Day 10

Who knew I would make it this far without dying.  Holy Cow.  Today, however, I feel a little bit whipped.  I'm pretty sure the extra effort yesterday caught up with me today and kicked my butt.  It was hard to get through my second workout this afternoon.  In fact, I cut things off 5 minutes early...I just plum ran out of steam, and I'm fearful of "over doing" it again.  It is considerably harder, I've found, to self motivate to the gym the second time.  I know this seems highly unlikely given my drive and vibrant personality.  Today, I began to face one of the demons that bring you down.  That little voice on your shoulder that says " screw it, who's gonna know?"  I'd like to maim that little voice.  It really can be powerful, and I still found my way to the gym to shape my money maker, but it was a lot harder today.  I'm hoping that I can power through and that I've just hit a little speed bump.  When I'm whipped like this, I find the recumbent step machine my best friend...well, sort of.  Any mistake and you could lose a limb.

I had my first "official" medical check in.  Thankfully, along with my doc,  there were additional Med students there for me to show off my girth.  Ahh, nothing like an audience, you can imagine my joy.  It was funny though when it was time for the scale.  Now many of us have stepped on a scale.  The typical bathroom scale tends to be less helpful over 250lbs.  It is a struggle for the big man to find a scale, and I will admit, that prior to medically getting checked out for this adventure, I hadn't been on a scale in years.  (note, this is generally a bad thing...you lose monitoring capabilities)  The scale in this clinic,....well, you could weigh pallets of frieght.  Seriously, they have equipment. (I am by no means the largest being here) It brings that extra little reminder that you've gone too far when you step on a scale that has steel diamond plate on it.  I digress, back to the audience for my naked self.  In eight days, I managed to drop 10.4 lbs.  The cheers from the bleachers made me laugh out loud.  All the students smiling....I just laughed.  Anyway.  I'm off to a good start.  I know I can't expect similar results in the coming weeks, but it was nice to see something for my efforts.  Every other medical item was clear.  Even my BP has stabilized to 116/64 to 122/64.  So much better than the 80/50 the other day.  (I kind of want to have that report framed for the fridge). 

Today was kind of a Hmmmm kind of day class wise. I actually woke up early got going, because I had an early class....yeah, I was looking at Thursday's schedule...so I had time on my hands this morning.  A little group head shrinking to discuss Binge eating to begin the day.  This class was optional, but I decided to attend because I think there are times that we all do this be it the bag of potato chips that vanishes, or how the oreos just seem to disappear.  In my case, I was avoiding meals, breakfast and often lunch too, mainly due to work constraints,  and eating for the first time at 8 or 9 o'clock at night.  By this time I could eat my arm and anything was justified.  No limits existed.  This is when I was at my most destructive to myself.  So I went, and I learned a ton.  My changes at work have certainly taken that pressure off, and I feel like I have time again to actually eat breakfast, lunch and dinner in my day.  Talking about this stuff and doing a little self analysis really is a big component of success at home.  Certainly, I will not be missing meals going forward.

Then we had a class on Advanced Calories and Portions.  Seriously.  I'm scared.  This is frightening information to learn.  It is a ton harder than you thing to know what you are eating.  Especially if you are out on the town like I tend to find myself.  I put a restaurant calorie counter on my phone.  It has like 500 of your favorite restaurants and their menu items listed.  It is really scary to learn what is out there.  If the calories won't choke a horse, then there is enough sodium in some really simple items that we think innocuous, but have like 4 days worth of RDA value.  Enjoy your bagel while you still can.  Sadly, McDonalds Egg McMuffin is one of the sort of okay items at 300 calories.  It is actually a bonafide breakfast.  Go to the sausage version, 550 easy.  I'll drop it here. I have a lot of homework to do.

My last class dujour dealt with body image.  I got so little out of this course I could have painted the room while she was talking and I would have learned the same amount.  Touch feely stuff again...get out of my head.  I know what the issue is here.  I'm a load.  Not hard to figure out.  And how does this make you feel?  Duh.  really?  I'm here aren't I.  This is the kind of crap that drives me insane....It's kind of like road rage without the driving.

Anyway.  Overall a good day, good results, a dose of reality, and some crap that I could do without...Tomorrow is another day.