The epic journey to overcoming my obesity

Where the voice came from

After slipping on my mask last night and laying down to sleep (I have sleep apnea which requires me to sleep with a machine to help me take in more air) I was hoping to get a full nights rest. Ahh, so nice and comfy, air is on so low you can hang meat from the ceiling, getting nice and toasty under the blanket. There I go, on my way to la la land with a non-stop one way ticket. Until I heard kind of like a whisper calling my name from the kitchen. It kinda startled me because everyone is in bed asleep. Could it be one of my kids? “Charles”, there it is again! What the heck? That voice is too deep to be one of the kids. Darn it! Did I leave the front door unlocked and some crook is checking door knobs in my apartment complex to find one open to come in and jack my stuff? No, wait, I definitely locked the door, I remembered to do so before turning off the living room lamp. “Charles”, there’s that whisper again!  Am I dreaming? Let me pinch myself real quick, OUCH! No, I’m not dreaming. OK, I am going to get out of bed, tiptoe to my bedroom closet, and grab my bat to inflict some RBI’s if I have too. Yea, RBI’s, Real Bad Injuries. “Charles”..that’s it, I’m done, time to go into the kitchen area and start swinging blindly. I slowly step out of my bedroom, back to the wall, you know, like in stealth mode. Ok, exiting the bedroom heading right to the kitchen where the voice is. SQEEEEEK!! Darn, stepped on one of my daughter’s toys. I know my cover is blown now. Just going to go kamikaze, turn on kitchen light and swing….  No one here. Just me. But where did that whisper come….”Charles”…”Open me”.  What the!! It’s coming from inside the refrigerator! OK, with bat in hand, I slowly open up the fridge.”Hello” said the leftover platter of fatty foods my kids ate in the middle rack next to the half cut green pepper. “Just throw me in the microwave and eat. Come on, you know you want to. I could hear your stomach growling in the bedroom from here. Don’t forget the sweets on the counter next to the microwave either. Come on, you can do it. I know your hungry.” Man!! It’s not bad enough I have to hear your voice during the day but now at night? You see, It’s been 6 days since I have started this quest and I am getting hungrier than a mug everyday that passes. My stomach is pissed off at me. It has teamed up with my mind to try and get me to give in like it has so many other times before. I am literally talking to myself out loud now trying not to eat things I should know better to. What a fight. But I know if I can stick this round out now, I will score more points in the coming rounds. Like I said before, it will get easier and easier to not give in if I keep myself from giving in and giving up. Now is the time to make better decisions when It comes to eating at home and eating out. It’s not easy. Especially when everyone around you is eating whatever they want. Every second, every minute, every hour, every day is a struggle for me now. I just need to hold on and not give up like I always have in the past. I want to eat the chocolate chip cookies and Hershey Kisses that are staring at me from the kitchen right now. Like, I want to stop typing and go and eat them, NOW! But I’m not. I am learning to discipline myself right now. I can do this. I will do this. I will make it. It will get easier if I resist and don’t

Make better decisions

give in now. For all of you in the same struggle. Don’t give in. Fight! If you slip and give in. Don’t beat yourself up. Tomorrow is another day. A fresh start. I’m not perfect. There may be a post someday when I will slip. But that’s ok. I will just get back up and keep going. Like the Apostle Paul said in Philippians 3:14, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Boy, am I pressing!

Adventure Island

So, If you want to know if your over your self-consciousness about how you look, Just go to a water park during the hottest times of the year. That’s what the family and I did yesterday. Not to check on my self-consciousness but we have seasonal passes to any Busch themed park thanks to my father who works at Sea World in Orlando. We loaded up the mini van and headed to Adventure Island in Tampa, FL for the second time in a week. I have never liked water parks too much only because I wasn’t happy with the way I looked. Although there are many different shapes and sizes of people there you can’t help to notice only the ones who are physically fit. You know, the guy who has the six pack abs coming out of the wave pool wiping his hair with his hand from front to back to keep the water from coming on his face. You see the women around him staring at him in approval of his physique. Or how about the women who know they look good in a bikini and the guys all around are following them like a tiger ready to pounce on its victim if she just gives them a hint she’s interested. Well, I’m fat and lazy period. Being exposed to the sun all day doesn’t give me thrills. Neither does walking from one end of the park to the other trying to keep up with my kids because they are anxious to get on the next ride doesn’t thrill me either. But I have to stop being selfish and think about my children and do things with them that are fun whether I like it or not. The first time we went I haven’t decided to change my lifestyle yet. I was cranky, upset, bothered, and a whole lot of other things. I was very conscious of how I looked and wanted to stay in any water that was above my neck and stay there all day. Getting out of the water was another thing I didn’t like because I wear a basketball jersey when I go to parks like this. Walking out of the water with a basketball tank top on clinging to EVERY curve on your upper body. As if the tank top would somehow cover me up and make me look less overweight. Child please. Anyway, my two boys wanted to go on a water slide with them so I said ok. We began to climb up the path to the entrance. I just happened to glance at the ride requirements and the first thing on the list was no one over 250 lbs could ride. So I let the kids go by themselves and I headed back down the path away from the entrance thinking that the people passing me to go on this ride would know why I am heading back. Then, we selected another slide, this one with a tube. Ok, lets read this ride requirement. #1 on the list, no one over 250lbs, and I just stopped reading. If that wasn’t disappointing enough we go to eat lunch at one of there restaurants and I have to sit sideways to eat because the picnic style table doesn’t  accommodate large people like me. I was so done. Ready to go home. But I tried to make the best of it for my wife and kids. Now, yesterday was a complete different story. I couldn’t wait to go and have fun with my family. Now that I have been trying to make better eating decisions and changing my life, I had a completely different attitude. I didn’t care what people thought of me when they looked at me. I didn’t mind walking from one end of the park to the other because I just said to myself that this is a good way to get a little exercise. I also made a better decision when it was time to eat. Instead of the cheese steak, fries, and super large Pepsi, I got a turkey wrap substituted my fries for a cup of grapes and a bottled water. I felt completely different afterwards compared to how I felt last time I ate here. It’s amazing how even your attitude changes when you decide to eat better. I had a great day with the family yesterday and even though I weighed too much to get on certain rides, I made sure to take advantage of the ones I could get on and have fun. Until next time my friends and family. To all of you trying to change your lifestyle, You can do it!!! I love you all.

Breakfast: 1 cup of special K cereal with fat free milk, banana

Lunch: Turkey wrap, cup of grapes, bottled water

Dinner: ground turkey in a wrap, water with squeezed lemon and lime

The new McDonald's Fruit and Maple oatmeal cup

Well I am back from the doctors. My wife and I have some important things to do today. We have enrolled our kids into a private school and there’s some paperwork and a check that they are needing today so off we go. We load up the kids in the minivan and head to the bank to get a certified check for the school. The kids have already eaten while I was away at the doctors and my wife new that I haven’t eaten yet because of the fast so she suggested that I should get something from McDonald’s that’s conveniently  located right next to our bank. I thought yea! I’ll get my favorite, 2 Egg McMuffins, or 1 Egg McMuffin and a Deluxe Breakfast with the pancakes and a large Coke, light on the ice. Can’t have ice taking up all the volume in the cup and not leaving room for the Coke. I mean really. I was amazed on how quickly I forgot the great feeling I had leaving the doctors office.  That’s what I would normally eat every time I bought breakfast there. That would be my” light” breakfast, yes, I said” light”, if my wife was with me. If I had the van to myself and no one was with me, I would add a Sausage Egg and cheese McMuffin with that order along with a medium Coke. Yes, another soda and breakfast sandwich. I would eat the Sausage Egg and cheese McMuffin and drink the medium Coke before I got home. I would throw the evidence away in an outside trash container somewhere near my house and proceed home. Then, once I am home, I would give out whatever the family ordered, and then I would eat my “light breakfast”. That’s what happens when you don’t have discipline in your life. Being disciplined is going to be a critical part of your life if you want to lose weight. It is something that you have to learn immediately. If you can’t learn to discipline yourself, then you might as well forget it. You will lose every battle of temptation to gorge yourself with food when its around. But remember what I said on my last post, its time for me to stop memorizing scripture and start letting it help me in this part of my life. So now, when I am tempted I remember 1st Corinthians 10:13 which says, ” No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.” I had absolutely no discipline. I have eaten myself to the point of having food coma’s for so many years, I did’t know how to tell when I was full and to stop. To me, I wasn’t full until I slipped into a food coma and had to sleep, immediately. That’s what happens when you have no discipline. I know that if I would just cut my portions down to normal like having 1 cheeseburger instead of 2, or 1 slice of pizza instead of a whole freakin’ pie, 1 hot dog instead of 3 or 4, I would be in good shape. But now, because I have been undisciplined for so many years, I can’t have those things at all anymore. I need drastic change. Maybe when I reach my goal weight of 180, I will have the “normal” amount of those things but until then…I am having none of that stuff. So now I am at the drive thru ordering spot and I am only ordering for me because everyone has already eaten. As the car in front of me places their order, I hear the theme song for Rocky playing in my head and the fight between my stomach and mind begins. What to get, what to get. My wife knows now that I am trying to lose weight so I can’t get my usual. Maybe I will get my usual but tell her I won’t eat it all at once. I will spread it out through the morning. Yea, that’s it. No, that won’t work. Ok car in front of me, take your time, don’t rush your order, think about what you want because I am fighting over here. I really didn’t know what else McD’s offered. I had always got the usual. Ok, the car ahead of me is pulling up. My turn to order. Ok, maybe if I order the usual but stick my head out of the car window far enough so my wife can’t hear me and I speak softly I can get away with it. Then I can start devouring most of my food in the parking lot while she is inside the bank getting the certified check. Then when she comes out, I would have eaten more than half of the food and she won’t know what I got. “Thank you for coming to McDonalds, may I take your order please?” Darn, what to do, what to get. Look at the menu Charles, get something sensible. Something you won’t regret. When I looked up at the drive thru menu board, there it was. The Fruit and Maple oatmeal cup. How bad could that be. It doesn’t look big. I use to like oatmeal when I was younger and that was just plain oatmeal. This had to be better. Oatmeal must have progressed by now when it comes to taste, right? I mean, this had fruit in it and walnuts so this has to be good. Ok, that’s what I’ll get. “Anything else?”,  said the voice behind the barely working speaker. Come on say it, SAY IT!! You know you want a large Coke with that, you know it. For some reason, McDonalds Coca Cola is like liquid crack to me. If I don’t have it after a while I wind up looking like the character Chris Rock played in the movie New Jack City. I think his name was “Pookie”. You know, when he was holding that crack pipe in the fetal position with tears rolling down his eyes rocking back and forth. Yea, that’s what I look like when I haven’t had soda for a while. “NO, that will be it”. Uttering those words were the hardest thing I had to do. But I did it. When I opened up the bag and saw how small the oatmeal cup was, I was like, are you kidding me? Really? I could eat 6 of these easy. But no, It’s time to discipline myself. To my surprise, the oatmeal was fantastic. I was really surprised on how good it tasted. They give you a little package of brown sugar to go with it but I didn’t use it. It tasted just fine without it. I was so proud of myself. Yes I could have still eaten a horse after I was done. But I was happy and content. I lived out another biblical scripture and it comes from 1st Corinthians 9:27 which says, “But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.”  So please remember my friends and family who are also on this journey, you MUST learn to discipline yourself. If you do, overcoming temptation will become easier and easier. I love you all.