Life nailed me but I didn't screw myself.
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TheFinalThird
Posts: 315 Member
The usual warnings - I write long posts. If you have the attention span of a feral pig or get annoyed with long posts, don't read this one.
Second, this post contains profanity. But it is contextually appropriate profanity that adds to the understanding of what I am trying to convey. If you feel the need to giggle when someone uses the word *kitten*, stop reading now.
Finally, yes, everything in this post is true. No, I didn't embellish any of it or make any of it up. And no, I did not take a court reporter or notary public with me to verify what happened. You'll just have to take my word for it. Or don't.
Prologue - In order to understand this post, you have to understand where I've been over the past 354 days. On July 26, 2012, I was 6' 1", 478 pounds. I was so sedentary that my life revolved around the couch, recliner, bed , dining room chair, minivan driver's seat, desk chair at my office and that the bare minimum of movement to shuffle slowly from each to the next. I was fully functional in a work sense (as an attorney) but not at all active otherwise. Flash forward five months. I had lost 95 pounds down to 383. I was able to walk up to 90 minutes a day at 3.5 miles per hour. That might not sound like much to you, but I'll bet you're not 51 years old and you don't weigh near or over 400 pounds. I was something of an inspiration to many on the board and felt like I was finally on the road to becoming healthy and fit once again. Flash forward six more months. July of 2013. Six days ago. After dealing with a series of mentally, emotionally and physically exhausting situations in my life, I allowed my weight to zoom from 383 back up to 425. That's right. I regained 42 of the 95 pounds that I had lost. In just 6 months. Scary, right? My new smaller (but not small) clothes were now bursting at the seams. I knew I was at a crossroads. I would either complete the path toward regaining all of my weight, and likely die from it, or pull up my big boy bloomers, get myself in hand, and rock this place once again.
So last week, on July 9, 2013, I resorted to something that proved my desperation. I re-read my old motivational posts from last year. And here's the weird part. They helped. So the next day, July 10, 2013, I got back on track. Eating wise and exercise-wise. For the past 6 days I have stayed within macros for the most part, calories, and exceeded the amount of exercise that I committed to doing each week. And it showed. The scale has plummeted 9 pounds in 6 days. Crazy, right? It is almost as though my body was desperate to go back to where it was before.
And that brings us to the title of this post... "Life nailed me but I didn't screw myself." My eating day was going along just fine today UNTIL I got the notice at 2pm. "Congratulations... Tim Linsecum threw a no-hitter, so the first 5,000 people to respond to this email get a free two-topping hand thrown medium pizza from Dominos." I immediately entered the code on the Dominos website and quicker than you can say TEMPTATION, it informed me that I had won a free pizza. Now, for me, when free and food come together in the same neighborhood, I am in trouble. But at the intersection of free and pizza, I am in serious, serious trouble.
MFP allocates me around 2800 calories per day because I am so big. I had already used 1600 of them. I got on the Domino's website and calculated out how much my dream pizza would cost me. Hand thrown... medium... easy cheese... easy sauce (bbq, not tomato), pineapple and chicken. 200 calories for 1/8th of the pizza. Easy breezy. I would eat 2 slices, bring the rest home for the family and still have 800 calories for dinner. Anyone can do this. Right? Right???
Anyone except for me. Somewhere between the Domino's on West Gray and the Weslayan exit of the Southwest Freeway, the remaining six slices of pizza blew out my car window. Which is especially interesting since my car window was closed. *kitten*. The road to eating hell is paved with free pizza. I looked around on the floorboard of my car just to make sure that the other six slices hadn't slid out of the box and hit the floorboard of my minivan. No such luck. I guess I actually snarfed the whole thing. All 1600 calories of it. And that was on top of a bag of M&M's (230 calories) and a snickers bar (250 calories) earlier in the day. Not my proudest MFP moment.
So the hard reality is that by 4pm, I had not only consumed all of my day's calories, but exceeded them by a bright, shiny 400 or so over. *kitten*. Intellectually, I KNEW what I needed to do. At my current weight, 60 minutes of walking = 600 or so calories burned (remember, I'm still a behemoth). That would give me enough calories for a light dinner later while Mrs.TFT and the boys ate their dinner. So like the trooper that I am, I logged the 60 minutes of walking. On MFP. Not in real life. Oh, I INTENDED to walk, but the pizza had made me sleepy, it was about to start raining, and it was hot outside. And humid. And sticky. With no breeze at all. I would DEFINITELY walk... later... maybe... DEFINITELY... we'll see.
And then it happened. I noticed on my screen that several of my loyal and supportive and loving MFP friends began posting congratulations on my exercise effort. Well *kitten* ... I can't let THEM down. Sooooo.... I changed clothes, put on my iPod, and trudged out my front door.
My instincts were all correct. It WAS hot. It WAS humid. It WAS sticky. And worst of all, it DID start raining.... about 3 minutes into my walk. *kitten*. Maybe I should turn around and go home. And then I remembered those words of encouragement from my MFP friends. So I walked some more.
About a mile into the walk, I noticed two things simultaneously. My right shoe was making a sound like Gene Kelly's tap shoe. If you don't understand that reference, you're too damned young. Stop reading now. The second thing I noticed was a stabbing pain in the bottom of my foot, right about where the tap sounds was coming from. "This is not good," I told myself.
So I plunked all 416 pounds of myself down on the curb about a mile from my house, pulled off my shoe, and noticed what looked like a piece of glass in the tread of my shoe. Easy breezy, I thought. I pulled out my house key and tried to pry the glass out of my tread. But it wouldn't come out. Because it wasn't glass. What it was, was the head of a screw. I tried prying it out of my shoe. No luck. So I hobbled, one-shoed, one-socked, half a block to the nearest fire hydrant. I used the hydrant as leverage as I pulled with all my might. Finally, the screw gave way. And it was a big sucker. One inch long. Its rusty tip was pushing against, but had not yet quite punctured the sole of my foot. I was very lucky.
Well, lucky in one sense. I hadn't been punctured. Not so lucky in another sense. You see, my examination of the screw took place while I was laying in the middle of Kuldell Drive in a panting, sweaty, moaning heap of flesh and clothes. I had to pull so hard to get the screw out of my sole that when it finally gave way, I flew backwards in a heap in the middle of the street.
After assuring myself that the screw had not drawn blood, and that my fall had broken no bones, I sat on the curb and pondered what was next. My back and legs were sore from my fall. But I had only walked 16 minutes of the 60 that I posted. And it was raining, my foot hurt, my legs hurt, and my back hurt. I had every legitimate excuse to stop walking. But I didn't. Sooo.....
47 minutes later, I limped up the driveway of our house. I did a quick calculation on gmap pedometer. 3.4 miles in 63 minutes. Yes, I managed to exceed my posted exercise by 3 minutes even though I had every right, every excuse, every justification to stop after 16 minutes. So in the end, life may have nailed me, but I didn't screw myself.
And now that I've cooled off sufficiently, I think I'll have some dinner. After all, my numbers are now back in the green once more. And that is where they'll stay.
Second, this post contains profanity. But it is contextually appropriate profanity that adds to the understanding of what I am trying to convey. If you feel the need to giggle when someone uses the word *kitten*, stop reading now.
Finally, yes, everything in this post is true. No, I didn't embellish any of it or make any of it up. And no, I did not take a court reporter or notary public with me to verify what happened. You'll just have to take my word for it. Or don't.
Prologue - In order to understand this post, you have to understand where I've been over the past 354 days. On July 26, 2012, I was 6' 1", 478 pounds. I was so sedentary that my life revolved around the couch, recliner, bed , dining room chair, minivan driver's seat, desk chair at my office and that the bare minimum of movement to shuffle slowly from each to the next. I was fully functional in a work sense (as an attorney) but not at all active otherwise. Flash forward five months. I had lost 95 pounds down to 383. I was able to walk up to 90 minutes a day at 3.5 miles per hour. That might not sound like much to you, but I'll bet you're not 51 years old and you don't weigh near or over 400 pounds. I was something of an inspiration to many on the board and felt like I was finally on the road to becoming healthy and fit once again. Flash forward six more months. July of 2013. Six days ago. After dealing with a series of mentally, emotionally and physically exhausting situations in my life, I allowed my weight to zoom from 383 back up to 425. That's right. I regained 42 of the 95 pounds that I had lost. In just 6 months. Scary, right? My new smaller (but not small) clothes were now bursting at the seams. I knew I was at a crossroads. I would either complete the path toward regaining all of my weight, and likely die from it, or pull up my big boy bloomers, get myself in hand, and rock this place once again.
So last week, on July 9, 2013, I resorted to something that proved my desperation. I re-read my old motivational posts from last year. And here's the weird part. They helped. So the next day, July 10, 2013, I got back on track. Eating wise and exercise-wise. For the past 6 days I have stayed within macros for the most part, calories, and exceeded the amount of exercise that I committed to doing each week. And it showed. The scale has plummeted 9 pounds in 6 days. Crazy, right? It is almost as though my body was desperate to go back to where it was before.
And that brings us to the title of this post... "Life nailed me but I didn't screw myself." My eating day was going along just fine today UNTIL I got the notice at 2pm. "Congratulations... Tim Linsecum threw a no-hitter, so the first 5,000 people to respond to this email get a free two-topping hand thrown medium pizza from Dominos." I immediately entered the code on the Dominos website and quicker than you can say TEMPTATION, it informed me that I had won a free pizza. Now, for me, when free and food come together in the same neighborhood, I am in trouble. But at the intersection of free and pizza, I am in serious, serious trouble.
MFP allocates me around 2800 calories per day because I am so big. I had already used 1600 of them. I got on the Domino's website and calculated out how much my dream pizza would cost me. Hand thrown... medium... easy cheese... easy sauce (bbq, not tomato), pineapple and chicken. 200 calories for 1/8th of the pizza. Easy breezy. I would eat 2 slices, bring the rest home for the family and still have 800 calories for dinner. Anyone can do this. Right? Right???
Anyone except for me. Somewhere between the Domino's on West Gray and the Weslayan exit of the Southwest Freeway, the remaining six slices of pizza blew out my car window. Which is especially interesting since my car window was closed. *kitten*. The road to eating hell is paved with free pizza. I looked around on the floorboard of my car just to make sure that the other six slices hadn't slid out of the box and hit the floorboard of my minivan. No such luck. I guess I actually snarfed the whole thing. All 1600 calories of it. And that was on top of a bag of M&M's (230 calories) and a snickers bar (250 calories) earlier in the day. Not my proudest MFP moment.
So the hard reality is that by 4pm, I had not only consumed all of my day's calories, but exceeded them by a bright, shiny 400 or so over. *kitten*. Intellectually, I KNEW what I needed to do. At my current weight, 60 minutes of walking = 600 or so calories burned (remember, I'm still a behemoth). That would give me enough calories for a light dinner later while Mrs.TFT and the boys ate their dinner. So like the trooper that I am, I logged the 60 minutes of walking. On MFP. Not in real life. Oh, I INTENDED to walk, but the pizza had made me sleepy, it was about to start raining, and it was hot outside. And humid. And sticky. With no breeze at all. I would DEFINITELY walk... later... maybe... DEFINITELY... we'll see.
And then it happened. I noticed on my screen that several of my loyal and supportive and loving MFP friends began posting congratulations on my exercise effort. Well *kitten* ... I can't let THEM down. Sooooo.... I changed clothes, put on my iPod, and trudged out my front door.
My instincts were all correct. It WAS hot. It WAS humid. It WAS sticky. And worst of all, it DID start raining.... about 3 minutes into my walk. *kitten*. Maybe I should turn around and go home. And then I remembered those words of encouragement from my MFP friends. So I walked some more.
About a mile into the walk, I noticed two things simultaneously. My right shoe was making a sound like Gene Kelly's tap shoe. If you don't understand that reference, you're too damned young. Stop reading now. The second thing I noticed was a stabbing pain in the bottom of my foot, right about where the tap sounds was coming from. "This is not good," I told myself.
So I plunked all 416 pounds of myself down on the curb about a mile from my house, pulled off my shoe, and noticed what looked like a piece of glass in the tread of my shoe. Easy breezy, I thought. I pulled out my house key and tried to pry the glass out of my tread. But it wouldn't come out. Because it wasn't glass. What it was, was the head of a screw. I tried prying it out of my shoe. No luck. So I hobbled, one-shoed, one-socked, half a block to the nearest fire hydrant. I used the hydrant as leverage as I pulled with all my might. Finally, the screw gave way. And it was a big sucker. One inch long. Its rusty tip was pushing against, but had not yet quite punctured the sole of my foot. I was very lucky.
Well, lucky in one sense. I hadn't been punctured. Not so lucky in another sense. You see, my examination of the screw took place while I was laying in the middle of Kuldell Drive in a panting, sweaty, moaning heap of flesh and clothes. I had to pull so hard to get the screw out of my sole that when it finally gave way, I flew backwards in a heap in the middle of the street.
After assuring myself that the screw had not drawn blood, and that my fall had broken no bones, I sat on the curb and pondered what was next. My back and legs were sore from my fall. But I had only walked 16 minutes of the 60 that I posted. And it was raining, my foot hurt, my legs hurt, and my back hurt. I had every legitimate excuse to stop walking. But I didn't. Sooo.....
47 minutes later, I limped up the driveway of our house. I did a quick calculation on gmap pedometer. 3.4 miles in 63 minutes. Yes, I managed to exceed my posted exercise by 3 minutes even though I had every right, every excuse, every justification to stop after 16 minutes. So in the end, life may have nailed me, but I didn't screw myself.
And now that I've cooled off sufficiently, I think I'll have some dinner. After all, my numbers are now back in the green once more. And that is where they'll stay.
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Replies
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This is probably your best story yet. I laughed! I cried! I screwed! Well, maybe not the last part. :drinker:
Your efforts today were amazing and I'm proud to be your friend!!0 -
The quality of persistence is often under-rated0
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Great for you!0
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Way to not let the nuts and bolts of life hold you back.0
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Allowing your mind to be tougher than your body will carry you to success--thanks for this real life story...I got a kick out of it and am cheering you on.0
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Love this0
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Love this.
But the real question is... Were you singing in the rain? It's a glorious feeling.
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Love the story and love your persistence. Keep it up!0
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Fantastic post!!! Well done! Great to hear you beat the goal you set out for :-)0
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If there was a "Like"button here, I would use it. Love your writing! Inspirational but real. I too am trying to get back on track. Thanks for the post.0
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LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this!!!! Nice to hear from someone from H-Town. And yes folks it's HOT, STICKY, HUMID and Hot here!0
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thats how it is done...you did your walk, but my GOD you made your will and mind even TOUGHER!0
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You rock! Awesome job turning your day around, particularly in spite of the weather (after being out of NY for a few days the heat and humidity here have me feeling like a total slug, no way I would have lasted an hour outside).0
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Just awesome.0
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Love this! Awesome Scott! I'm so glad to see you bringing things back around. .:drinker:
I'm also very glad and proud to be among your old friends. :flowerforyou:0 -
Best post I've read! Keep up the hard work! U r worth it!0
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Man that is just epic, way to be an overcomer!!0
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well done. This is a great post. Keep on keeping on and you will be where you want to be. I may borrow the title of this topic if that's okay.0
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Great story, and always love your resiliency. You can do this. For sure. :flowerforyou:0
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Absolutely!!!0
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