Day 218 A Lazy Food Addict and Fried Okra Minus The Breading and Frying

Day 218

A Lazy Food Addict and Fried Okra Minus The Breading and Frying

Some people think that since I have to be up so early for my radio show, and I'm feeling better than ever before, that I must just jump out of bed and greet the day with a big smile and complete optimism. While that's true more often these days than 218 days ago, every now and then I have a morning like this morning. For whatever reason, I just wasn't ready for the alarm to sound. I wanted more sleep time, so I hit the snooze bar, then nine minutes later I hit it again, then nine minutes later I repeated the same thing. When I finally realized that the morning wasn't going to stop bugging me, I put two feet on the floor and hurried through my routine. Unfortunately, when I'm rushed, the first thing to get cut is the sit down breakfast. I grabbed some fresh fruit on the way out to eat during my show, and I was off and running. Every now and then when I least expect it, I get a little boost from out of the blue. I had a call this morning from a listener who told me she reads this blog everyday and it's really helped her “get with it.” That made me feel great and it was exactly what I needed to push me into a much better frame of mind for a Monday.

This journey has been such a mission of self-discovery. I really thought I knew myself before, but I didn't know myself at all. Well, maybe deep down I did, but I was so busy rationalizing bad behaviors and making excuses, that I didn't have time to think about the truth. The truth was very plain: I'm was an out of control food addict and extremely lazy. It's not the best combination for optimal health. And it was something that I wouldn't ever admit back then. If someone asked me to describe myself before this journey, I would have never said “I have a good sense of humor, I'm a proud husband and father, and oh yeah, I'm a food addict and avoid exercise every chance I get.” That kind of honesty is extremely rare. I believed every load of lies I told myself. I think I even talked my brain into believing that I was somehow blessed with such healthy genetics that my body could comfortably handle 500 pounds without too many complications. My healthy sugar levels and great cholesterol levels were all the proof I needed to believe that whopper for a really long time. If I would have allowed myself to continue believing that I had all the time in the world to correct my behaviors and lifestyle, it eventually would have caught up with me, and it would have been a tragic lesson for anyone paying attention. Making an unbreakable promise to myself to do this and break through any and all of my old excuses has been more than a blessing. You know how people say “everything happens for a reason” and “it's all a part of his master plan,” It's thoughts like that which make me believe I was over 500 pounds and struggled with my weight for a reason. Perhaps so I could overcome it now and then share the story of the journey out of the prison of obesity with people who are facing the same confinement.

We enjoyed a vegetable tonight with our grilled pork chops that we've never had before. OK, correction, we've had it before, but only the breaded and deep fried version. Tonight we enjoyed some boiled okra. No breading, no deep frying in lard, just oowee gooweee oh so yummy boiled okra. Next time we'll fix it with some stewed tomatoes. It was awesome and only 30 calories for ¾ of a cup. That's a bunch of okra on a plate for a little bitty calorie total. And it's green and that makes Irene happy! She loves lots of color on a plate. The pork chops were 160 calories per 4 ounces, so I weighed each one and came up with three different totals. One was 200, another 280, and the biggest one came in at 300 calories. The food scale has been a really big help in the accuracy of counting calories in meat. Without the scale we would have probably been close with an educated guess, but not this close. We also enjoyed some mashed potatoes with the meal. I'm a meat and potatoes kind of guy, always have been, and I'll always be I'm sure...and with a plate like this coming in at under 450 calories, why not? My old habits would have made it a 2,000 calorie or more meal easily. For one, I would have had at least two chops, maybe three, Ok three, I would have had probably three to four times the normal portion of potatoes, and I probably would have prepared some kind of gravy too. The okra would have definitely been breaded and fried, and then I probably would have had a bowl or two of cereal or a big bowl of ice cream for desert. Sounds crazy I know, but that's the way it use to be. And then I would proclaim “I really don't understand how I've gained so much weight, I really don't eat that much.” It wasn't really lying to me, because I really believed it, I really thought my eating habits were somewhat normal back then, and that I was just cursed with a really slow metabolism. When actually I was suffocating my metabolism, keeping it over stuffed and lethargic. The thought of eating any other way use to depress me, now the thought of how it was disgust me. When the excuses, rationalizations, and flat out lies we tell ourselves stop completely, that's when we can clearly define our real challenges. Being able to honestly identify the real challenges enable us to “get it together” once and for all. The meal this evening was awesome, we were all very satisfied, and we all stayed well within our calorie budget.

Tuesday evening is another “Lose To Win” seminar. I hope to be able to post the video of it soon. I wasn't ever able to post my last presentation because of technical difficulties with the videographer's equipment. I hope I'll be able to this time. My plan is to offer a very simple approach and several helpful tips that have helped me stay in the zone despite whatever goes on around me. I honestly thought that I would never be able to lose weight successfully because I was an “emotional eater” and “stressful trigger” eater and so on. I use to just accept it, thinking how horribly tragic it was, but “oh well, what are you gonna do?” Well, I have plenty of answers to that tired old surrendering question. Thank you for reading. Good night and...

Good Choices,
Sean