The next part of Susan’s exercise was not so easy: So how is the rest of the week going to look? What are you going to do? I knew that I had to say no Pepsi, no candy bars, no chips, no McDonald’s, and my eating has to be clean. I didn’t want to say it because I knew that I didn’t want to have to make a commitment that (a) I really didn’t want to make, and that (b) I  really wasn’t sure I could keep. Eventually, Susan pushed and got a little more bitchy. And I pushed back and made some more excuses. And finally I said it: Except for Sunday breakfast, the rest of my week’s meals have to be clean and my daily calorie intake needs to be under 2,500 calories. (My BMR is 3,200 calories, so hitting between 2,200 and 2,500 would create a 1,000 to 800 calorie deficit every day; and with my exercise, I should end up losing a couple of pounds a week.)

Further, my motto for the week is: No Excuses. This is an easy one because I have it tattooed on my left bicep. I got the tattoo a couple of years ago in a moment of bravado, but never really lived up to the motto. It ended up like a scar from some horrible accident that I had caused, something that would always remind me of my negligence. But now, Susan was helping me claim that “scar” back and turn it into the thing of motivation I desired when I got it inked on my arm. I got the tattoo after I had seen Kyle Maynard on Oprah. Kyle was born a congenital amputee with his arms ending at his elbows and his legs at his knees; but he went on to become a champion on the wrestling mats. And his book No Excuses is what inspired my tattoo.

I limped home from my coaching session, and along the way, I saw some guy eating a slice of pizza. I almost turned at the next corner to hit my favourite pizza joint, but stopped myself. Another exercise is that I was suppose to notice the excuses that pop up in my head. “I’ll start it after these two slices of pizza,” that little demon whispered in my ear. I carried on home, but that little demon kept whispering. Finally, after my partner left for the billiards hall and I was by myself, I decided to have a TV night. Fuck it! I hit the DVD store, then picked up a bag of chips, a tub of dip, and a Kit Kat; then I picked up those two pieces of pizza. A couple of hours later I wondered where all that food had gone and why didn’t I feel full – or any better.

It was my last hurrah and the next morning I woke and vowed to get to work on my commitment. That day I ended up doing 2,541 calories, and the following day 2,532; and when I got on the scale on the third morning, I was down two pounds. So I had discovered the secret of weight loss: You really do have to seriously commit to a strict program of diet and exercise. It doesn’t matter how many boot camps you do, it doesn’t matter how hard your trainer kicks your ass or how fast you walk; if your calories are bouncing from 1,800 to 3,600 a couple of times a week, you’re just not going to lose weight. I know we’re all looking for some deep, dark secret of weight loss, but it really is that simple. We don’t want to hear it, and it’s taken me several months to get that through my thick, stubborn head, but that’s really the way it is. And I hope I’ve learned that one.

So for the past three days my calories have been coming in pretty close to 2,500 calories and it’s felt manageable. I haven’t felt deprived, but I’ve been very careful with my portions. I’ve been measuring everything. For instance, I love cashews, they’re a wonderful treat for me. But, they’re high in fat and calories; so, when I buy a bag of them, I immediately parcel them up into 1 oz servings in small plastic containers. So when I want a snack, the math is done for me. Yesterday, Ted and I headed out for a walk, and he said, “Where was that fish and chip place we saw recently?” and then adding, “Oh that wouldn’t be good for you, would it?” That’s his way of being the supportive husband and if I choose to say, “Oh it’s alright,” then he’s absolved of any responsibility or feelings of guilt. But this time I said, “No, I can’t do fish and chips today. My only indulgence this week is my breakfast tomorrow.”

So, I had my big breakfast this morning. It was good and I loved it, but half way through I thought, “Man, this is a lot of food and my stomach is feeling different.” I think it was a feeling of being full or satisfied. So I think that after another week of strict eating I’ll probably want to reduce that big breakfast a little. I can still have it, but instead of three of everything, I can do two of everything. I think I would have felt just as satisfied with that.

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I was immediately plagued with self doubt. What if it was too hard? What would the other people think? What if I couldn’t do it? I just talked myself through it. If it was too hard, I’d do what I could. Who cares what those people think; I don’t know them and may never see them again. And besides, if they’re thinking badly of a fat guy trying to do a boot-camp class, then what kind of people are they? Certainly not the kind of people I want to know. And finally, I wasn’t committing to doing a boot-camp class for the rest of my life – just one day.

I got myself out of bed and headed off this morning. There was no question that I was going. There was no fighting with myself or convincing myself to go. I just got up, hit the bathroom, filled my water bottle, grabbed a protein bar, and left.  I got to the YMCA and asked a staffer in the gym about the boot camp and he pointed out the teacher. I marched over to the teacher and said, “Hi, this is my first class. Can you tell me what I need to do?” This is so unlike me. I’d usually hover on the sidelines and wait for someone to ask me if I was there for the class, and then, I might hem and haw and say “yes,” or I might just pretend I was there to examine the parquet floors for an art project or something. The instructor pointed out all of the equipment I needed for the class and I trundled off to gather everything.

After setting up, I discovered I was at the front of the class, so I moved it all to the back of the class so I’d be more comfortable. I just get set up and this fat woman marches over to me, carrying all her equipment, and says with a fake smile: “Not that we’re territorial around here, but you took my spot!” Don’t you just hate fat people sometimes? We’re such a bunch of raging c*nts sometimes. I just looked at her, smiled, and said, “Oh did I? Sorry.” She’s lucky I didn’t pull a Canadian Tire on her. (A Canadian Tire involves you going off on the floor manager at the Canadian Tire store because he won’t check the price of the item you’re wanting to buy and calling him a mother f*cker, which results in him calling security to have you thrown out of the store.)

I started the class and things were going alright. It was challenging, but manageable. Then, after some warming up, the instructor split us into two groups: the other group had to walk the stairs (and there are a lot of them) and my group had to run the width of the gym doing various things: sprinting, walking like apes, crawling like upside grabs … it was horrible. And if it wasn’t for the woman who gave me hell earlier, I would have been the slowest one in the class. But I thought: I don’t care. So I’m the second slowest one. You’ve got to start somewhere. And I pushed myself to run faster because I sure wasn’t going to fall behind Miss You’re In My Spot. And I didn’t do the upside crab things because I just knew they were beyond my capability, but I did run. And I don’t run anywhere. I won’t even run for a bus.

Then it was our turn to do the stairs. They did me in. By the end of the stair climbing, I started to feel as though I was going to throw up. (Maybe eating a protein bar right before class isn’t a good thing.) I headed back to the class, skipped the second round of running, and caught my breath. I did one more set of stepping with a bar in my hand and doing three things at the same time (I hate that, don’t I, Phil?), and then, I packed it in when he sent everyone running again. I cringed at the thought of having to cart all my equipment back through the gym with everyone seeing that I had failed and couldn’t finish the class. But again, I just talked myself through it. Michael, you got up and got to the class by 6:30 a.m., you asked the instructor for help, you braved the woman with attitude, and you did what you can; now, you can take care of yourself and leave now, or you can stay and hurl all over the gym floor. I didn’t fail, I actually met quite a few challenges this morning.

I’m going to go back to that class because I didn’t really mind it. It was challenging and it got my heart rate up there really fast. And now I have a benchmark. I know I can do 30 minutes before I can’t breath, my face turns red as a lobster, and I’m ready to hurl. So, my goal now is to finish a class. I don’t care if it takes me another month, I want to be able to finish a whole hour-long bootcamp class. There’s a 45-minute class on Wednesday, I think I’ll take that one in and start shooting for that goal. There’s a yoga class I’m thinking about, too, but I might leave that for another week.

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My morning walks were great. First, I love walking at 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. because the rest of the world is still in bed, or just waking up. I’ve pretty much got the streets to myself. But this week I bought an iTouch iPod, so I added music to my walking. Several years ago, when I was a circuit party animal, Ted and I made a series of dance music CDs. We bought a mixing program and mixed songs together like the DJs do. It was great hearing some of this stuff again; and 120 to 140 beats per minute really gets your legs and heart moving. By the time I’m hitting home an hour later, I’m pretty spent and my shirt is soaked. It seems to be paying off since I’m down another pound. Yeah!

But I also stepped up the walking in other ways. I stop a couple of times along to way and do some push-ups on benches or concrete planters. And for the past couple of walks I’ve been carrying two-pound weights in my hands. Throughtout my walk I’ll do side raises or shoulder presses just to add a little extra something.

My food was pretty good on Saturday. I made a conscious decision to have a hamburger, fries and a Pepsi; but rather than choosing a fast-food restaurant, we went to a proper sit-down restaurant. Sunday was a little messier than I wanted. I have a Sunday morning tradition where I take myself off to the corner greasy spoon and I read a magazine while eating my bacon, eggs, sausage, and toast. It’s a totally bad breakfast and comes in somewhere over 1,000 calories. But, it’s the one thing in the week that I really look forward to, so I’m giving myself permission to do that.

However, later in the day, I also had a couple more cans of Pepsi along with some Cantonese chow mein (which doesn’t really taste as good without MSG). And then, I polished off a couple of bowls of granola and some watermelon. So I ate more than I wanted to, and those two cans of Pepsi took me above my one can a week limit; but I didn’t eat a bag of chips and a couple of chocolate bars like I normally would. Also, I had allowed myself one trip to McDonald’s and one chocolate bar this week, and I didn’t indulge in either of those. So, I made progress this weekend and I didn’t blow the whole weekend. My goal for this week will to be even more diligent on the weekend.

One of my assignments this week was to take myself on a date. On Friday morning after my walk I decided to take myself off for a pedicure. I’ve never done it. My feet were also in pretty rough shape, so I decided it was the perfect thing to do. My feet felt wonderful afterwards and I’m really glad I did it. I’m not sure I’m thrilled with the environment: a row of four barber-shop-style chairs and a gaggle of Asian women talking to one another. First of all, Asian languages aren’t easy on the ear, so it’s a little hard to relax; and second, you have to wonder if these women are talking about the date they had last night, the fight they had with their husband this morning, or is my manicurist yelling out: “Oh man, you should see this fat guy’s gnarly feet! They’re gross.” I loved the experience, I’ll just have to look around for a less distracting and more relaxing envoironment.

One thing that I really got out of the past week is that I’m really looking forward to my morning walks. I look at them as an opportunity to spend some time alone, but also, I know that I’m doing something good for my body. I used to look at these things as something I had to do, but I’m looking at them as something I want to do. That’s a nice bit of progress.

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So Susan, my life coach, started things off last week by encouraging me to create a goal that wasn’t so much weight specific, and that got me thinking about 17-year-old Michael. Then Carol, the once upon a time high-school teacher of said 17-year-old boy shows up unexpectedly to re-introduce me to my younger self. And then, Mary,  a woman who is becoming more important to me with each passing week, pops in on Thursday to punctuate it all.

Mary and I met through a work relationship and I really liked her from the first time I met her. We did some work together and I enjoyed interracting with her, but then she decided it was time to move on. And I was really sad about that. We tried to stay connected over the past year or so, and we’ve been doing a pretty good job of it. But a couple of months ago, we our circles start overlapping more and more. And now, we’re a pretty tight team and tackling a project together. So I’m on the phone with Mary a few times a week and I love talking to her. We share a lot of the same issues and problems and work in similar fields, so there’ s a lot of common ground.

Mary’s been supporting me through a recent situation where someone really betrayed me. I mean, we’re talking about blind folded me, bent me over, tied me down, and pushed real hard! Yes, I was fucked! HARD. It hurts and it infuriates me, and sometimes it makes me want to cry.  Mary has been walking this road with me for a couple of weeks, and she’s been wonderfully supportive. So yesterday, at the end of a long phone call, I said to her,  “Thanks for being there and supporting me this week. It’s been a hard week.” And she just told me that she loves spending time with me, whether it’s on the phone or in person she just loves being with me. Wow! She could have said, “Oh that’s okay,” or “Don’t worry about it,” but no, she punctuated one of the most important weeks of my life with “I just love spending time with you.” I felt so honoured, so valued — so significant.

Oh man, I am NOT heading for another one of those Oprah crying, cats running to see if I’m okay things … this is not happening. But it’s become abundantly clear to me this week how important the people around us are, especially when they’re mirroring back to us what we’ve been trying – but failing – to see.  Susan nudged me toward getting to know that 17-year-old boy, Carol cultivated that by telling me what qualities attracted her to that 17-year-old boy in the first place (and still do) , and then,  Mary comes along and says, “I just love spending time with you.”  Isn’t that just the cherry on top of the proverbial ice cream sundae!

I want to say that it’s sad that it has taken me 46 years to figure this out, but right now, in this moment, that all just slips away. Yes, the journey has been hard and filled with all kinds of monsters, boogeymen, and shenanigans, but what’s important for me to seize tightly in my fist is this: I’m okay. I have always been okay. I’ve done a lot of things to try and prove to the world that I’m okay, and I think that’s what led me to my 312-pound self. And now, I just feel like I don’t need it any more. I am okay. In fact, I’m more than okay. I’m an awesome man with an incredible drive, endurance, and courage. I always get “it” done. Always and eventually.

Yesterday I had a hard workout with my trainer Phil. He had me doing one arm dumbbell rows. I hate them! (Lean over a workout bench and support yourself on one arm with your back parallel to the floor, pick up a dumbbell with your other hand and pull it up toward your side.) He knows I hate them and I’ve had to do them twice this week already, AND, he give me a 35-pound weight … I’m not finished yet … and he makes me do 25 reps with each arm. I hate him! But as I’m pulling through these dumbbell rows, I’m just thinking about that 17-year-old boy and letting him emerge stronger than he ever was. And do I them … all 50 of them! And when they get hard, I think about that guy who screwed me, and my anger pumps out some more testosterone so I burn through these things. And I really like this feeling.

Now, armed with this new sense of self, I am eager to keep this momentum going. And this is no longer a 100 pound weight-loss project, it’s really about finding out who this 17-year-old Michael really is and what he can do. And now, I’m really looking forward to this journey. Now, it feels as though I’m on a race track and I can see the finish line and I’m raring to go. Before now, I couldn’t see that finish-line tape, there’s was too much stuff cluttering the track. It’s all out of the way now and I can see where I’m headed. This is awesome.

And by the way, I’ve dropped another pound, so that’s seven pounds since my meltdown and recommitment. Awesome!

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Carol and I talked about my quest to get to know that 17-year-old boy. She’s known me the longest, so I was interested to hear if her perception of me was the same as my own. She said that I was responsible, sensitive, caring, eager to help others, and a bunch of other qualities that I forget now (maybe she’ll e-mail them so I can add them here), but I remember thinking, “Gee, those are nice qualities. I guess I was a nice kid.” I just saw all the negative stuff: the red hair, freckles, uncertainty, shyness – faggot! Yeah, there was that, too. That monkey rode my back all through high school and I couldn’t shake it. And back then, it was a big negative for me. I don’t think I wanted to like girls – I was okay liking boys – I just didn’t want to be different. So it was one of the things on the list of things I didn’t like about myself.

Carol’s gaydar was in pristine working order back then. I remember the very first time I went to her house for an overnight stay, we were in the kitchen getting dinner ready and talking, and she said, “Do you think you might be a latent homosexual?” I yelped back, “No!” And then, “What’s that?” She explained how it meant someone who was gay but didn’t really know they were in the moment, except I don’t think we had the word “gay” yet, or maybe only around New York City’s Stonewall Inn or in San Francisco, but certainly not in sleepy Newcastle, Ontario. I don’t remember anything else about the conversation except that Carol told me it was okay if I was a homosexual, and latent too.

Carol was not the first person to whom I came out. That distinction goes to a mother, daughter, and aunt trio who heard my confession as a plea for help. On three separate occasions, in three very different ways, I came out to these three women who all helped me pray for deliverance. The fact that my homosexual healing didn’t happen the first or second time should have been a clue, but I soldiered on. Eventually I figured out that Jesus wasn’t going to away this sin away, and then, in a courageous teenage moment I decided that it wasn’t a sin anyway: “If you don’t like who I am then I don’t want anything to do with you,” I snarled at God. And I remember the exact place where this happened. Before the creek at the bottom of Sunset Blvd there’s a bend in the road, and many a car took the bend too quickly and ended up on Brawley’s front lawn: That’s where I told God off.  I don’t remember how much time lapsed between that outburst and my coming out, but Carol was the next person I told. So officially speaking, when I decided I was gay, Carol was my first “out.”

I have no idea why I went here today, I hadn’t planned on telling this story. I guess with it being Pride week, seeing Carol, rediscovering my 17-year-old boy … yeah, it’s making sense. And I did say that I wanted to find a couple of ways to celebrate how far I have come. It’s funny, I’m trying to think about making a connection between then and now. I can’t really. The only thing that I feel – deep inside – is that it all doesn’t matter. Everything that happened between then and now is gone, it’s done, it’s over, it’s finished. But the man who sits here typing this blog and that 17-year-old boy, who had the courage to chastise God, are the same.

Whew! That touched my soul. I felt myself welling up there, but Holy! I just had a full-on, ugly cry. You know, the kind that has even the cat running into the room to see what’s going on. Wow! This is awesome. I can’t believe I just sat here at my desk and balled my fucking eyes out. Praise the Lord! I think I’m on the right track here. I want to stay connected with that audacity. Can you imagine a 17-year-old boy standing up to God? Where does a kid find that kind of courage? I like that kid … I love him! And that’s why I just balled my eyes out. He’s back. And man, did I miss him!

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Pride Week generally is a tough one for me. I’m reminded every year that I didn’t do what I vowed I’d do last year. Every Pride I feel badly because I’m still fat and I didn’t spend the previous year working on getting a great body. I promise myself that, this year, I’ll do it for sure. The last couple of years I’ve had as little to do with Pride as I could. But the problem is that my apartment overlooks the whole event. So I couldn’t ignore it if I tried. Quite truthfully, the whole event is a bit of a bust anyway. A million people walk up Church Street to just south of Bloor Street, at which point they turn around and walk back down Church Street, and they repeat this all day long. If you’re so inclined, you can stop by one of the sound stages and hear the lesbian, paraplegic, feminist rock band or you can crowd into one of the many beer gardens and get tipsy under the afternoon sun; but by and large, there’s just not that much to do – except people watch.

Look at me, I’m busting with pride, aren’t I? But I need to remind myself that this year my goals aren’t so fixated around weight. My goal is to find, meet, and get reacquainted with the 17-year-old boy I left back in high school. So I’ll have to think of a couple of things I can do this week to celebrate how far I’ve come since then and to honour how much things have changed. It’s the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City!

This morning I honoured my commitment to my coach by getting up at 5: 30 a.m., and while I didn’t go to the gym, I did go for a brisk, hour-long walk. It was such a beautiful morning that I couldn’t bear the thought of being in a smelly gym; besides I hate the elliptical trainer and I love walking. It’s such a peaceful time, too. There’s not much traffic and I can put on my MP3 player and listen to Jillian Michaels talk about health, fitness, and well being. It’s a great way to start my day. I love it. I have also had my breakfast, which was a chore. I’m sure my body will start craving breakfast in a couple of weeks, but right now, I gag at the thought of it.

I also committed to checking my blood sugar every morning. My coach wanted me to look for other measurements of progress besides the bathroom scales. So I’ve been testing my blood sugar every morning and it hasn’t been great. I stopped talking my pills a couple of months back because I seemed to be having issues in the other direction (low blood sugar) and the pills seemed to make my skin itch. And quite frankly, I just didn’t feel like being a Type 2 diabetic. But since testing my blood for a few days now, I can see that I need to be on the medication. It’s the responsible thing to do and it’s a part of my goal to look after my overall health and not simply obsess about a number on the scale.

The morning walk was great. It was beautiful and sunny and now I’m ready for my day. Have a good one!

By the way, a couple of weeks ago someone posted a comment on my blog. It got deleted. The comment was posted on the exact day I was moving my server. When they fired up the new server, the comment was gone. So my apologies to the poster.

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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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So I decided that I could set a short-term goal of losing 30 pounds by my birthday in the middle of September. That’s two pounds a week and that’s totally reasonable. But I haven’t weighed myself for three weeks, so I decided I needed to see where I was before I could start this new goal. (Read: No More Bathroom Scales.) When I arrived at the gym last Tuesday for my workout, I got on the scales. What a mistake! The scale said I gained six pounds. How is that possible? How can I work out for three weeks and gain six pounds? I can hear the “muscle weighs more than fat” choir clicking the comment button. Please don’t. It’s a sure fire way to get me riled up and on a rampage. Have you ever seen a 312-pound man – no wait 318-pound man – on a rampage? It’s not pretty.

So, my poor trainer, Phil, was stuck in the gym with me for a whole hour. Phil, God bless him, he’s the most patient man on the planet, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him angry; and he’s got this silly laugh that is so infectious. He has listened to me blather on about my stuff for a couple of years now and he’s always got something positive to say. But this day he’s really pissing me off. He keeps diverting the conversation away from my question: How is it possible that I’ve gained six pounds? And I know that he’s trying to divert me, so that’s pissing me off all the more. His partner, Daryl, got the brunt of it when he walked by and asked, “How’s it going? Looks like you’re doing well? Are you okay?” Daryl’s still walking funny after I ripped him a new one, which reminds me, I should probably apologize.

I calmed down a bit when I got home and weighed myself on my own scale, which showed a four-pound weight gain instead of six. And then, by the time I checked my morning weight, it was only a pound. But still, I just don’t get why this is going this way. Well that’s not true, I absolutely get that I’m taking in more calories than I’m burning. And I think what happens with me is that when I start working out I begin the get more relaxed with my eating. “I’m burning up lots of calories!” or “The furnace needs to be stoked!” or “I’m making muscle and muscle burns calories all day long, even when you’re resting.” So I begin taking little liberties.

I just feel so defeated. I feel like I’m going to be that 800-pound man wrapped in a bed sheet who is carted out of his home by a team of firefighters. But the problem is that I live on the fifteenth floor, so they’ll have to put a crane on the roof and blast a hole in the side of my building and lower me to the ground with all of Church Street standing and watching. The neighbourhood’s drag queens will throw an impromptu street show to entertain the gathering crowd of onlookers. They’ll sing choruses of It’s Raining Men, but no one will be shouting, “Hallelujah!”

I was pissed. And for the rest of the week and fell into “I don’t give a shit” mode. And this had led me to today, day 36, where I weigh 317.6 pounds on my home scale. So now I really have put on six pounds. And now I’m really pissed. And embarrassed, too, because all of you reading my blog and signing up for my tweets know it, too. But there’s a sun on the horizon – it’s Monday! And Monday is always a great day to start a new diet, a new fitness regime, a new promise. I’ve lived a whole life of Mondays. I know how to do Monday. The key is to make sure that there are six other days in this week.

Alright, so I need to get real. Obviously eating well for anything less than 90% of the time isn’t going to work toward achieving my long-term goal and going to the gym when I feel like it isn’t going to work either. So I need to get serious. My six-pound weight gain isn’t a mystery. I’m eating more than I should and I’m not burning enough calories, it’s that simple. So today, I’m armed with a new workout routine that’s geared towards losing weight and I’m dusting off my food journal. It’s back to the basics. And unfortunately, I’ve got some cardio to do this week. Ugh! Today’s workout is 30 minutes of cardio and a chest / quads / tricep / abs routine. “I don’t give a shit” mode is over. Time to get busy. Have a good Monday everyone!

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But in the absence of weighing myself and fixating on a number, how do I gauge my progress? First of all, isn’t it completely halfwitted to let a number on a machine govern my feelings? If I look good and feel healthy at 230, shouldn’t that be okay? Or what about 210, is that a better number? Or how about the 180 I weighed when I started university, that’s probably a better place to be, right? Losing 100 pounds still puts me at a higher poundage than most weight charts recommend, but I’m not worrying about that for now. And not knowing what the scales say at the beginning of this process forces me to find other benchmarks to measure my success. And what I’m learning is that these other yardsticks are more appropriate, accurate, gentle, and less likely to send me binging through a bag of potato chips.

For instance, I’ve been noticing that stomach is getting smaller and less rotund, and my man boobs are no longer sitting on my well-rounded belly, but they’re developing a certain perkiness. And the other day, I reached inside my shirt collar to scratch an itch, and I felt a firm and solid shoulder. As soon as my fingers fell into the curve I thought, “Wow! What’s this?” And I can certainly feel that my legs are tightening up.

But there are other things, too. I got up last Saturday and went to the gym. I don’t normally work out on weekends, so this was a change. And it wasn’t a struggle to do. Monday was a busy day and by the time gym time arrived late in the afternoon, I could have very easily just packed it in, but I pushed myself and went anyway. And during my Saturday  and Monday workouts I did table tops for 30 seconds. Table tops are when you lie flat on a mat, then rise and support yourself on your forearms and toes. They’re a bitch! And a few weeks ago I could barely do 10 seconds. But now, after 30 seconds I felt like I could probably do them for longer. “Then why didn’t you!” screams the Jillian Michaels inside my head.

Last night, I finished my dinner and had my dessert, and I was done. I didn’t eat anything for the last couple of hours of my day. (It probably helped that I didn’t watch television.) But still, this is very new and usually the end of my day is a huge struggle. I thought about grabbing a snack, but I paused, did a hunger check, and said, “No, I’m good. I don’t need anything.”

So I am making progress. I don’t know how much in traditional pounds, but it’s much more exciting to discover small, but still discerable changes in my body. It’s encouraging to see that I’m getting stronger, and certain tasks or movements are getting easier. And isn’t that what this journey is all about?

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The other day I talked about the exercise card set by Jillian Michaels called Hot Bod in a Box (click link to read the post) and so I decided since I’m trying some new things this weekend, I might as well go all the way. I hate you Jillian Michaels! What a tough workout! I couldn’t even finish it.  But I did more than half of it. And tomorrow, I know I’m going to feel it. Over 100 of two different kinds of squats (sumo and regular) yikes! I may not be able to walk tomorrow.

And I love how my resolve is tested as soon as I make a new promise or vow to change something. Here’s what I mean. I arrived at the gym and did my ten-minute cardio warm-up. I was in the premium member’s locker room at the YMCA, which has a small, private workout area with mats, weights, and a half dozen machines. It’s nothing like the full weight room upstairs, but for what I have to do with my Hot Bod in a Box circuits, it’s perfect. And the great thing about it is that the sweaty masses are upstairs grunting away while I get to workout in near solitude.

So I’m getting ready to head over to the mats and in walks this guy I can’t stand. He’s a friend of an ex-friend, and he’s one of those A-list gay men who isn’t really on the A-list, but thinks he is and looks down at people like me who are looking up and wishing I were hanging with Kathy Griffin on the D-List. Great! So now I’m going to have to haul my fat ass around these mats with this guy doing one-arm push-ups beside me. Jillian Michaels, did I mention that I hate you?!

But I’m not in the gym for this guy, am I? So I just said to myself, “Get over it!” I even did burpies, which are these things where you start in a squatting position and you jump up in the air with your hands over your head. My big belly is still flying up as the rest of my body is falling back down into the squat. They’re not the most graceful thing for a 300-pound man to be doing, but I’m doing them because I want the “hot bod.”  I’m even trying not to worry about my big, hairy belly falling out of the bottom of my t-shirt.

I did three full circuits and most of the fourth circuit. When I saw “mountain climbers” were next, I called Jillian Michaels a nasty name and packed it in. I was too tired to try these things. For mountain climbers you have to bend over and place your hands on the mats, then with you fat ass sticking up in the air you have to kind of run. I can barely even hold the pose without adding running to the equation. And with my knees slamming my 50-pound belly into my chin with every step, I just don’t feel like going there — not with the A-list queen watching. When I saw the last two things in circuit five were just as challenging, I just thought: “I’m done. You did a good job today. You can humiliate yourself more tomorrow.”

As I left the gym I checked my heart-rate monitor — 427 calories. Geezuz! That’s all! I should at least get another 400 humiliation calories, don’t you think? Okay, but let’s put this in perspective. On a normal Saturday I wouldn’t work out at all and I’d head to the greasy spoon on the corner and have a big breakfast, which I estimate is about 1,500 calories. Instead I got up and had a Clif bar, which is 250 calories; I worked out for about 40 minutes, and then, I had a protein shake, which is about 300 calories. So I saved myself 1,000 calories in food and I burned another 400, so I’m still ahead by 600 calories. And I feel better that I challenged myself to do something different and met the challenge. But I still hate Jillian Michaels, and I don’t think I’ll like her any better tomorrow after those muscles have tighten up.

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