Category: Diet

I began this blog as a way to try and keep myself honest about what I am doing. A way to keep up with what I’m putting into my body. A way to encourage my self to keep going and maybe encourage others. Yet, I have found lately ( last year and 2 months) that I have not been able to stay on course and be honest about it.

Cheating has been my real issue. As I have stated in other posts, I have real addiction issues with certain types of foods; high carb and sugary in nature. I can’t seem to stop myself. I started out strong this year. Well, the first couple of weeks anyway. Then my desire for the sugary goodness(?) badness(?) kicked in. I can’t seem to resist.

I thought I had a good strategy by not having the stuff I don’t want to eat in the house. That isn’t good enough though. I have found myself jumping in the car late at night headed to the 24-hour Walmart to get what I needed. I think that if there was a guy on the corner selling Hostess Snack Cakes, and was able to do credit card transactions he would have had my business.

So, in retrospect, I have not done well at all the last 18 months or so. I can actually feel my health declining. I have gained all but 10 pounds of the weight I lost 2 years ago. My skeletal issues (degenerative disc disease) have gotten worse. This morning and the last couple of days, maybe a week or so, I have barely been able to stand or walk because of pain.

This is not the vanity of wanting to look good for the ladies. I’m in my 50’s. In fact, I will be 55 on March 1. Only 5 days away. It is a matter of life and death for me. If I get any heavier with my condition I could end up in a wheelchair or be using one of those metal walkers with the wheels and tennis balls. I do have one here in the house. I had to have it after I had back surgery in 2010.

Even as I sit here typing I am in some serious pain. I have lacked the discipline needed to stay on track. I need to lose weight. I have mild heart disease and have suffered from high cholesterol for years. I take a shit load of medications in the morning and evening.

I have been a failure this year so far, and last year for sure. I am really struggling. I  need to do better. My plan is to write more honestly about what I am going through. I typically have been writing only when I thought I was doing okay and lying a little the rest of the time. Probably because when I’m failing miserably I really don’t want anyone to know.

Maybe I was vain in the beginning. I was hoping this would be one of those blogs that showed how I went from fat to fit in so many months or years. But there are enough of those sites on the web already. And for people like me, they are not so encouraging. They only make me feel more like a failure.

So from now on, you get the whole story. I will do my best to write honestly about what I’m going through, my struggles, my failures, and of course my successes. I don’t want anyone feeling like a failure as a result of my writing bullshit.

As always I am determined to succeed. I need to lose weight. Not because I want to look good, though that is a part of it. But it is more because as I get older I find that it is easier to catch a cold, I have more pain just because, and I need to be strong. I promised my daughter I would live until I was 120 years old. 🙂

That is all for now. I have to get to work. Still training to be a school bus driver.

When I first began this “makeover” thing I was always worried about whether I was failing or succeeding, or reaching my goals, or gaining or losing weight. It could be maddening.

Now it’s two years later. I still haven’t reached my ultimate goal or lost my desired mouth of weight or whatever. But what I do realize now is that I am constantly doing one or the other. I am either constantly failing or constantly succeeding. Sometimes one is happening more than the other, but at least I’m moving one way or the other.

My eating habit was developed over many years. 99% of that time I was eating whatever I wanted and as much as I wanted. Youth will afford you that if you are doing just a modest amount of exercise. I was in the marching band in high school, plus P.E. class, and it was enough to keep me from gaining weight.

By the time I got to my mid-30’s though it was taking more than a little exercise to stay in shape. Fortunately I was in the military and was getting plenty. And I still had not given a single thought to the types and amount of food I was consuming. Surprisingly, I didn’t really get fat until I was around 40. But when it happened, boy, was I in trouble.

The Navy believes in training when it comes anything that has to do with their sailors. So, more than once, I received training about my dietary needs. It didn’t help though. I had already developed some very bad eating habits, which have proven to be extremely hard to change.

I still have not given up though. I know what I should be eating, and how much. But I realize that I can’t just switch my way of eating after doing it one way for so long. This will be a fight for probably a very long time. One day it may not be a fight to consume the foods I need for my body. But for now, I fight.

Doesn’t matter if I fail because success is always around the next corner. Doesn’t matter if I’m successful because failure may come in the next moment. What does matter is that I keep going. I can’t change my ways in an instant. It didn’t take me an instant to create my bad eating habits. So, even though the clock keeps counting down, I keep going because I’m constantly failing and I’m constantly succeeding.