I don’t know if this tip will help any of you, but surprisingly, it’s worked exceptionally well for me. When I was learning how to deescalate a fight and/or end it violently and quickly, the trainer told me of a trick he recommends to some clients if they work out at home and need to “crunch” their time and focus. Everyone gets distracted. Food. Pets. Kids. As Seen on TV commercials.
I laughed when the trainer told me because it echoes what I tend to do before sleep. Most nights, I put the song “Save Your Tears” by The Weeknd on a one-hour repeat on my Alexa. Not that anyone asked, but I discovered that I’ve also developed the habit of putting my teddy bear laterally across my stomach and surgery scar. It took me several nights of falling asleep that way to REALIZE I was doing it. I’ve done it so many times now that my subconscious is etched by the groove of the song. It’s rare that it doesn’t push me over the edge into dreamland. I fully expect to hear the song in the car one day and then find myself upside down in a holler somewhere, after an impromptu nap on the highway.
The trick he told me is to find a motivational song and put it on repeat whenever I want to crunch my time and do my sets with shorter rest intervals – without getting distracted by the million things to do. Since I’m a Rocky fan, I chose a remix of “Rocky Going The FN Distance Construct Remix.” If the song is still playing, it prompts and reminds me to stay moving and focused on the intervals instead of lolly-gagging and letting time stretch and get away from me. I used Audacity on my computer to truncate the ending unnaturally; the sudden ending always triggers me to recognize that I’m supposed to be focused. And then the song starts again.
It works for me. Years ago, when I was in 9th grade and started running, “Rocky” ran in my head a lot. It’s silly, of course. Now, if I feel myself fading as I run, I put the same remix on and find myself sailing.
I wish life had that same sort of soundtrack to kick us in the ass and keep us on point for our goals and betterment.
I stayed up last night walking the town instead of sleeping. I did manage almost two hours of rest. The cold was a perverse distraction and relief as I walked without music, phone, or Fitbit. For whatever reason, my energy level was high despite the lack of sleep. I went running this afternoon, thinking of my brother Mike. I couldn’t help but be nostalgic about his absence. It motivated me to run like the wind, thinking of us when we were younger and when I started running out of the blue in 9th grade when we lived in Tontitown.
Wearing my lucky red ripshirt, I ran for him and for all the life he is missing out on. Though I love all manner of dreary weather, the sun was high today and I ran through the streets lined with countless apartments. Every time I thought I couldn’t run more, I reminded myself that Mike would love to be alive and out there with me if only he could have conquered his addiction.
There were a lot of people out and about today. I waved to most of them and wished anyone who could hear me a “Merry Xmas.” A guy near the E-Z Mart a few blocks away responded unexpectedly with an “Eff Xmas!” as if he meant it. I quipped back, “I’d like to, but the dinner I’d have to buy would be expensive.” He looked at me quizzically and just shook his head. A couple of days ago, a woman told me, “I don’t celebrate Xmas.” I said, “That’s okay. You might not be married, but you can wish your friend a happy anniversary, can’t you?” She was unamused by my quick wit.
Today, in addition to hitting my highest recorded number of steps, I’m going to break my “floors” record, too just to be arrogant. I try to get 50+ a day. I’m only 30,000 steps ahead of my nearest Workweek Hustle challenger, not counting the unrecorded 9 miles from last night. 🙂
Apart from all that, I was grateful that I woke up able to run, walk, and climb stairs. It’s not something I take for granted and especially with all the energy I unexpectedly woke up with for the day. Anxiety did grip me for a bit – which is always a surprise when I feel like I’m energetic. The workday beat that out of me.
I sit at my desk, watching my backward clock tick away the seconds, minutes, hours – all of which can’t be taken for granted. Mike would be nodding in agreement.
Well, since I’m burning 3500-4000 calories a day 5 days a week, I might have to have pizza and a banana for breakfast, ice cream and salad for lunch, and pie and broccoli for supper. I haven’t decided what to eat for second breakfast, brunch, or second supper. The fascinating thing is that I FEEL like my energy level is beyond human at times. P.S. No, I’m not pregnant. .
The screenshot is of this week’s sleep for me. Months ago, part of my therapy was to learn to sleep again. My benchmark is 6 hours, which probably seems low to most of you. It’s not. I CAN sleep more, but my natural rhythm at this weight is six hours. At some point, I’m going to take a week and see if I can sleep for eight hours and see if it lowers my motivation again. It did before. I’m not sure I actually fell asleep as early as I did on some of those nights; the Fitbit interprets low heart rate and breaths as light sleep, even if I’m awake and listening to music or a podcast, or wrestling with my cat Güino.
In February, I wrote a post titled “Shirtless in February.” I never felt too weird about people seeing my body. We all know what people look like, more or less, whether they’re layered in two shirts, a tunic, and a bathrobe. It’s anatomy, not magic. (Although there is magic and chemistry in the process of seeing someone, that’s for another post.) 🙂 We fool ourselves by thinking we’re being clever. In my case, I wish someone had been creative enough to tell me to stop eating and lose weight twenty years ago, and in such a way that I would have HEARD the concern. We don’t have a way to lovingly talk to someone about this sort of thing without setting off a firestorm of defense or anger. That’s a problem.
As a side note, the world would also be much better off if you accept the compliment if someone thinks you are pretty, beautiful, handsome, or attractive. There is no universal standard for such things. Can we stop insisting there is? One of the most beautiful things is a quick smile and a sense of humor, even if the teeth behind it are crooked. I’m being serious. There’s no single formula for beauty or even attraction.
Yesterday, I had tons of energy. I ate an abnormally large lunch and then had a therapy session. We laughed a lot, which is always a good sign. As I often say, she can laugh easily because she’s billing me. I already knew I was feeling better due to the volume of pranks and creative things I’d been doing. After, around 4, I felt anxious. Having a Fitbit pays off in these circumstances. Because I have the premium option, I could see the metrics in real-time and progress. Seeing the physiological effects helps me deal with it.
Today, I woke up feeling like I was walking on air, which is becoming very common -and when I don’t feel that energy, I wonder what causes it. I realized that I expect that I will always wake up ready to ring the bell and step into the day. I wanted to go running all morning. Unfortunately, work intervened. Work “let” me walk 15-20K steps, though. It wasn’t until after work that I realized that not running yesterday affected my level of anxiety in the afternoon. It should have been evident to me. I’ve only missed a couple of days of running in the last couple of weeks. If I find myself incapable of constant running, I switch to running in intervals and burn through the miles or minutes that way. Anything incremental is better than not doing anything. I’m not sure I will continue running. I’d do it if someone agreed to chase me each day. Add a little danger and/or mystery to the equation.
I hit the streets this afternoon. I enjoyed the incredible 75-degree afternoon. Weirdly, I could sense this might be the last such incredibly temperate afternoon to enjoy – maybe for weeks. The Upper 70s in December? Yes, please! And so, I ran. After a few minutes, I took my shirt off. The slight breeze gave me wings. Even though I didn’t want to, I stopped. I felt like I could run ten miles, which would be a discomfort payment I wouldn’t want to make tomorrow. I did run up and down the apartment stairs a few dozen times when I got back, though.
An actual test of whether someone cares what they look like is if they can run without a shirt on. Forget swimming without one; the litmus test is running, where there’s no water to hide your body. For 54, I look normal. My scar left what looks like a second belly-button indentation a few inches above my real one. The surgery left a “pooch” between the two indentations. When I think back to how I looked and felt before, it is still hard to believe I fooled myself for so long. I’m not a fan of people being ashamed of their bodies, no matter what shape they are in. I understand it, but when you compare the vast variety of body types and shapes, everyone has something they hate about themselves. Except for me. I accept it all because it’s me. I did the work needed to remove the excuses I kept whispering in my head. Looking normal is something I hadn’t anticipated.
Don’t worry; I’m still not going to ACT normal, so you can cross that expectation off of your list.
I’m going to put a picture below. Not so that people could say something nice – or mean. Anyone who wants to snark is welcome to as long as it’s creative. I love creative snark, and I need to practice not caring that other people think I look like Danny DeVito grown up and thinner. I’m not sucking my gut in. I don’t have one. I have a weird pooch that can’t be fixed without surgery, which will not happen. I already lost a knife fight with a surgeon. He got the last laugh with the catheter.
People keep telling me to stop losing weight. I haven’t lost any weight since before my surgery. I’m just working to change my body mass. I ate a donut and seven Ghiradelli chocolate squares this morning.
I’m still experimenting with the ‘how’ of it. There are days when I’m glad I’ve done it all for no other reason than to know I did it. The future could hit me with any number of calamities or illnesses. It’s a question of when not if.
I’ve encouraged anyone interested in doing something to change themselves. No matter what else I’ve done, I can’t imagine how I would feel if I still weighed 230, 240, or 250+ lbs. The voice in my head answers: “Dead.” You don’t have to go to the gym, buy supplements, or do a lot of cardio to lose weight. You don’t even have to invest a lot of time. All it takes is a change of mind about how you want to look and feel. Small changes, constantly reinforced. Because I’ve learned to say so, I’ll include the caveat that there are exceptions. But I’m not writing about the exceptions. As the year winds down, the barrage of New Year’s Resolutions and commitments ramp up. And I reply, “Why wait? You can do one thing today to start. And you can do it right here and right now.”
If you’re happy with your body, stop struggling to worry about your weight. And don’t worry about how people perceive you. You can’t change that.
I moved my bedroom from the living room into a bedroom this morning. If that sounds byzantine, it was. I’ve lived in my living room for almost four months. I also exercised and then went running. Whether it was toward something or away, I’m not certain. But I ran. And it felt glorious. It was the fifth time this week and the first in a long time where I felt like I might become airborne as I did so. I bought a set of athletic pants that fit me properly. They are 28-30 small adult/child size. Someone nicknamed me “Babypants.” I don’t take offense. I earned the size. And if you see me running and think I’m doing it strangely, that’s more than okay, too. Doing the work and looking stupid is okay by me. I’m going to look (and sound) stupid quite often. I look forward to it. It puzzles me that people are afraid of looking stupid, saying the wrong thing, or believing that other people have the magic formula for style, method, or appearance. We owe it to ourselves to be as strange as we naturally are.
When I got back from running, the husband of a caretaker for one of the tenants here spent his time waiting by blowing the leaves off the walkway. He watched as I ran up and down the staircase a few dozen times. “Getting your cardio in again? I saw you run up from the road.” I laughed. “Well, I have 30 years worth to catch up on.”
Earlier this week, I did a reset and asked the universe for a couple of favors. Not because I’m deserving of them – but because I’m not. It’s the first time I’ve dared to do so in a long time. The biggest ask is that I avoid calamity or demise for at least another year. A year is long enough to transform anything.
In the same way, I’ve diligently said, “I don’t know” with much greater frequency this year, I’ve also started asking. It’s a tangent to my propensity to state my truth without trying to wrangle someone into a specific reaction. It’s been a wild ride! Those who respond with incredulity that I ask are forgetting the fundamental truth: it’s never wrong to ask; it’s only wrong to respond irrationally on either side of the asking. It’s the cousin to honesty, a thing everyone claims to desire yet few embrace without grimace or discontent.
As I write this, someone texted me in response to another ask. Life can be so precious and quixotic at times, can’t it?
Ask Ask for what you want or desire. If you don’t, it is a certainty you’ll never get it. Ask of life and ask of people. The answer, though bitter or not what you sought… It’s at least the truth. Everything starts from there Ask
My apartment simplex can’t be described as pretty. It doesn’t need to be. I wish it were a wash of color and eccentricity. It has its pockets of interest and intrigue. With a bit of effort, I could transform the entire look and perception of this place. No matter how wild my tastes, there’s no way the result could be lesser than the status quo.
At the street where the parking lot meets Gregg, Poplar Street ends at the railroad tracks. I listened to the excursion train passing this morning as I lay in bed, not wanting to exit its warmth, even as I felt the urge to jump up and find the cool air outside to greet me – and wave at the passersby on the train. At the terminus of Poplar, there’s a crosswalk that leads to a trail pass-through to the neighborhood behind me, serpentinely connecting Gregg and Poplar to Yates, which branches to several other areas and College Avenue.
I love this pass-through. It opens another world to me without much walking to enter it. When I lived on Vanleer in Springdale, it was land-locked in a huge loopy and closed set of streets. There were a couple of places where such pass-through sidewalks or trails would have made using the neighborhood safer and more convenient. The pass-through here at Gregg is relaxing, efficient, and a welcome feature of this area. It’s genius. It’s Fayetteville.
This morning, as I let my feet lead me through the back neighborhoods, it was beautiful and much warmer than you’d expect for mid-November. I could smell the mountains of untended leaves, as well as hear the voices and sounds of hundreds of people moving about on their Saturday mornings.
Every person I waved to waved back. One person offered me a cup of coffee to go. “Next time, I promise!” That’s customer service on a neighborhood level.
I took a picture in front of one of my favorite nearby houses. It’s on Miller Street. It makes me think of the quote, “If yellow is such a happy color, why don’t more people use it?” This house, with its screened-in porch and simple old-style lines, strikes a chord in me. It’s the perfect house to imagine Thanksgiving dinner, full of raucous people and mountains of untouched food on every counter.
Thanks for the trail connection through the neighborhood. It’s made a world of difference for me and my link to those around me.
Despite what I’ve been eating, I still weigh about 148 lbs. There’s a ‘but’ here.
I can’t tell y’all how many times I’ve stepped on the scale lately, expecting to be over 150.
I think back to when I had the vision of what I’d look like. I didn’t expect a huge abdominal scar. But I love that it’s there. Really.
I’ve worked really hard since surgery to change my body. It’s working. My muscle mass is increasing. That creates the issue of burning more calories at rest than I previously did. I was wrong about needing to incorporate more weight training into my routine. Wrong seems to surround me when I think about what I thought I knew. I’m so grateful that I can do pushups again. Before my surgery, they were like meditation to me.
Now that I have a Fitbit, I know how easy it is to surpass 20,000 steps just on a normal day, one without a “walk.” I was fat with the same amount of activity. For years. That tells you how many bad choices I was making with the foods I was eating. It’s the fundamental truth of losing weight. Generally speaking, it’s the only reason you’re not where you want to be.
Fitbit watches are great for metrics. I thought I wouldn’t find it interesting. I was wrong, as usual. I got the 3-month trial premium plan. It tells me my heart rate, O2 level, sleep patterns, snoring, and of course steps. The threshold is 10,000 steps. It’s obvious that I will always go over 20,000 if I’m working. If I take a long walk through the streets around me, I can hit 30,000, or 50,000.
The Banana Apple Rule has helped me. If I go into a store, even an inconvenience store, and there are apples or bananas, I buy one and eat it. It’s a bit simplistic, but it works. It might not stop me from eating a bag of something stupid; it reminds me of why making different choices is a necessity.
When I lost all the weight, I didn’t change anything except what I ate.
Now that I’ve eclipsed a year of different choices, I feel humbled. No matter what else has happened to me, I can’t resist running up the stairs or wanting to hurdle over the side as I go down them, wondering if I might float.
When I think about where I was thirteen months ago, I float.
Thanksgiving is approaching. I thank the universe every night that I’m still here. I’ll make a lot of dumb choices because I’m human. But I’ll also make a lot of moments better because I’m still alive and being me.
During the cheesecake fiasco at Whole Foods the other day, I bought a reasonably-priced jug of protein powder. I should have known!
Anything reasonably priced at Whole Foods is 100% a mistake. Trust me.
It’s like buying your auto insurance from a guy named Honest Pete. You just don’t do it.
This brand is plant-based. Today, I made ten servings of it. The label said “French Vanilla.” The flavor is so opposite the label that I decided it is a new form of reverse marketing.
I made mine with skim milk. When I took the first gulp, the truth is that I thought it tasted like a chalky fart.
Yes, you read that right.
You know how you drive past a weird part of town and realize that the municipal wastewater treatment plant must be nearby? It was exactly like that but without the nostalgia. You have to drive a mile to rid the smell from the interior of your car.
The grit and residue left in my teeth was remarkable. Had someone thrown an urn of ashes in my face, I wouldn’t have noticed, probably even if threw the actual metal urn in my face, too. I decided that it reminded me of a mix of flatulence, diet tonic water, black licorice, and the tears of Tibetan monks.
As I stood there drinking it, I read the label. I couldn’t find “bile” anywhere in the list.
By the time I finished the serving?
I realized that it tastes so terrible that I LOVE it.
Just ignore me if I swallow and shiver as I imbibe it. I wouldn’t be surprised if I grow horns or an extra ear after drinking this stuff.
It’s rancid. I’ll buy it again if I catch it “on sale” at Whole Foods. Or possibly in their dumpster. Yes, I’m conflicted!
The fascinating thing is that I FEEL like my energy level is beyond human at times. P.S. No, I’m not pregnant. .
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 