Well as my vague post alluded to yesterday, I think I have stumbled on something important to me. In fact, I believe in many ways I have been sabotaging myself since the inception of this blog. For the longest time I have wanted to lose weight.  It started off as being able to do more as well as being able to live a more active lifestyle.  Those aspects morphed into being a better father and husband, and finally it has ended up with me grouping my weight loss with my own value.

This started years ago.  I can’t think of many things in a positive light about growing up.  Kids made fun of me, joked at my peril, and dined on my misery.  Throughout middle and high school, I never felt like I was ever respected nor liked.  Hell, at some point in middle school, I would pay kids with toys or money to be friends with me (I would be rich if I had kept all my Star Wars and He-Man toys now… damn them:) )  Even some of the friends I thought I had in High School ended up making inferences about me to prop themselves up when we got into college.  For as long as I can remember, I have associated my value with my weight.  In my world, I was a fat **** and that was about it.  Even when I got to college and I thought things would be better it didn’t change.  And it wasn’t just students!  I remember going to a dinner at one of the professor’s houses in college for Band Staff Appreciation.  Some of the professors had been drinking and right when dinner was being put out, the director of percussive studies shouted out “Better get in there before Sammy eats it all!” And that was a professor… a supposed professional.  My conducting instructor told me I was too fat to conduct and that I would never be able to play professionally until I lost weight.

I say all this not to invoke sadness or for you to feel bad about me, I did it to explain how even now I am assuming that I will only be a great person when I lose weight.  The notion that I am a good person now has never entered my equation.  The idea that I am the man I should be emotionally and personally is something I would never believe.  When I looked at the postcard I sent to Jack… and it said Hope… something flashed inside my head.  My entire premise of losing weight is skewed. My tag “to lose half the man I am in order to become the man I want to be” is even sending the wrong internal message.  I am the man I want to be, I just need to live long enough to enjoy it.  I am caring, professional, cool, loving, lovable, smart, encouraging, brilliant, educated, determined, creative, etc. etc. etc.

I am not sure if I will change my tag, because… well, it sounds pretty good, but internally I need to change my thinking.  No matter what my weight is, I am still going to be the wounded fat kid inside until I get my mind in order.  I will never think I am worth it, until I believe I have worth.  My entire life, I have spent and endless effort to prove my worth to everyone else while I have felt worthless myself… and then when I am rejected or not chosen, then I can just use that to prove to myself I am right.

I look up to Tony quite a bit, because he has a goal and understands himself.  He believe in himself more than anyone I have met thus far.  I need to crawl inside his head and figure some things out. I just know that I have hit the limit for my mental capacity.  I lost weight before because I didn’t want to die.  I may have prolonged my life by losing 70-80 pounds, but I still haven’t proven to myself I am worth it to go further.  I still tell myself to this day that I am not worth having friends, or worth people hanging out with me.  I continually tell myself this is the best I could hope for and I cut myself off from the one thing I look for most… HOPE.

I am not ashamed to say I see a therapist.  I definitely need one.  I told him today I find myself fighting with an entire other person.  This person has the confidence and power I lack, but also the anger and grudges from the past.  I have kept him hidden because I was scared of who I would be, and this has turned me into a completely subservient human being.  I do… do…do and never think about anything outside my box.  Today was the first time I ever thought about the fact that I have just robbed myself of half of who I am.  No one else forced me to believe this way, but I chose on my own.  And in the end, I am the only person who can put me back together again (if you reference Humpty Dumpty, I will hunt you down).

So while losing weight is what I have to do to maintain a healthy and long life, it is not the journey that will make me feel like I am the man I want to be.  I need to separate the weight of my body from the substance of my soul.  I will not be the man I want to be until I can believe I am already that man.  Once I can truly believe in the value of who I am, you better look out, because this man is going to kick some major ass.  I am glad I am realizing this now, because I would have still been dealing with the same issues even at my goal weight.

I say all of this understand I am only at the beginning of this internal fight.  This is a harder journey than losing weight, but the struggle is one that will redefine who I am.  It is truly time for me to believe I am finally good enough and already the man people care about, love, want to hang out, be friends with etc.  I am already that man….  I just need to create a smaller version of that man.  So instead of losing half the man I am in order to become the man I want to be, I just simply need to accept the man I am is already the man I have wanted to be.  Once I can truly grasp that, then you all better watch out, because I know I can truly soar.

And as far as the man who I hide full of rage and anger… well, I am going to have to get to know him.  I have always been the self-sacrifice guy and it is about time I became whole again.  Now, I am not going to go on a shooting spree and kill people on my “list”…. not that a list exists… I deny anything that was just said, but it does mean I have to come to grips with the darker side of myself. Now, I should have written this back on the fourth and I could have brought in the dark side reference, and that true balance is the existence of a presence of both light and dark characteristics, but I am late to the party (boo-hoo).

So I know this barely made any sense and only scratches the surface of what I would love to say (anonymously), but I have had my aha moment, and it is one of acceptance more than realization. Maslow would be proud of me… well, maybe.  So, thanks for all your comments and messages that showed me you care, thank to Jack for asking for our note cards, and thank to Tony who just doesn’t seem to give a shit what most people think.  You may have created a monster here…

This will be short and sweet, but I think I just had an epiphany!  From sending a postcard to Jack Sh*t and reading many of Tony’s posts and thoughts about the whole premise I have had in place for the past year, many ideas have been flashing through my head.  On the 27th, this blog will celebrate 1 full year and I am excited to start a second year.  Even though I am excited, I have discovered much of what have built this journey on is a true sham.  I have been fooling myself on many fronts and it is time for me to deal with it.

I am on my way home today, so I will write this out in my head and we will talk about it tomorrow.  it stems from many talks with multiple people and finally understanding posts that I have been reading over and over.  Again, I have to thank you all, because without your comments and support, I would have never realized this on my own.  It may be the best breakthrough I have experienced thus far…. and I am actually excited.  Check back tomorrow… same fat time…. same fat channel.

I just want to say thank you to all those who have left comments and sent messages this week. The hardest part of this journey is the mental aspect of the process.  I am still battling the notion of whether I am worth the end result.  My family has made sacrifices so I can go to a gym and have a trainer. The cycle I experience is one of guilt, then shame, then I give up.  I have been in this circular pattern for most of my life.  I realize that I still have a lot to do in my mind before I can make big gains physically.

I made my big losses before, because I experienced a feeling of not wanting to go on in life.  I had to make a choice of actually being there for my family or truly giving up.  I chose life, and now I am 80 pounds down and more active, I feel like I accomplished my main goal.  I can walk with my family and run with Lucas and now I need to find strong motivation again.  I keep thinking about the birth of my daughter and I thought that would be enough, but for some reason it just isn’t enough.

This week has been a great experience in trying to find myself and my motivation again.  I know now that I did so well before, because it was life or death.  Now I need to have smaller and more frequent goals to keep me on track.  I am still not going to let the scale dominate me, but I need to be aware of it.  I need to keep pushing with running and doing more 5K’s.  I really should do a C25K program.  The last time I ran a 5K, I did no training.  I didn’t do poorly, but my body was definitely not ready.  Now that I have some awesome shoes, I am ready to start pursuing that more.

I wish I could explain how much it means to me that you are along here with me.  Even when I am away, you still look on and leave me comments.  To know there are people out there that care enough to hold me up when I want to run away is very humbling.  In many ways I don’t feel like I deserve it, even though you have told me many times I do.

I know I let myself become inundated with other’s opinions of myself.  I need to think more of myself than I do and I hope one day to achieve that goal.  No matter what, I know that there are many out there that do care about me… and I will never forget you.  And just when I think that no one cares about what I say, you slap me around and make me admit I know it is a lie.  Also, I was shocked to find myself on this list.  Now I don’t know how much of an expert the radiologyschools.com site is, but to be included with the level of people on that list is truly amazing.  And I don’t know if they rank them numerically, but I ended up number 27.  So even though it may be some arbitrary list of people, just to find my name along others who have inspired me and continue to inspire others is truly an amazing experience.

Well that started out to be a short update, but it turned out longer than I expected.  Bottom line is that I am awestruck by your support.  I only hope that one day if you end up in a funk or low place that I can create some small glimmer of light in your life.  You all mean the world to me and I love you all!

Today I have been ruled by emotion.  All I want to do is go and eat everything that comes in my way. I think I need to take a step back.  I keep getting pulled into trying to feel popular on here with comments and twitter and I feel a bit ashamed of it.  Why am I still letting others qualify me.  Argg.

Anyway, I won’t be posting this week.  Hopefully I will step back to it and feel better about it all.  Sorry to be so pissy today.

Well, who would have thought I would actually have as much to say as I have.  100 posts of idiotic, crazy, and incomprehensible mayhem. I guess it wouldn’t be my blog if it all made sense or had a point.  I have written this blog in the same style of my thinking process, so I do have to apologize to you all who have stayed along for the ride.

This post will be short and sweet (unlike anything else I have written) in order to give you the time to comment.  I wondered what I should do to celebrate my 100th post.  I did have balloons, streamers, and strippers ordered, but my wife made me return the balloons and streamers….  so what else could I do but give away something.

I do have to give mad props to Ryan at No More Bacon.  He had a Biggest Loser competition and I won 2 of the weeks.  One of the prizes was a Sportline pedometer, but if you have read my previous post, you will see I have no use for it.  So, Ryan has provided the prize for my 100th post giveaway.  Below are the rules to enter my insanity meets the digital world giveaway.

1.  You will get 1 entry for every comment left for this post.

2.  You will get 1 entry for retweeting my link (make sure you add @slimminsam).

3.  You will get 3 entries if you donate to Steve’s (www.265andfalling.com) half marathon.

4.  You will get 1 entry for every first born you bring to my feet…

So there you go, it is that easy.  This will run until tomorrow at 5:00PM EST.  I will count the entries and randomly pick the winner of a Sportline Pedometer.

Also, I have to a bit mushy and tell you how thankful I am that you have been here with me all this time.  Being overweight is a difficult road to haul alone… and the journey to losing weight is even harder.  My family and friends have been with me, but you have extended my foundation sooo far I could never fully explain my gratitude.  I love you all and I hope you will still be here for my 200th post.  Have a phenomenal day.

I have actually had quite a few people message me and ask me what a GW Fit is and how does it work.  Well, I figured I would explain what it is and bring in some sources from Bodymedia.  This company makes three different versions of the same device.  The first is a BodyBugg, which most of you have seen on Biggest Loser.  The second is SenseWear, which is used mostly in clinical studies and hospitals.  Lastly, there is the GW Fit.

There was a chart that explained the differences, but it no longer exists on BodyMedia site, so I can’t confirm the differences, but the reason I chose the GW Fit was because it monitored my sleep and it was cheaper. You can get it here. I chose not to get the watch as it was an increased cost and I didn’t think it would be that helpful.

Bottom line, the device monitors my activity and calculates my burned calories, steps taken, exercise intensity, and sleep efficiency. I wear it all the time except when in water.  I have found it to be extremely helpful in understanding when I am active, how active I am, and when I should increase my activity.  The science behind this is posted below and comes from the BodyMedia site.

Your BodyMedia® FIT Armband has multiple sensors. Those innovative sensors take 5 different “views” of your life:

So that is a quick explanation of how the device works.  It uploads to the BodyMedia site and you can keep your eye on your level of activity.  It has a daily meal logging function and a nutritional assessment that you can run.  This assessment takes three days of meals and assesses the quality of your meals.

So this is a big technical thing, but I think it has been extremely helpful in understanding my activity.  Of course, there will be some error.  The BodyMedia site states that the device has an error percentage of less than 10%.  To some, that is too high, but I don’t mind it.

Well after all that discussion, below is my GW Fit Data for today.

Well, after prompting from my best friend Andrew, I have decided to bring back Weigh-Day Wednesday!  I needed to do this not only because he asked me to, but I know if I don’t keep myself accountable, I will just let it slide little by little.  I know this, because it has happened to me again.  I was down to 330 at the end of the No More Bacon Biggest Loser Competition.  In the weeks since that has finished, I find myself back up almost all the weight I lost during that time.

Argg, it is frustrating, but just another reason why I need to push this time. I have the support of my family and the support of a knowledgeable trainer.  I have three months to get down some weight before the baby is born.

I know a lot of the gain was stress due to the BL audition.  I was coping with stress by eating and I kept telling myself once I heard, then I will knock it off.  Well that waiting took a few weeks and before I knew it… WHAMMMM.  And even though it shames me to admit it, I have gained over 20 pounds in less than a month.  YIKES!

So, here is to admitting failures, but understanding that all failures become opportunities to succeed.  I will not be ruled by the scale like I have been, but I do want to make sure I am cognizant of where I am.  So today… I am 353.8 lbs.  And even though it was a gain from where I was a month ago, it is still a far cry from the 420lbs I was last year.  I am still succeeding as this journey is not measured in days, weeks, or years.  I know this is a lifelong  journey to save the very thing I wish to continue… My life.

And on a positive note, I am going to a Meetup tomorrow night to meet people.  After looking up different meet-up groups, I decided that a gaming group would be the most like me.  So I shall meet and greet over boardgames and dice rolling.  Secondly, I may be taking my fencing goal off as the more I see what fencing is, it is not what I want to do.  It is too quick and not flashy enough.  Lastly, I am adding cooking to my goal list.  Cooking is something I have been working on for a few months, but haven’t taken it seriously.  My goal is now to cook one new recipe per week.  And to ensure I do it, I am going to make it a weekly post on here.  I will have Torture Tuesday, Weigh-Day Wednesday, and then this soon-to-be-named day.  My week is filling up.

Well that is it… a confession… some disappointment… some sillyness… some uplifting thoughts… Board Games… a few goal updates… and then the end (Which I am sure you are glad to see).

And one last thing before I go.  As promised, below is a screenshot of my GW Fit data for yesterday.  I did pretty well.  I ate my targeted 2500 calories and burned over 4,000, so in the end I had a calorie deficit of 1800 calories.  That is technically 1 pound lost for every 2 days.  I can live with that.

Well today was torture day and my compliments to Mike who not only enjoyed my pain thoroughly, but took too much pride in my decimation.  I did my workout in my New Balance 7500′s, but noticed they were too tight, so I am going to have to try something different.  Below was my workout for today. I looked back at what I used to do and to be honest, even though I was doing twice as much last year, these workouts seem to be doing sooo much at one time.

I started off with a warm-up with a 6 lb medicine ball (squat twist rotations)

40 lunges across the room

Chest presses with bands out 10 feet (20 presses)

40 lunges across the room

Chest presses with bands out 10 feet (20 presses)

Rest 60 seconds

Ball Squats (20 reps)

Backward Row with band (Out 14 feet)

Ball Squats with dumbbell press (20 reps)

Backward Row with band (Out 14 feet)

Rest 60 seconds

Squatted Monster Walk (Large band – 5 reps)

Squat and press with dumbbell (20 reps)

Squatted Monster Walk (Large band – 5 reps)

Squat and press with dumbbell (20 reps)

Faint and die

So that was my morning… I truly thought I would then run another mile after this and then decided that I was unable to move any further.

I worked out this morning and I had my MP3 player in hand. I always get excited by music for many different reasons, but I found myself stopping working out to click through 4 of 5 songs before finding another one that would suffice. Needless to say I need a workout music makeover.

I am very eclectic, so my song lists are diversified, but currently I have the following loaded up (I have quite a few, but here is a sample)

Ben Folds – Philosophy
De Meij – LOTR Gandalf
Whitacre – October
Tichelli – Vesuvius
Cake – I will survive
Orff – Carmina Burana
The A Team Theme
Swingle Singers – 1812 overture
Rockapella – 500 miles
Simon and Garfunkel – Cecili
Simon and Garfunkel – You can call me Al
Yanni – Santorini
John Williams – Star Wars Theme
John Williams – Patriot Theme
James Horner – Theme from Glory
Danny Elfman – Theme from Batman
C&C Music Factory – Everybody dance now
Frank Sinatra – Swing on a star
Queen – Show must go on
Queen – Who wants to live forever

This is just a small sampling of songs that I have and while I love them, I NEED some good PUMPING workout music. So here is where you can help me. I need someone to PIMP my MP3 player… (well I will pimp it, I just need the songs, cause… you know… you know it’s hard out there for a pimp…)

So, ready… set… go… Hopefully by tomorrow I will have enough suggestions to literally rock my ass off…

I am such an idiot sometimes.  That is the truth!  I don’t know why I title my posts with such names or I take such crazy pictures of myself, but it is fun (for me at least), so I guess it isn’t all that bad. After Mike destroyed me yesterday I could barely get up this morning.  I hit my snooze like 10 times before throwing myself out of bed to get to the gym.  I knew I couldn’t do any major cardio as the bottom half of my body felt like I was learning to walk for the first time.  Instead, I decided to spend about half an hour shooting basketball. It is a full body workout that may not be that intense, but still got me active.  And as the name supplies, I had to find a way to engage the ball in a way only I could… We started out as enemies and ended up great friends.  I would suggest you befriend the next ball you see….  BASKETBALL…  BASKETBALL…

After my workout yesterday I am SOOOO angry at myself for not continuing last August with regular workouts.  My body is back to thinking being sedentary is normal and getting it to do what I want is difficult again.  I am not going to make the same mistake twice.  Once I get revved up again, I am going to keep it going.  I am more active than I was a year ago, but not active enough for me.  I will get there… it will just take time.  And I wish I could find someone who could work out with me at 6 in the morning M-F.  That would be a great benefit, but how do you approach people.  ”Hey, I see you are getting sweaty this early in the morning… want some company?”.  I don’t want to be the strange stalker that people fear when coming to the Y.

I have to laugh a bit, because I feel like Peter Klaven in the movie “I love you, man”.  Maybe I should start posting in personal ads… “I need someone who wants to spend a few hours a day working it hard with me…” My wife would love that one.  I could just see her reaction to any crazies that would actually reply (mostly asking for monetary compensation).  Well I shall pull back from any of that nonsense.  If any of you live in Winston Salem, NC… and go to the YWCA…  and are there at 6 AM… and have a blood type of A negative (optional), then hit me up and we can work it out (again, why do I sound like I am soliciting some sort of illegal activity).

Well… apparently I cannot type today without some type of double entendre, so I think I should stop…  yeah.. that is the best idea.  I will be posting a second post today as I need help with something and I know you can help.  Have a fun one.