Note: This is a reprint from my other blog. Just thought it would fit in here.
I don’t
smoke, never have, or do drugs (well, there was this one time when I was 24 I
succumbed to peer pressure and really just wanted to know what all the hype was
about and tried one drag of the weed, it didn’t seem to have any effect on me
and I’ve never tried it or anything else again). I don’t drink very often, maybe once every
3-4 months; it usually just makes me feel awful, so there’s that. I’m not without my addictions though, there’s
my iPhone, the internet, Facebook, etc… The worst and most obvious addiction I
have is food. I know this sounds
preposterous, everyone in the world with a problem claims it’s due to an
addiction, but I swear the way I feel about food has to be just as bad as the
way a crackhead feels about crack or Tiger Woods feels about waitresses. I have a mental inventory of all the food I
have in the house and at work, no normal person without food issues can say
that.
First
off, if you take one look at my 5’7”, 340lb, 0% muscle mass body you’ll know I
have a food issue or two. I know that
every thin person reading this is rolling their eyes and telling me to shut up,
put down the cookies, and go outside.
It’s insane to say that you’re addicted to food when you’re just a lazy
fat ass who needs to do a sit up every now and then. Everyone who feels that way should stop
reading right now because I’m not talking to you. Go have a cheesecake and watch some TV.
Okay,
everyone who’s left I’ll tell you my story.
I’ve struggled with weight my entire life and it never made sense why I
couldn’t just stop eating. I was able to
keep it to just standard obesity before I got married, but after that I
exploded from 220 to 280 in less than 4 months, that’s got to be some kind of
record right? That was in April of
2005. In September of 2006, after many
different failed attempts at dieting I joined a support group/diet program
called The Prism Diet at Indian Creek Baptist Church. Basically this diet was no sugar and no
non-whole wheat flour, and even the whole wheat was limited, and no more than
1500 calories a day. I stuck fast to
that diet for 7 months and lost 70 pounds.
The main reason that worked for me was that we would track all the food
we ate and meet every Sunday to discuss it so I was able to scare myself into
following it very strictly or the ladies in the group would be mad at me. That meeting fell apart and I was left alone
with a wife and kid who could eat anything they wanted and I dove head first
off of the wagon. I shot from 235 to 340
in less than a year but it was slower than the first spurt after marriage.
The
whole time I was on that diet I was miserable and starving. All I did all day and night was think about
food. I would smell something or someone
would mention something that was even close to food and I would just wander
around in a daze daydreaming about pizza and enchiladas. I was watching The Daily Show with Jon
Stewart and Jeff Garlin was the guest about a year and a half ago. He had lost a lot of weight recently and was
joking with Jon about how if he held a cookie up to him he wouldn’t ever be
able to stop because he was addicted to food and he was aware of it. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it
before but that’s exactly what I am going through. Okay, so now I have identified the
problem. I don’t want to be groggy and
in a daze like the last time and I don’t want to keep going up in pant sizes,
there has to be a medium right? Right?
On
January 3rd of this year I joined Weight Watchers for $40 a month,
they had the tracking, and the support group that I knew had worked so well for
me before but they didn’t have the super strict insane 1500 calorie limit. I went to those meeting every week and stuck
to that program for 4 months and lost about 20 pounds. That’s it. I know everyone who has ever dieted will tell
you that it’s better to lose it slowly that way you’ll keep it off, but I
plateaued for about and month and said screw it I can’t afford $40 a month and
not see any results and spend all my time calculating points for every little
thing I eat.
So here
I am, aware of the problem and the best possible solution but nowhere to go and
nobody to do it with me. I need support
and I need a reasonable plan to follow.
I’m weak and I’m willing to admit that I’m weak and I know that I have a
problem. I want to lose weight because
it seriously adversely affects everything in my life. I don’t like to go out in public, I don’t
like to eat in front of people, and none of my clothes fit right. It sucks and it really all comes down to will
power and my ability to fight temptation.
I’ve thought about using this blog as a way to check in with the world
about my weight or maybe even starting a different one just for that
purpose. Maybe I could start a support
group, but that doesn’t sound like me at all.
I guess I’m open to suggestions as long as they’re productive and not
hurtful.
This is
like the blog that wouldn’t end. Okay bye
Eric Anderson
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