384 - Day 1

It's just a number. Or at least, that's what I keep trying to tell myself. I wasn't always this heavy. I was never really lean, but I was never this big. This is why I was so shocked to discover what I actually weigh.

A couple months ago, it became apparent to me in one day that I was getting a little bit too big. I had permanently bent a chair, and I had two seriously embarrassing realizations about my weight. The first was that if I kept at this, that I would never be able to ride on a roller coaster again. The last time I rode one I could barely fit in the seat and it was hell on my body. The second realization is sadly pretty private. But suffice it to say that it was quite the eye opener and was such a crystallizing moment of epiphany that I started keeping track of my calories immediately (followed by the predictable relapse a few weeks later).

After that I started to eat better. I had come to realize that dieting was never going to work for me. I was going to have to transform the way I interact with food, not just what food I ate. I would plan out my entire day's food ahead of time. Twenty-five hundred calories was my goal, and I'd say out of the three weeks that I was keeping track, I had made that goal at least nine times out of ten.

The problem with this came when I had the inevitable relapse. I had ran out of healthy food one day and I instead chose unhealthy fast food options. I decided to not keep track of that day, and the habit was broken before it even had time to set in. Before I knew it I was eating as I always have - lots of fried, sweet, salty, cheesey, or creamy foods.  Some days only those foods.

Of course, this is not my first time on the merry-go-round.  I've been heavy most of my life, except for a short period of time when I was growing and playing sports.  Otherwise, I've almost always been labeled the large kid, the big guy, the fucking fat dude.  It's been my albatross.  I don't say this to solicit pity or sympathy, it's just fact.  I've come to terms with these things and I want to move past it.  I would much rather be known as the director, the film guy, the guy with the big brain.  I realize that I am those things right now, but they're not on the forefront of people's minds.  I guarantee that if you're reading this and you know me, your first description you would use to describe me would not be my eye color.  It would be my enormous stomach.  It will only be once I overcome that label that I will become known as something other than fat.   Not that there is a direct parallel, but I find that being fat is akin to having a horrific disfigurement.  No matter how nice you are, no matter how smart or giving or even malevolent you are, if you are fat that is the label you are stuck with until you lose it.  If you think I'm being hyperbolic, think about what set Taft apart as president, Beth Ditto apart as a vocalist, or Budai as a spiritual leader.

The difference this time is that I have never gained this much weight before.  Since the last time I weighed myself, which was in 2008, I was around 325.  That is some significant weight gain, and in looking at pictures of myself over the course of the past couple years, it has been drastic.  Only so much of this can be explained away from quitting smoking in 2008.  There is definitely more to it than that. 

Which led me to the nutritionist's office today, to talk about how to overcome these failed attempts and change the way I relate to food.  If was an informative hour.  She confirmed a lot of what I had already thought, and gave me a lot of great suggestions with how I could further improve my situation.  Then she asked me what my weight was.  I had no clue, and was dreading stepping on the scale.  I was figuring it would be around 340.  Then it wasn't, and hovered around 384.  I was shocked, and it has rattled me to the core in a good way.  It was the final motivation to start this blog and get serious about nutrition.

After long consideration, I have discovered a handful of difficulties that I will need to improve upon if I am going to be successful in this endeavor.  They are as follows and will probably each be expanded upon in a later post:

1.) I feel a constant need to do something with my mouth, whether it be eating drinking or talking.
2.) My ability to implement plans is really really shoddy and predictable.
3.) My schedule is not condusive to many slow food type solutions.
4.) The food industry actively works against the public's interest, leading to unhealthy choices being the most affordable, abundant, and desirable.

I'm not going to solve all of these problems in a day or get to my ideal weight (which I don't have) in a month.  This is going to be a lifetime process involving changing most of the aspects of my life.  I intend for this blog to be a way for me to work out these challenges and gather my thoughts.

Oh, and as to the name of the blog, I am a fan of HP Lovecraft.  And I have this picture of Cthulhu grabbing someone for a snack.  Fat people, with their modeled meat and sweetened blood, would probably taste the best.  Thus, my goal to not become a tempting snack.