What's in a name? How about the name "Alfred"? Pretty innocuous on the surface but according to an online baby book the name means "supernatural". When you consider this, it seems fitting that the local news channel decided to name the first winter storm event of 2011, Alfred. Alfred dumped at least 8" of f$&@#*& snow on my yard yesterday and last night!
I ran an "Alfred" Google search as well and I found very little that was remarkable about the name. In fact the only notable person (at least notable to me) with the name that surfaced was Alfred Hitchcock. That seems appropriate also because the first image that pops into my head when I think of Alfred Hitchcock is of birds yanking out eyeballs! Having my eyeball plucked from my head by a crow might be more fun than 8 inches of snow in October!
Most years we might get a flurry or two prior to the new year but not this year. Last winter we had record breaking snow fall, and I was so hoping this year would balance out last with record breaking no-snow fall, but this doesn't bode well for us this year! In some ways looking out the window at a blanket of white covering the yard, is soothing! At the very least it's pretty, but I can only take short bursts of winter. The ideal winter to me would be four or five quick snow storms between December (including a nice thick storm on Christmas eve) and February mixed in with mostly 90-degree sunny days. Where can I move to get that?
Even though it's enough to piss off the Pope, I am in good spirits because I had a good week and lost a bunch of weight. Don't get me wrong, there are things about this time of year that I like. I like football and fall baseball; I like the warmth of a fire in the fireplace; I like fall/winter meals like Butternut Squash, Stew and Chilis, Roasts, and everything Apple; I like crisp morning golf; and I like the fall colors in the trees. But trust me, I would give all that up for 365 days of tropical splendor!
One snow storm in and here is what I miss aleady:
The smell of fresh cut grass
Warm summer breeze coming through my car windows
Margaritas and BBQ on the back porch
The sound of wind through the trees
The warmth of the sun on my face at the beach
And Bikinis, I think I will miss Bikinis most of all! It's going to be a long Winter!
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Monday, October 24, 2011
Clearing the Smoke from My Eyes!
I work in the food service industry and specifically I manage people who manage dining contracts at institutions of higher education. On the surface, my industry seems simple. I worked for someone once who said "at the end of the day it is really just about serving hamburgers and fries". But in reality it is a very complex business where my day can be interwoven with discussions about multi-million dollar deals, an occasional labor issue, customer and client satisfaction challenges, and the development of strategic and tactical planning, and less challenging issues like cold oatmeal and fruit flies.
What has a tendency to make the day-to-day dealings of my job more difficult at times is that we work for crazy people. It is my believe that college campuses are islands of insanity, where insane people are hired and then allowed to thrive. I have a client who expect's the leaves falling from the trees in October to be raked up as they hit the ground (I thought I was anal, but more about that in a minute); I have a client who pays us to run the business but then wants to be involved in every decision right down to the font style that we put on our menus; and I have a client who bases personel decisions not on experience or education but on looks and age. One would think that college campuses are bastions of political correctness but mostly they are not.
I like my work most days and other than the occasional run-in with insanity, it is satisfying. The stress in my work comes mostly from the unknown. Not knowing when the call will come-in because my manager went off the deep-end at an event and threatened to kill the host; or the call from a client who has decided after a long partnership to take proposals from our compeitors because they feel we make too much profit, I guess in reality I put out fires for a living!
On average a fire starts for me almost once a week and they are usually complicated enough to take several days or weeks to snuff out. I did not set-out in the business to put out fires and I generally don't like doing it. I know people who do like it and in fact they thrive on it. I think these are the same people who like anarchy and find comfort in messes. I am of the mindset that fires mean that someone has made a significant error and since that someone invaribly works for me, I made the error. My desire to avoid failure outweighs everything about me and many would say that I am anal. I like neatness and order and I expect everyone around me to be neat and orderly. I wash my driveway; I will remow the lawn if my kids mow it and the lines are crooked; I refold the towels that are folded incorrectly before putting them away; I park and repark my car until it looks like I am positioned in the middle of the white lines; When I play golf, the area around where I am hitting the ball must be clean, I pick-up broken golf tees, leaves, twigs, wrappers, before I hit; I may have issues!
I am getting better though, a dirty sneaker on the garage floor no longer sends me over the edge and I avoid looking into my kids bedrooms all toghether. It's dealing with the stress of all this that has previously always led me to food. In fact as I write this stuff now, I keep thinking "man I could really go for a Pizza" even though I just had lunch.
This past weekend would have historically been a food-free-for-all event for me. I had a long week last week with tons of issues and I have a stressful schedule this week. My normal Friday night mindset on these occassions has been that I work very hard and deserve to have a nice meal (or meals), I owe this to myself! Then as you can imagine, one bad meal leads to more bad meals, which lead to other bad health decisions, like two days of aggressive couch sitting. This unsettled healthless period ends only when I am able to get it under control again. I wonder what would happen if I never got control again! I can see the headline now "Man Shot Dead after 12-state Twinkie Massacre". But thankfully none of that happened this past weekend. I went to WW Saturday morning and my wife and I had a great weekend of good healthy decision making! I awoke this morning feeling very positive and alive! So I am off to gather my fire hose and helmet to tackle the week ahead!
What has a tendency to make the day-to-day dealings of my job more difficult at times is that we work for crazy people. It is my believe that college campuses are islands of insanity, where insane people are hired and then allowed to thrive. I have a client who expect's the leaves falling from the trees in October to be raked up as they hit the ground (I thought I was anal, but more about that in a minute); I have a client who pays us to run the business but then wants to be involved in every decision right down to the font style that we put on our menus; and I have a client who bases personel decisions not on experience or education but on looks and age. One would think that college campuses are bastions of political correctness but mostly they are not.
I like my work most days and other than the occasional run-in with insanity, it is satisfying. The stress in my work comes mostly from the unknown. Not knowing when the call will come-in because my manager went off the deep-end at an event and threatened to kill the host; or the call from a client who has decided after a long partnership to take proposals from our compeitors because they feel we make too much profit, I guess in reality I put out fires for a living!
On average a fire starts for me almost once a week and they are usually complicated enough to take several days or weeks to snuff out. I did not set-out in the business to put out fires and I generally don't like doing it. I know people who do like it and in fact they thrive on it. I think these are the same people who like anarchy and find comfort in messes. I am of the mindset that fires mean that someone has made a significant error and since that someone invaribly works for me, I made the error. My desire to avoid failure outweighs everything about me and many would say that I am anal. I like neatness and order and I expect everyone around me to be neat and orderly. I wash my driveway; I will remow the lawn if my kids mow it and the lines are crooked; I refold the towels that are folded incorrectly before putting them away; I park and repark my car until it looks like I am positioned in the middle of the white lines; When I play golf, the area around where I am hitting the ball must be clean, I pick-up broken golf tees, leaves, twigs, wrappers, before I hit; I may have issues!
I am getting better though, a dirty sneaker on the garage floor no longer sends me over the edge and I avoid looking into my kids bedrooms all toghether. It's dealing with the stress of all this that has previously always led me to food. In fact as I write this stuff now, I keep thinking "man I could really go for a Pizza" even though I just had lunch.
This past weekend would have historically been a food-free-for-all event for me. I had a long week last week with tons of issues and I have a stressful schedule this week. My normal Friday night mindset on these occassions has been that I work very hard and deserve to have a nice meal (or meals), I owe this to myself! Then as you can imagine, one bad meal leads to more bad meals, which lead to other bad health decisions, like two days of aggressive couch sitting. This unsettled healthless period ends only when I am able to get it under control again. I wonder what would happen if I never got control again! I can see the headline now "Man Shot Dead after 12-state Twinkie Massacre". But thankfully none of that happened this past weekend. I went to WW Saturday morning and my wife and I had a great weekend of good healthy decision making! I awoke this morning feeling very positive and alive! So I am off to gather my fire hose and helmet to tackle the week ahead!
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Humans, Amoebas, and Whales
I am going to try not to get too existential or philosophical today but I've been thinking recently about how funny it really is to be a human being. Comparing humans to almost every other relatively well developed life form is an exercise in parody. Yet the things that set us apart from other earthly co-inhabitants are not necessarily that vast.
All animals have one main purpose in life, to survive. In the case of human beings, we all survive in our own way. You've heard people say "I can't live without (fill in the blank)", and often that necessity of life is something ridiculous like mustache wax, or a subscription to Cosmo. In reality what we can't live without is food and water and that's probably about it. So we go about our animal existence with the sole purpose of survival occupying most of our time. Or does it? What about survival requires us to covet things that we don't really need; or makes us self medicate with alcohol, tobacco, food, or drugs, to feel better; or makes us get angry and throw small pets at the TV when the Bills lose! It doesn't make any real sense does it?
If all we did was focus on survival like lions, tigers, and bears, (oh my!), life would be much simpler. The gift of cognitive thought is what separates us most significantly from other animals. This allows us to think, reason and remember, unlike an amoeba as an example. Maybe some days life would be easier as an amoeba, there you are floating along in an unknown vat of liquid. You travel only as the ebb and flow of the liquid that surrounds you moves. You think nothing, you feel nothing, you have nothing, and your entire existence can last only seconds. Is this better? Are amoeba's happy? Do they know what happy is? Who cares, in the end life for them is the same as it is for us. It starts with some form of birth and ends in some form of death, and the middle part is completely filled with survival and the occasional wedge of cheesecake! Okay maybe amoeba's don't eat cheesecake but I like to think that they would if they could!
I am happy to have the ability to think like a human (and I really like the opposable thumb thing too, it makes the remote control so much more enjoyable) and I think for now I'll keep working through life and figuring out the little nuances until the end comes.
As a kid I was a huge fan of the book series by Douglas Adams called The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I have never forgotten one passage about a whale free falling from space at rapid speeds. I laughed when I was a kid and it still makes me laugh, but it is also a very interesting way of metaphorically over simplifying our existence.
It is important to note that suddenly, and against all probability, a Sperm Whale had been called into existence, several miles above the surface of an alien planet and since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity. This is what it thought, as it fell:
The Whale: Ahhh! Woooh! What's happening? Who am I? Why am I here? What's my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I? Okay okay, calm down calm down get a grip now. Ooh, this is an interesting sensation. What is it? Its a sort of tingling in my... well I suppose I better start finding names for things. Lets call it a... tail! Yeah! Tail! And hey, what's this roaring sound, whooshing past what I'm suddenly gonna call my head? Wind! Is that a good name? It'll do. Yeah, this is really exciting. I'm dizzy with anticipation! Or is it the wind? There's an awful lot of that now isn't it? And what's this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like 'Ow', 'Ownge', 'Round', 'Ground'! That's it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it'll be friends with me? Hello Ground!
That's all for now!
All animals have one main purpose in life, to survive. In the case of human beings, we all survive in our own way. You've heard people say "I can't live without (fill in the blank)", and often that necessity of life is something ridiculous like mustache wax, or a subscription to Cosmo. In reality what we can't live without is food and water and that's probably about it. So we go about our animal existence with the sole purpose of survival occupying most of our time. Or does it? What about survival requires us to covet things that we don't really need; or makes us self medicate with alcohol, tobacco, food, or drugs, to feel better; or makes us get angry and throw small pets at the TV when the Bills lose! It doesn't make any real sense does it?
If all we did was focus on survival like lions, tigers, and bears, (oh my!), life would be much simpler. The gift of cognitive thought is what separates us most significantly from other animals. This allows us to think, reason and remember, unlike an amoeba as an example. Maybe some days life would be easier as an amoeba, there you are floating along in an unknown vat of liquid. You travel only as the ebb and flow of the liquid that surrounds you moves. You think nothing, you feel nothing, you have nothing, and your entire existence can last only seconds. Is this better? Are amoeba's happy? Do they know what happy is? Who cares, in the end life for them is the same as it is for us. It starts with some form of birth and ends in some form of death, and the middle part is completely filled with survival and the occasional wedge of cheesecake! Okay maybe amoeba's don't eat cheesecake but I like to think that they would if they could!
I am happy to have the ability to think like a human (and I really like the opposable thumb thing too, it makes the remote control so much more enjoyable) and I think for now I'll keep working through life and figuring out the little nuances until the end comes.
As a kid I was a huge fan of the book series by Douglas Adams called The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I have never forgotten one passage about a whale free falling from space at rapid speeds. I laughed when I was a kid and it still makes me laugh, but it is also a very interesting way of metaphorically over simplifying our existence.
It is important to note that suddenly, and against all probability, a Sperm Whale had been called into existence, several miles above the surface of an alien planet and since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity. This is what it thought, as it fell:
The Whale: Ahhh! Woooh! What's happening? Who am I? Why am I here? What's my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I? Okay okay, calm down calm down get a grip now. Ooh, this is an interesting sensation. What is it? Its a sort of tingling in my... well I suppose I better start finding names for things. Lets call it a... tail! Yeah! Tail! And hey, what's this roaring sound, whooshing past what I'm suddenly gonna call my head? Wind! Is that a good name? It'll do. Yeah, this is really exciting. I'm dizzy with anticipation! Or is it the wind? There's an awful lot of that now isn't it? And what's this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like 'Ow', 'Ownge', 'Round', 'Ground'! That's it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it'll be friends with me? Hello Ground!
That's all for now!
Monday, October 17, 2011
Sheep
My daughter commented yesterday that she thought the title of my blog was "feminine". I am not sure why she thinks that, but it did help me realize that it would probably be beneficial to some if I explained my choice of titles and themes.
Sheep are animals who can generally be found standing peacefully in a field of grass with no purpose in life; and no direction that was not predetermined by a sheep dog. Sometimes as life gets to me in the many ways that it does, I feel like a sheep aimlessly wandering around a field. So metaphorically we may all be sheep.
When I started thinking about what I wanted my blog to represent, it's that paradigm that I found most interesting. We were raised as sheep and we raise our kids to be sheep and every single day we allow society to make us more sheep like. We need to accept responsibility for ourselves and not follow the path that everyone else follows. At times that is easier said then done! Mind you this is not a blog about rising up to overthrow the government like the animals overthrew the farmer in George Orwell's book Animal Farm. This is more the Pink Floyd song Sheep:
Harmlessly passing your time in the grassland away
Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air
You better watch out
There may be dogs about
I've looked over Jordan, and I have seen
Things are not what they seem
What do you get for pretending the danger's not real
Meek and obedient you follow the leader
Down well trodden corridors into the valley of steel
What a surprise
A look of terminal shock in your eyes
Now things are really what they seem
No, this is no bad dream
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want
He makes me down to lie
Through pastures green He leadeth me the silent waters by
With bright knives He releaseth my soul
He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places
He converteth me to lamb cutlets
For lo, He hath great power, and great hunger
When cometh the day we lowly ones
Through quiet reflection, and great dedication
Master the art of karate
Lo, we shall rise up
And then we'll make the bugger's eyes water
Bleating and babbling we fell on his neck with a scream
Wave upon wave of demented avengers
March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream
Have you heard the news?
The dogs are dead
You better stay home and do as you're told
Get out of the road if you want to grow old
Sheep are animals who can generally be found standing peacefully in a field of grass with no purpose in life; and no direction that was not predetermined by a sheep dog. Sometimes as life gets to me in the many ways that it does, I feel like a sheep aimlessly wandering around a field. So metaphorically we may all be sheep.
When I started thinking about what I wanted my blog to represent, it's that paradigm that I found most interesting. We were raised as sheep and we raise our kids to be sheep and every single day we allow society to make us more sheep like. We need to accept responsibility for ourselves and not follow the path that everyone else follows. At times that is easier said then done! Mind you this is not a blog about rising up to overthrow the government like the animals overthrew the farmer in George Orwell's book Animal Farm. This is more the Pink Floyd song Sheep:
Harmlessly passing your time in the grassland away
Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air
You better watch out
There may be dogs about
I've looked over Jordan, and I have seen
Things are not what they seem
What do you get for pretending the danger's not real
Meek and obedient you follow the leader
Down well trodden corridors into the valley of steel
What a surprise
A look of terminal shock in your eyes
Now things are really what they seem
No, this is no bad dream
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want
He makes me down to lie
Through pastures green He leadeth me the silent waters by
With bright knives He releaseth my soul
He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places
He converteth me to lamb cutlets
For lo, He hath great power, and great hunger
When cometh the day we lowly ones
Through quiet reflection, and great dedication
Master the art of karate
Lo, we shall rise up
And then we'll make the bugger's eyes water
Bleating and babbling we fell on his neck with a scream
Wave upon wave of demented avengers
March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream
Have you heard the news?
The dogs are dead
You better stay home and do as you're told
Get out of the road if you want to grow old
Saturday, October 15, 2011
My Three Kid Journey to Insanity!
I get irritated at times and when I am irritated I can easily make bad choices but I don't think that I have "anger issues". I don't beat my kids, the dogs, or my wife (but I do think I would get great pleasure from providing my neighbor with a severe beating, but that is a story for another day) and I think mostly I am a pretty calm person. I wanted to make that clear because when I went back and read my first post, I realized that one could easily make the assumption that I am on the edge of a killing spree. My issues are directly related to things like crazy clients and difficult work situations; trying to survive the day-to-day challenges of family debt and finances; and dealing with my pain in the @$$ kids! My kids are the topic of today's post.
I love my kids more than anything and I think the stress that they cause me comes mostly from my desire to see them succeed and for fear that they will fail in life. This concern is mostly with my sons who are 20 and 18 years old and are at a very important time in there lives. "18" has a part time job and is going to a local community college, in my opinion the jury is still out on him. "20" is between jobs and school, he went away to college for a year and that didn't work out very well (for him, but it probably was a good thing for the local pot dealer and liquor store). My fear with him is that the jury has ruled that he is destined for a life of meaningless jobs and relationships; an occasional visit to rehab; welfare, prison, and then the morgue.
We have all heard it before, "you need to learn from your mistakes", but they won't! Isn't the definition of insanity, doing the same things over and over again but expecting different results. If this is true 20 and 18 are insane! I sometimes think they do it on purpose just to get to me, but they go out of the way to beat me down. Having sons, you eventually accept certain things, like the idea that personal hygiene is optional; that a smell (a combination of sweat, bodily excrement, sour milk, dirt, and bacon) will always come from there rooms; that plaid and polka dots match; and that clothes need to be washed after every fifth use (unless its underwear in which case you can get a complete week out them), but what I can't get my head around is that no matter how much advice I give them, they will always do the opposite thing!
I wish I could accept that the wisdom that I have gained in 45 years of existence does not apply to my sons. If I could accept this I would stop trying to help, and then I wouldn't be disappointed when they decide it's a good idea to stick there penis' in a light socket! Okay that didn't happen but it would not surprise me in the least if it did! This is how it would go:
Dad - "son don't stick your penis in that outlet because you will get shocked and it will hurt"
Son - "I do this all the time and it's fun"
Dad - "well at least make sure that you turn the switch off before you........"
Son - BZZZZZZZZ, pop snap, burn, ouch!!!!
Will they ever accept that the stupid things that they decide to do have been done before, quite possibly by me! That because I have experienced these things, I might be able to guide them towards better decisions. If I took no interest in them and was a non-involved father while they grew up, I would understand this lack of respect for me or my opinions, but I was always there to give them advice and in my heart I know they were brought up with solid values. Maybe it's just a phase and at some point a light switch will go off (and hopefully they don't have there penises in the light socket at the other end) and they will suddenly get it! I hope that I can survive until that day comes! That's all for now, see you soon.
I love my kids more than anything and I think the stress that they cause me comes mostly from my desire to see them succeed and for fear that they will fail in life. This concern is mostly with my sons who are 20 and 18 years old and are at a very important time in there lives. "18" has a part time job and is going to a local community college, in my opinion the jury is still out on him. "20" is between jobs and school, he went away to college for a year and that didn't work out very well (for him, but it probably was a good thing for the local pot dealer and liquor store). My fear with him is that the jury has ruled that he is destined for a life of meaningless jobs and relationships; an occasional visit to rehab; welfare, prison, and then the morgue.
We have all heard it before, "you need to learn from your mistakes", but they won't! Isn't the definition of insanity, doing the same things over and over again but expecting different results. If this is true 20 and 18 are insane! I sometimes think they do it on purpose just to get to me, but they go out of the way to beat me down. Having sons, you eventually accept certain things, like the idea that personal hygiene is optional; that a smell (a combination of sweat, bodily excrement, sour milk, dirt, and bacon) will always come from there rooms; that plaid and polka dots match; and that clothes need to be washed after every fifth use (unless its underwear in which case you can get a complete week out them), but what I can't get my head around is that no matter how much advice I give them, they will always do the opposite thing!
I wish I could accept that the wisdom that I have gained in 45 years of existence does not apply to my sons. If I could accept this I would stop trying to help, and then I wouldn't be disappointed when they decide it's a good idea to stick there penis' in a light socket! Okay that didn't happen but it would not surprise me in the least if it did! This is how it would go:
Dad - "son don't stick your penis in that outlet because you will get shocked and it will hurt"
Son - "I do this all the time and it's fun"
Dad - "well at least make sure that you turn the switch off before you........"
Son - BZZZZZZZZ, pop snap, burn, ouch!!!!
Will they ever accept that the stupid things that they decide to do have been done before, quite possibly by me! That because I have experienced these things, I might be able to guide them towards better decisions. If I took no interest in them and was a non-involved father while they grew up, I would understand this lack of respect for me or my opinions, but I was always there to give them advice and in my heart I know they were brought up with solid values. Maybe it's just a phase and at some point a light switch will go off (and hopefully they don't have there penises in the light socket at the other end) and they will suddenly get it! I hope that I can survive until that day comes! That's all for now, see you soon.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Why, What and How of it all?
I am a forty-five year old man, married with three kids and I once weighed 536 pounds! It's funny but people talk about a weight loss journey as if it has a beginning, middle and end. My weight loss journey started when I was old enough to realize that I had to do something so that I could be healthier because I was "one thin mint" away from exploding, I know now that it will have no end and thus have no middle. I guess the moment of impending "thin mintiness" hit when I was about 24 years old. in the time since I have struggled to lose weight and be more healthy and I have often made progress only to see that progress slip away and my weight to grow.
In July of 2009 I joined Weight Watchers with my wife and for 15 months I followed the program to the letter and lost more than 150 pounds. Since then my commitment has been less than perfect and I have gone long periods of time without attending a meeting, or going to the gym, which has resulted in some weight gain, stress, low self-esteem, stress eating, etc.
There is no mystery or secret for my lack of commitment to the WW program recently. The title of my blog says it all, I get stressed out which impacts my emotions which drives me to eat (sometimes literally through a drive through restaurant). I know this, my family knows this, at times I feel like I have no control. Some of my stress comes from my family, and I know when I am stressed they get stressed. When I am stressed I eat, when they are stressed they eat, it is a nasty vicious cycle that is hard to break free from.
I am a man; I watch football; I like cars; I smoke cigars; I play golf; I don't cry (okay maybe at an occasional chick flick); and I am a rock! Hell, one time I actually pulled a splinter out of my finger with my teeth! Stress and emotion cannot possibly affect me! It was hard to admit to myself at first that I needed someones help to lose weight and to take that first trip to WW (imagine how out of place I felt on day one when I walked in and saw that I was only one of a few men, the room was full but with mostly overweight, and middle aged women). Now it's just as hard to admit that sometimes I can't control the stress and that I lean on food to help me through it.
I mentioned earlier that my family causes me stress, but they are not the only source of my angst. My job is often no fun. I have to travel a lot with a recent promotion and I generally don't like it. The economy has hurt my family and I, and at times money becomes a problem. I get stressed when it rains and I can't play golf! I get stressed when the Yankees lose! I get stressed when my favorite hair salon has run out of the mousse that I like (just kidding, there I go again channeling my inner femininity). Bottom line is that I am usually STRESSED.
I am guessing that I do not have any problems that 98% of the men in my age group with similar careers and families don't also have, but maybe I deal with it differently then the guys who I want to run over in my car when I see them jogging down my street, with there flat stomach's and single chin. So in a never ending search to understand how I can be a better and healthier me, I am looking for ways to deal. This is where this blog came from. I spoke to a health professional who made the suggestion that I journal my stress thoughts as a way to identify when I am stressed (duh, always!) and to identify what causes it (duh, kids, money, job!). Rather than journal I thought lets Blog it and share it with the world (or my short list of people who I know will actually give a $#%@). So that's it for now, there must be a ball game on! Off we go!
In July of 2009 I joined Weight Watchers with my wife and for 15 months I followed the program to the letter and lost more than 150 pounds. Since then my commitment has been less than perfect and I have gone long periods of time without attending a meeting, or going to the gym, which has resulted in some weight gain, stress, low self-esteem, stress eating, etc.
There is no mystery or secret for my lack of commitment to the WW program recently. The title of my blog says it all, I get stressed out which impacts my emotions which drives me to eat (sometimes literally through a drive through restaurant). I know this, my family knows this, at times I feel like I have no control. Some of my stress comes from my family, and I know when I am stressed they get stressed. When I am stressed I eat, when they are stressed they eat, it is a nasty vicious cycle that is hard to break free from.
I am a man; I watch football; I like cars; I smoke cigars; I play golf; I don't cry (okay maybe at an occasional chick flick); and I am a rock! Hell, one time I actually pulled a splinter out of my finger with my teeth! Stress and emotion cannot possibly affect me! It was hard to admit to myself at first that I needed someones help to lose weight and to take that first trip to WW (imagine how out of place I felt on day one when I walked in and saw that I was only one of a few men, the room was full but with mostly overweight, and middle aged women). Now it's just as hard to admit that sometimes I can't control the stress and that I lean on food to help me through it.
I mentioned earlier that my family causes me stress, but they are not the only source of my angst. My job is often no fun. I have to travel a lot with a recent promotion and I generally don't like it. The economy has hurt my family and I, and at times money becomes a problem. I get stressed when it rains and I can't play golf! I get stressed when the Yankees lose! I get stressed when my favorite hair salon has run out of the mousse that I like (just kidding, there I go again channeling my inner femininity). Bottom line is that I am usually STRESSED.
I am guessing that I do not have any problems that 98% of the men in my age group with similar careers and families don't also have, but maybe I deal with it differently then the guys who I want to run over in my car when I see them jogging down my street, with there flat stomach's and single chin. So in a never ending search to understand how I can be a better and healthier me, I am looking for ways to deal. This is where this blog came from. I spoke to a health professional who made the suggestion that I journal my stress thoughts as a way to identify when I am stressed (duh, always!) and to identify what causes it (duh, kids, money, job!). Rather than journal I thought lets Blog it and share it with the world (or my short list of people who I know will actually give a $#%@). So that's it for now, there must be a ball game on! Off we go!
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