Category Archives: Deep Thought

Gym Phobia

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Yeah. The fear of gyms.

For the past two days, I’ve been telling myself that it’s time to get back to the gym. After all, I’m paying the suckers $24.95 a month for the pleasure of being able to walk through their doors. Hey, for that money, I should go every day, right. Less than a dollar a day.

But, do I?

Nooooo.

I find “things to do” or I get distracted or I start surfing social media (sound familiar?). The bottom line is that I don’t go. Instead, I sit end up at home plowing through the sweets the Missus and I bought at the Amish Market a couple of days ago. Chocolate…

On the plus side, we had dinner at a reasonable hour which was made even more reasonable since it is now Daylight Saving Time and our bodies haven’t shifted to the new time yet. So it was like eating an hour earlier or something like that.

Maybe tomorrow will be the day I finally overcome the procrastination.

It’s not really the fear so much as the thinking that one day or two days or two months don’t really make a dent. Of course, I know, at some level, that anything I do to exercise and/or curb my eating helps.  It just doesn’t help all at once. I want to be 100 lbs lighter tomorrow…after I come back from the gym. Rationally, I know that doesn’t happen.

Who said anything about rational? Rational wouldn’t have had me tip the scale over 300;bs. Speaking of which. I plummeted from 305lbs yesterday to 299.7 today. How is that possible? Water weight? A bad reading? Barometric pressure (more like bariatric pressure)?

I’ll take it. I’ll see what tomorrow brings. It better get me to the gym.

Trying to Stay Balanced

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Here’s the thing.

The Law of Attraction people say that if I think positive things and hang out with positive people and do positive things than positive stuff will be attracted to me.

Sounds pretty nifty, huh?

Smaller rocks balancing on top of other rocks.How’s this (and this is for real)? I was at a week long conference with Jack Canfield a couple of years ago and he likened the positive thoughts or the affirmations or visualizations to sending out a purchase order into the Universe.  Now, I’m sure he was just using this as an illustration for some larger point but what I heard was this:

If you want something to appear in your life, visualize and affirm it and the Universe will take care of the rest.

Of course this was a week long thing so there was more to it.  The “right way” to visualize and affirm and all that kind of stuff. I was really hoping for the best.

Instead I’m no further ahead than I was two years ago.

I’m told it’s because I don’t hang out with the right people (you are the sum total of the five people you associate with the most) or because I don’t take action when i need to or any number of other reasons.

Maybe so.

It’s just that, for some reason, I cannot get out of this fucking rut.

I don’t have a “passion” for doing something.  I obviously don’t like what I’m doing to make money so the personal development and abundance GooRoos will tell me that I’ll never get out of the rut.  I have to do what I love, you see.  Whatever that is.

What really kills me is that just when I start thinking that I’m getting out of the rut, getting out of the quagmire of debt and general listlessness, something happens to kill the momentum.

That’s right.

Just when I think, “Ahhh. I’m starting to feel better about things. Life is taking a turn for the better. Yay!”, something comes along and BAM! the big setback. It’s pretty frustrating, let me tell you.

I should be grateful and thankful for what I have.  People younger than me are dead and have left behind families because of war and illness.  People I know or know of get desperately ill and then die.  In comparison, my life is a bed of roses and a bowl of cherries.

On the other hand, the personal development GooRoos are always saying not to compare.  ”Don’t compare your insides to someone else’s outsides.”  or words t that effect.  The idea here is that everyone is different.  Yeah, they may be rich and famous but they can’t keep a relationship for more than 2 years…or they have no family life…or their health is bad…or they work 24/7.

I’m really trying to find that balance between striving for something which may never come and being satisfied with what I have.

It’s not as easy as it sounds.

 

 

The Value of Doing Nothing

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Forgive me if this isn’t exactly right.

“Do or not do. There is no try.” — Yoda

Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between an activity that produces a good result and an activity that produces, at best, a neutral result. No result at all.

For me, an activity that holds out the promise of a good result is worth trying. It may even be worth trying twice, three times. If the activity doesn’t produce the good result anticipated or it turns out to be a waste of time, it’s time to cut bait.

This leads me to the value of doing nothing.

In my mind, sitting at home and reading or going to a movie or maybe just vegging out in the recliner beats the hell out of going somewhere and doing something that is supposed to achieve a certain result…but doesn’t.

It seems the we are pushed to be productive and engage in activities that “produce” certain results all the time. The latest is this trend to require retail store personnel to show up for work on Thanksgiving night for the mad Christmas rush. Of course, at the most fundamental level something like that is a real pain in the ass but it’s achieves a good result — pay for the store personnel and sales for the store. It’s not absolutely worse than nothing but it’s close.

What if the store didn’t pay an hourly wage but only paid you if something was sold…and no one came by. No one bought anything. Then it’s a waste of time. However, the personal development gurus would have you believe that one time does not the tale tell.  You need persistence, tenacity, perseverance, stamina. Just keep showing up and, sooner or later, something good will happen.

Maybe.

For my money, I would rather stay home. I have no desire to “tough out” long periods of many days. I guess that makes me impatient. It puts me into that immediate gratification category. Some might call it lazy.

Struggle

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There are people who move through life effortlessly with a smile on their face and a song in their heart. Others kinda muddle through one day to the next. Nothing great and wonderful but nothing overly tragic or debilitating.

For many, though, life is a struggle from one day to the next. Sure. There are the ‘good days” when things flow smoothly. Moods are good. The sun is shining. Most days are more of a fight.

The bodily aches and pains. Tooth aches, arthritis, overweight, tired, depressed. Just when you think you have it whipped and things will work out well, something comes along to remind you that The Book of Job was written with you in mind.

Patience is a virtue but it’s a virtue rarely rewarded. Perseverance, persistence, tenacity — all wonderful traits to have in the face of never ending adversity. But what is it that causes us to go on in the face of the seemingly unending challenges?

Some don’t, of course. Suicide is common.  Maybe not as common as we would think but more common than we might otherwise believe. Most people keep plodding through life without passion or purpose or even desire.  It has been snuffed out. Smothered.

The gurus would have us believe that this is all a trick of the mind. We control our thoughts and our thoughts control our destiny. But do they and can we?

Maybe there’s a trick to it that the gurus are holding back but for the nominal membership fee to their website or program. Kinda like the secret ingredient in your neighbor’s blue ribbon pecan pie. Yeah, she gave you all the ingredients for a passable pecan pie but she left out that one thing that made it the best pie at the County Fair.  That’s her secret. Her life.

You hear the old saying about being sick and tired of being sick and tired. I was like that once. It helped. I pulled myself back from the brink. I thought life would get better. Much better.

Maybe it did and I didn’t notice.

Morning Writer

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Truth be told, I think I’m probably a morning writer.  It goes with being a morning person.

The only problem is that I sometimes have a little trouble setting aside the time.  It’s not like I couldn’t. After all, the Missus is reading the paper and drinking coffee. She wouldn’t miss me. But I don’t. Or, at least, I haven’t.

So tomorrow, I have an early appointment and have to get out the door by about 7:30. The day after, earlier than that. So I may be able to get a few words in but if I really want to go nuts, I won’t have the time. Then by the time I get back and have the time, the ideas have flown out of my head just like the Rick Perry third thing and the thing with Herman Cain having lots of thoughts whirling around in his head.

Yeah, I know. Write the idea down. Or start a draft and come back to it. Simple solutions. But I don’t do that either. Maybe it’s so I can have an excuse or two or three. You know, it’s not my fault. I just couldn’t get around to it.  I forgot.

They say that the first step to recovery is awareness. Acknowledgement that their is a problem. Maybe so. But some of us can’t get past that first step. Awareness. Acknowledgement.

I’m fat. I need to eat right. Exercise. I’m aware. I don’t do anything.

I want more money. I need to work more productively. Take the actions that are tried and true and tested to get more income. I’m a little lax, there, too.

Write? Get up. Fire up the computer. Put on a cup of coffee. Come back to the computer and pound out some words. I’m working on it.

Writer’s Block

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I always read that the most important thing a writer can do is write.  Reading comes in a close second.  Maybe even tied for first.

I also read that the important thing about writing a blog is to write witty and charming  or, at least, interesting and entertaining content (i.e, the writing) so that one builds an audience.

That one being me.

It’s hard to come up with stuff all the time, though.  What’s good, interesting? Is there a topic or something?  Who the hell knows?

I see blogs all the time that are written poorly or with that great, snarky tone that seems so prevalent in the blogosphere. But they get lots of traffic, lots of commenting, lots of interaction.

Others like Paul Krugman’s blog on the New York Times’ site — The Conscience of a Liberal — gets tons of readership for blog posts that sometimes are two tor three paragraphs long and sometimes posts about not writing posts. I guess that’s the difference between a Nobel Prize winning economist on the New York Times’ site and a canoodler with no credentials.

Sigh.  Maybe one day.

Binging

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Binge
noun
1. a period or bout, usually brief, of excessive indulgence, as in eating, drinking alcoholic beverages, etc.; spree.

verb (used without object) binged, bing·ing or binge·ing.
2. to have a binge: to binge on junk food.

binging. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved September 08, 2011, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/binging

 

Sound familiar?

College students do it with booze during their college years.  Supposedly it’s a big problem.

Dieters do it with food.  It’s no accident that the definition came with an example of “to binge with junk food”.

Such it is with me.Try hard. Count calories. Log food intake. Head out to the gym for some time on the treadmill. Lose a few pounds. Plateau. Keep trying. Gain. Keep trying. Gain. Keep trying. Lose a little bit.

Finally, it’s fuck it. It takes forever to lose the weight half pound by half pound. Then it’s dinner with friends, a birthday cake, a craving for ice cream, a work reception.  All of a sudden, I’m up three pounds in a day when it took me two weeks to get it off.

Two weeks of counting calories, two weeks of hitting the treadmill, two weeks of logging in all my food intake making sure I don’t eat anything with too many calories that would fully negate any exercise I’ve done.

So, I say fuck it. I start binging.

Ice cream, steak, potatoes, toast with jam, rice, muffins, cookies. Morning, noon and night.

I get on the scale and I’m disgusted but I don’t do anything. It’s raining cats and dogs so I don’t go out, I have appointments to keep most of the day so I don’t make it to the gym, I don’t feel like it, plain and simple because I know if I start it’ll take me forever to work off what I’ve put on by binging.

Binging on food is not like binging on booze.  With booze you wake up with a hangover, you throw up, take a couple of aspirin and you’re good as new. With food, you’re not good as new the next day. You’re 5 pounds heavier and the clothes that were feeling a little loose have tightened up, again.

Binging sucks.

Heading in a New Direction

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Since the time I started this blog, I’ve been trying to find a voice for it.

First, I thought it might be fun to write a political blog. perhaps something satirical.  Thus, the name of the blog…Just Another Rumor.

Make stuff up. Or debunk. Or something.

Then I thought I would turn it into a true web diary or weblog of my journey to lose 120 pounds. After all, weight loss seems to be a huge interest to a lot of people.

The truth is that I’m losing, at least temporarily, the battle with weight and food and calories.  I keep at it for awhile and then backslide. I hit a plateau and then backslide. I get discouraged. I lose the discipline and the will.

The one thing I learned is that people generally can’t be scared into losing weight. Generally people can’t be scared into any type of productive behavior whether it’s exercising, putting down the cigarette, stopping the booze or drugs. Workaholics will work ’til they drop even with warnings of heart attacks or the threat of divorce.

So, no matter that doctors tell me about diabetes and heart disease. No matter that my body is telling me with its aches and pains and lack of flexibility that it’s time to do something.

There needs to be some sort of inner motivation. Inner drive.

A lot of people call this motivation and drive a purpose in life or passion or bliss. Find that and my life will fall into place. At least, that seems to be the implied promise.

Some people have it. They wake up every morning with a bounce in their step and energy to meet challenges.

Me? I’m looking for it and, unfortunately, I’m getting older by the day. Yes, I hear about people my age (55) or older finding something that drives them on to a life of fulfillment and joy and achievement. I’m told it can be done — finding the thing that makes you want to keep going and going even with challenges to overcome and adversity to face. I read of many examples.

I just need to figure it out.

Just Another Rumor may start to follow me on the exploration.

Feeling UnFULLfilled

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Many years ago, Geneen Roth wrote a book called When Food Is Love: Exploring the Relationship Between Eating and Intimacy.

This book explored the link between the longing for love and its substitute, food.

I actually read it when it first came out and it spoke to something inside me that I had never heard before.  To be sure, all (or, at least most) of the books Geneen Roth writes are targeted to women.  It is women who suffer the most from poor body image that leads to anorexia and bulimia. Still, I could relate to the “absent” parents and the constant craving for affirmation and approval that lead me down the road to over eating and weight gain.

This brings me to current issues with my j-o-b and my life, in general.

There are times that I feel quite satisfied with myself and with what I’m doing.  Other times, I wonder if it’s even worth it.  Work hard, get screwed. The lazy and unethical are rewarded and the people who try to do what’s right end up at the end of the line. I’m told life isn’t fair and I shouldn’t expect fairness.

Yet, I do expect some “breaks” and some feeling of fulfillment - full…fill…ment. Yet, when things go wrong in spite of my best intentions and hard work I feel despondent and empty.  It’s an emptiness I try to fill with food.  Not fruits and vegetables. Candy, cookies, and all the rest of the “sweetness” of life that seems missing.

 

Day 15

Deprivation and Binging

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A lot of diet books will tell you that deprivation only leads to binging or, at best, giving up on your “diet”.  It is so true.

Counting calories is tough because there are lots and lots of things out there that really taste good and that I’ve become accustomed to eating that have a super high calorie count.  Bread and other starches are big time offenders.  Let’s not even start on the sweet stuff – ice cream, cakes, cookies, muffins…. you get the point.

So I was out and about today and needed to wander into a mall to get a watch battery for the Missus.  The mall has a food court.  The food court has all  kinds of temptations.  Not the least of which is a Chinese place.  I like Chinese food especially when it’s sweet and comes with rice.  Love rice.

Obviously, very high calorie and very greasy, to boot.  Not only that, it really didn’t taste that good.  Barely warm and greasy tasting.  So I didn’t eat it all.  Possibly a point in my favor.  However, I compensated by eating a cinnamon sugar pretzel from Auntie Anne’s.  This is a huge mistake because it’s very high calorie and it’s also enormously expensive for what it is.

The point being is that I went a little off the deep end because, well, because I was tired of counting calories and “depriving ” myself and not losing the weight I want to lose.  Now, I realize I need to really get out there and exercise but, damn, shouldn’t some of this weight be coming off.

The freakin’ scale keeps bouncing around (maybe it has to do with my eating habits). Down to an encouraging weight one day and, whoosh, back up 2.4 lbs the next morning.  Even if I showed a small, incremental decline I could keep with it. This up and down like a see-saw just doesn’t get it.

Anyway…tomorrow I hope to get back with the program.

God, this is hard.

Day 12 of my 30 day challenge to myself.