My weight-loss journey has been a struggle lately. Culture shock. Lost luggage. Forgetting wear home is. Aimlessly trekking through the world of #fitspo and #fitfam social media. When I'm exercising, I'm not eating right. When I'm eating right, I'm not exercising. I wouldn't say the train has jumped the track. It's just that I just seem to be out of synch with myself. It's time to regain control!
The train hasn't jumped the track - yet - but it's time to regain control!
Today I made a decision to go back to basics; I ordered a month's supply of Nutrisystem, since that's how I initially got on track with my eating habits, learned about portion control and how to include a variety of healthy, nutritious foods into my diet.
I've been on the fence about ordering for quite some time now, mostly because Nutrisystem does not focus on organic, non-GMO whole foods, and I would like to. But I realize that my weight has steadily increased over the course of the past year, and if I don't take drastic measures I may lose control of the degree of healthy weight management I have been able to maintain after losing more than 150 pounds a few years ago. So I bit the bullet and submitted my order just moments ago.
Immediately I downloaded the app, which I'm excited about, since when I was following the program before I didn't have a phone that support the app. Now that I do, I plan on taking full advantage of it, logging my food intake on the go rather than writing things down and logging them at the end of the day.
FYI - My goals are the same as ever. I will work toward losing fat while building muscle in order to get my weight under 227 pounds, which is the cutoff for obesity according to my height. My aim is to achieve this by losing 70 pounds within seven months - April 2014.
When I started my journey at 420 pounds, I was alone. But as I reached my low weight point at 255 pounds, I was flush with friends and followers. I'm hoping that as I get back on track, I will reconnect with some of
the folks I have lost touch with over the course of the past year or so. To regain some of that momentum once again, I plan to get more active on Twitter @MyFitLife2Day again, and I'll be using my Instagram account - @fitlifechronicles - more purposefully as well. I know me, and I will need encouragement from others as I continue my journey. If I'm lucky, I hope to inspire others as well as I regain control and continue my fitlife journey toward health, healing and longevity.
Today in response to one of my articles on fitness and weight loss published on HubPages, someone asked me if I could share with them a list of "quality of life" improvements that have come about as a result of my extreme weight loss. Great question, and I'm going to have to dig deep. There are physical as well as emotional improvements, mental clarity, etc. Let me see...I'm definitely going to have to work on this today.
Another thing on my agenda for today is that I'm planning to take my first group fitness class. My gym - Midtown Sports and Wellness in Albuquerque, NM - offers several LesMills classes, including Body Combat. The name itself is intimidating to me. Plus, it sounds pretty rigorous. Still, I'm not afraid of a little sweat, so what could be the reason that I'm feeling so intimidated about showing up?
I think it has to do with the group dynamic. I've observed group classes from the outside, and everyone seems to be in their own little zone. But I still can't help but think I will be judged if I'm not doing something right, or if I need to take a breather at a time not designated for one. I know this is all in my head, and I need to get over it soon because class starts in two hours!
Hmmm, I guess this dilemma could play into my article on quality of life somehow. Well, two years ago such a question wouldn't even come to mind - a group fitness class? Please! I would put off things like taking a shower because of how difficult it was to maneuver in there. Sheesh! What am I waiting for. I think I'll get ready for class!
Today I went to the beach and while taking pictures of the beautiful scenery I decided to turn the camera on myself. I took a picture without my shirt on, and when I got home to view it on the computer I realized that my near 50-pound weight loss (from the original 417 pounds I started at last year) is becoming more and more evident. But I'm starting to sag where there once was filled-out fluff, so I decided to hit the gym this evening, where I did chest, shoulder and arm exercises before going 16 minutes on the inclined treadmill.
Afterward I was feeling great. I stopped at a convenience store nearby to get a bottle of water, and when I came out and got into the car a familiar song came on the radio. It was a female voice singing a song I'd known to be written and sung by the Spanish singer, Miguel Bosé, back when I first was living in Miami Beach in the mid-1990s. The song is called "Si tu no vuelves", which means "If you don't return". As I listened for a bit I realized the voice was Shakira's. And the words she sang proved to be just as impactful and moving to me now as they were when Bosé sang them nearly 15 years ago. But in a different way.
The song as I remember it was sung by just a single male voice the entire way through. It was a song about losing the one you love and longing for their return. The first words of the song are "If you don't return, all the seas will dry up, and I will wait without you, buried in the depths of some memory".
At the time, Humberto, my lover of just a few months, had gone home to Chile to visit family, and upon flying back a week later he was not allowed to re-enter the country due to outstanding immigration issues. This was the man who had taught me how to love, even though he, at the time, spoke no English, and I still spoke no Spanish. It was through loving that I was able to learn the language, and without him the words of the song, and the memory of him, resonated with me for many months and years to come.
But tonight, as I listened to Bosé's voice blend with Shakira's in an unexpected duet, it was like the song took a different meaning altogether. This time it became internal, as if one voice were the "me" of today, and the other, the part of the lost lover in the original song, was my broken-hearted younger self. Even more, I felt one voice was the obese, years-worn older me of a month ago and the other was my vibrant, youthful and energetic self that had somehow been broken over the years and become lost, or perhaps encapsulated within.
The me of today I feel is neither of those two. Instead, as I lose weight I am becoming the connector linking the two of them. Before now I was either the fit 220 pound man or the overweight 400 pounder. The person that gained 200 pounds over the course of a decade had been lost somewhere in the middle. But as I listened to this new but old song, as I sat there in a dark parking lot alone, I felt a release of pressure deep within my gut as I somehow realized that these individuals were one in the same, and the man in between had never been lost at all.
I wept tears of joy for having re-discovered myself. There I was singing this song to my long-lost self in hopes that he would return, but then I realized he was never gone, just hiding. And I suddenly knew that I was and will be that same man even as I shed every single pound on the path reaching my ultimate weight loss goal.
Unless you've ever put on 200 pounds without even realizing you were doing it, and then, without even looking for it, you finally found the key to taking that weight back off, this blog must sound like nothing more than schizophrenic ramblings. But to me this night feels like salvation.
Here's a YouTube video featuring the original song. A translation of the lyrics follows:
Si tu no vuelves (If you don't return) Words and Music by Miguel Bosé Translated by Brian Schwarz
If you don't return all the seas will dry up and I will wait without you buried in the depths of some memory
If you don't return My will will be diminished I will remain here alongside my dog fixated on horizons
If you don't return only deserts will remain and I will listen in case some beat remains in this earth
It was so serene when you loved me I breathed a fresh perfume it was so lovely, it was so big it had no end
And each night a star would come and keep me company may it tell you how I am and you may know what there is
Tell me my love, my love, my love I'm here. Can't you see? If you don't return life will end I don't know what I will do
If you don't return there will be no hope, there will be nothing I will walk without you with my sadness drinking rain
