It’s been a while since I posted much, and a lot has been happening in my life recently. I won’t bore you with all the details but, in short, I have problems – beyond pacifism. I’d given a lot of lip service to the idea that my losing weight was part of a bigger change in my life, but for the most part I wasn’t addressing what I consider other weak points or sources of stress. I immaturely thought those things would distract me from my weight loss goals, and I’d take care of them ‘next’.

After my most recent stumble Esther pointed out something I’d never considered when she said “You thought losing weight would solve all of your problems. When it didn’t, you quit.” I was either unaware (or more likely, didn’t want to be aware) of the fact I’d made a choice to stop putting effort into my health. I told myself it was too difficult with ‘all these other things’ going on, but really it was really much more of an ‘all these things’ didn’t go away.

With that in mind, I find that my original inclination to expand the focus of this site to general improvement of my life, rather than just weight loss, is probably the best answer. Weight loss & better health are still one of my primary life goals so they’re not going anywhere, I’ll just be posting more about different topics I’m interested in – particularly those that involve bettering or organizing my life, finances, etc.

“And then they stopped smiling. The corpse they saw in the weeds by the roadside was a rusty cylinder with bits of glass – the remnant of a gas-station pump.

It was the only thing left visible. The few charred posts, the slab of concrete and the sparkle of glass dust which had been a gas station – were swallowed in the brush, not to be noticed except by a careful glance, not to be seen at all in another year.

They looked away. They drove on, not wanting to know what else lay hidden under the miles of weeds. They felt the same wonder like a weight in the silence between them: wonder as to how much the weeds had swallowed and how fast.”

I’ve been eating like garbage lately. Usually I’d try and explain why, but I’m not sure that would help, so I’m gonna take some advice and just post the following:

I failed; I gave up. I’m going to start again, and not give up this time.

I need to not delay a day or two before posting my food, otherwise I might lose track of exactly what I ate and not have exact counts for the day – like I did this weekend.

Overall, I it was a mixed bag. Friday I was in a terrible mood and succumbed to a cheeseburger and fries at the local deli, but otherwise was on point with my eating. Saturday I did well, even resisting my typical habit of eating poorly when going out (the sips from Esther’s chocolate raspberry martini weren’t significant enough to count), but the Mojito afterward certainly wasn’t on the diet. Sunday I did well save for some fig newtons I munched on at Dad’s while working on some computer stuff.

The mojito and the burger are both acceptable in my mind – I’m not always going to eat great & sometimes you need to kick back with a drink – but the fig newtons (which calorie wise were the least of my transgressions) bother me because I snacked on them absent-mindedly. I’d probably had 3 or 4 of them before I realized I’d been taking in calories.

Still, considering I felt like an emotional wreck on Friday and had to resist the urge to just go nuts on cupcakes and cookies that were available here in the office, I’m okay with the way things played out.

My friends Jeff & Heather came over tonight and helped me do alot of the prep involved in following the p90x meal plan, for which I am eternally grateful. I’m a dog in the kitchen, despite my sister’s best efforts to help me not be.

Afterward, they joined me in doing plyometrics and, to their credit, didn’t throw up. In fact, no one did, which I’m rather proud of since I’ve thrown up at some point while doing plyo every single time I’ve done it. Although I did get a nasty hamstring cramp early in the routine, and then tweak my knee late, so it’s possible I wasn’t going quite as hard as I normally do.

It’s only been about a month since I was doing this 6 days a week, and I’d already forgotten just how tough it is on the body. My joints ache and my muscles feel like they’re sunburnt under my skin. Hopefully, following the nutrition program will aid my recovery as I’ll be getting better nutrition than before.

I was only out of town alittle over two weeks, but I used it as an excuse to not post for about a month. This changing your life thing in public is harder than I could have imagined.

At the beginning, when you’re seeing results, and you’re pumped because you had to work up the courage to tell all your friends and family what you’re planning, it’s easy to ride that high and have it carry you for a while. Once that wears off, and you start to struggle, you begin to see that maybe your weight isn’t an isolated issue. Suddenly, breaking the plateau you’re at involves facing fears of failure at work or school, or realizing that the way you mismanage your money depresses you. Now you find yourself facing huge obstacles – obstacles that can’t be solved just by spending an additional 15 minutes on the treadmill – and you despair.

It’s funny how viscous that cycle is, and how it can cause you to undermine yourself. That sense of failure permeates your being and affects everything you do. In fact, someone even told me “It’s like you’re doing the right things, in the wrong ways.” I did 66 days of p90x workouts missing only 3 days in the process (2 of which were for surgery), and didn’t see a pound of weight loss because I was eating terribly.

At the time I told myself it was because I was working out so hard I needed more calories (which was true), but then I went and got those calories via cupcakes & nachos. Even as I write that it sounds so ridiculous I want to smack myself across the face, but when you’re depressed I guess a lot of bad ideas can sound like good ones and the truth can get a little confusing.

I did see really impressive fitness result on p90x though, and I’d really like to see what it could do for me if I were doing it the right way – which means not letting my ego or depression get involved and following it to the letter, nutrition plan and all. So today I’m going to start the program anew, from Day 1. I’m taking all the measurements – including the dreaded before and after pictures – and will get them posted shortly.

Also, a while back I was considering what to do on this site about some of the other aspects of my life I think are negatively impacting my weight goals, such as my finances. I figure if I’m gonna be fighting this battle publicly, then I should do it publicly, end of story. I’ve decided that I’m going to include them in the site in some fashion, and will be playing around with tools and what not to help me do so.

I’m looking forward to some of the changes to the site I’m planning, and to not only getting my weight loss back on track, but taking it to a new level.

A great weekend away has me feeling really good today. The scale this morning was up (alot), but it was well worth it to have a little mini-vacation. Getting away for just a couple of days and not having to worry about my day-to-day life has really helped my outlook on things I think.

I know I haven’t been posting much recently, and I certainly haven’t been watching my calories, but I’m still busting my ass on p90x, having only missed a total of 3 days of the 51 I’ve been at it (two of which were because of surgery). As far as habits go, that’s definitely a good one to be building.

I know I can’t just sit pretty on the 42 pounds I’ve already lost, but in my efforts to not do so, I think I’ve been focusing too much on how much further I have to go, and all the mistakes I’ve made since I started to struggle. When I see little gains, or small losses, in the back of my mind, I compare it to the 1.7 pounds a week I was losing before, and I feel like I’m not doing well.

At different points along this process of trying to improve my health I’ve eaten better, worked out regularly, cooked my own food, saved money, etc. I just haven’t quite figured out how to put all of those things together at the same time.

Practice makes perfect, or so they say, so I’ll keep trying until I get it right.