Beating the Bulge

Yes, I Can Have a Do Over!

by Michael on 19/06/09 at 2:31 pm

I’ve been stuck for a while. The stuff I was doing – or not doing – wasn’t working. When I last blogged, a couple of weeks ago, I decided to create a new goal for myself – to lose 30 pounds by my birthday in September – in the hope that a more manageable short-term goal would get me back on track. So Monday was my new day one, but I haven’t been able to get here until today; or more honestly: I haven’t made time to get here until today. But I’ve really needed some time to process some stuff and let it percolate.

My trainer Phil and his business partner Daryl run a gym called Body Pump. And they’ve decided to create a new program to help their clients achieve the results they want. So, they’re partnered up with life coach Susan of Wright Momentum, and they asked me to be their guinea pig. It’s awesome and exactly what I needed. Phil told me that he wanted me to start recording food, so I dusted off my Diet and Fitness Journal that I bought a couple of months ago. I started using it on Monday. And then, Susan scheduled a first session with me and we met on Wednesday.

The whole premise of the program is that I’ll work out with Phil a couple of times a week and Susan will meet with me once a week to check in with my head. Susan and I will manage the stuff that comes up and keep setting new goals. And Susan and Phil will liaise to better challenge me to keep moving forward. It’s a brilliant idea and I have to say that my initial session with Susan opened up a whole new world.

I was supposed to write down a short-term goal and I did. But in working with Susan we talked about how a goal like “I will lose 30 pounds by my birthday” can feel punitive. The implication is that I have to do things I may not want and I’ll have to give up eating a whole lot of things that I love. That doesn’t sound like a lot of fun. Susan encouraged me to look for a more positive goal like “I want to have more energy” or “I want to be more positive.” Yeah right. No one wants to weigh 300 pounds but feel really positive inside. We want both things. We want it all!

But as I settled in with the session and everything it stirred up, a new goal began to take shape. I started to understand that weight loss is just a measurement that something else is happening. What? I’m getting more powerful, I have more energy, and I’m becoming healthier. Fine, I’m understanding that. But one of the things that we talked about is the obstacle that constantly stands in my way. Right now, in my world, I can blame everything on my weight. Whatever it is from I don’t have a lot of friends to I’m not getting laid regularly; I can use my weight as a rationale for those things happening or not happening. So my fear becomes what happens if I lose the weight and those things don’t change. I’d have to face the notion that it was never the weight, it was me. I don’t have many friends because people didn’t like me, or even worse, I’m unlovable or even unfuckable. And that’s a tough pill to swallow.

Susan suggested that I stop looking at the fear of what might happen, and instead look forward to meeting the man who would emerge through this process. I shunned the idea at first, but over the past couple of days that notion has really grown and taken shape. There are things that I really liked about the 16 to 18-year-old Michael. One summer when I was 16, I started running every night. At 10 p.m. I’d head out and run around the circle where we lived. The first time I made it halfway around. The goal became about making it all the way around, then going faster. One night as I sprinted around the circle I heard a voice: “You’re getting faster!” One of the neighbours was sitting on his porch and I realized that someone had been watching me the whole time. I stopped running after that.

I started exploring “weird clothes” as my parents called them, but I was trying to find a way to express myself. And I liked that guy. I even got a perm just because I wanted to see how I looked. I had been wrapped up in the born-again movement as a way of not being gay, but after a couple of years, I stormed out of the church. If God didn’t like me the way I was, then I wanted no part of him, I blasted at the sky one day. I admire the courage and strength it took to do that. Can you imagine? That 17-year-old boy wasn’t just telling off some teacher or neighbour, but he was telling off God himself. That’s ballsy – and I love that.

So I started thinking about that boy. Who was he really? What would he have become had he stayed on that course? And then, I decided that I wanted to get to know that boy. It doesn’t matter might have been, but that boy has qualities that I admire and I want to get to know him better. So now, my journey is not about losing 30 pounds or 100 pounds, but it’s encouraging that 17-year-old boy to emerge. That strength is still in there and I want to see it. I don’t really know how to frame that into a concrete, measurable goal, but I’m sure Susan and I will work that out.

On Wednesday, I set a goal for myself  that on Friday, Monday, and Wednesday I would get up by 5:30 a.m. and head off to the gym. To hold myself accountable, I promised to blog about it on each of those days and to e-mail Susan. So I was a little late this morning, getting up at 5:50 a.m., but I made it to the gym and did a gruelling 30 minutes of hills on the elliptical trainer. I wanted to do more, I hoped to do a ball routine, too; but after 30 minutes, I was spent. But I felt good for having did what I set out to do.

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