Beating the Bulge

Day 5 - In the Public Eye

by Michael on 01/05/09 at 5:41 pm

It’s one thing to decide to lose 100 pounds, it’s quite another to invite the world to watch you. And yesterday was a hard one for me. My partner had e-mailed me photos of myself from the laptop so I could get them up on my blog; and this was the first time I had seen them. I was mortified: “I can’t put these up on the Web.” I sat with them for a few minutes and took some deep breaths. I finally realized that this is how I look. My partner, my friends, my trainer, the stranger walking down the street, they all see me like this. Okay, they don’t see me in my underwear with my rolls and man boobs resting on my big belly; but essentially people know how I look.

But looking at oneself in a photo (especially one so revealing) is a completely different experience — shocking, in this case. So I had a little talk with myself. My 100-pound journey will be successful only if I’m honest — with myself and my visitors. No one wants to hear a bunch of platitudes or a parade of made-up successes or half-truths. And ultimately, I don’t believe that I, or anyone else, can lose a lot of weight without being honest. You might lose it for a time, but it’ll probably find its way home again if you haven’t sorted yourself out. A part of my honesty is letting you know who I am, and that involves posting photos. So here I am.

I also said to myself: “Use these photos as inspiration and motivation.” I am who I am, and I need to own that and accept my responsibility, but I can change that man in the pictures. After announcing that I was feeling great and yesterday was going to be a good day, I mostly had a lousy day. I was processing the feelings and trying to shed the shameful residue clinging to me after posting those photos. I had a workout with my trainer, Phil, and he helped me work through some of that; mostly he just made me hurt so I’d forget my emotional pain.

Later in the afternoon I watched Kirstie Alley on Oprah. Kirstie’s fat again. Not just a few pounds, but she has regained all of the weight she lost on Jenny Craig, plus she added another ten. And God bless her, she didn’t hold back. She didn’t blame anyone or make excuses. Here it is in a nutshell: The week the Jenny Craig people stopped coming to Kirstie’s house to weigh her was the week she started to give up. She stopped weighing herself, she stopped caring so much about what she ate, and eventually she moved all of her workout equipment to the garage. Kirstie Alley hasn’t worked out in a year and a half.

She said a couple of things that really hit home for me. ” I’m careless with food. I’m irresponsible. It’s not like I don’t know there’s consequences. I don’t want there to be consequences.” Wow! Do I ever understand that. There are consequences for everything that I put in my mouth, but I don’t want to think about that. I just want the gratification in the moment. I’ll deal with the consequences tomorrow, but I never “deal.”

Kirstie Alley also expressed how disappointed she was with herself because she let everyone down. But, I don’t think this is true. Perhaps some people feel let down, but I don’t. I feel more inspired by her than ever. For me, she’s more of a human being for going on television and declaring: I gained it all back, here’s why, and I’m starting over. She’s not a 30-second commercial, she’s not a weight-loss product spokeswoman, she’s not a reality television star, and not a celebrity who is trying to get us to buy some PR line of fluff. She’s a real person with real struggles who sometimes succeeds and sometimes doesn’t. I can relate to that — and I want to!

And Kirstie Alley helped me sort of my own feelings about letting it all hang out here on Beating the Bulge. Putting up those pictures was hard because it’s like Kirstie Alley going on Oprah saying, “I’m going to do it!” It’s out there for everyone to see. And then this morning, I was immediately faced with whether I was really going to walk the walk: Friday is weigh-in day and I have gained two pounds. So I immediately thought, “Damn! Am I going to blog, Twitter, and Facebook about this?” How embarrassing. I’m sure it’s just a water thing because I’ve been to the gym four times this week and my food has been pretty good, so it’s impossible that I’ve really gained two pounds. (Please don’t tell me muscle weighs more than fat — I’ll scream my freakin’ head off!) But there’s little point in only reporting the good stuff, right? It doesn’t help you or me if my blog is filled with “good job” kind of stuff. And do I report that I’m probably taking the day off from the gym and I had a big breakfast at the greasy spoon on the corner because I’m so pissed off that I put on two pounds? I guess I just did.

But I’m figuring out that this is going to be a process, and sometimes it’ll go well and other times it won’t. But ultimately as long as I’m moving towards my goal, I’m making process. Excuse me now, there’s a pail of water waiting for me in the kitchen.

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