How One Number Can Create Opportunity Or Cause Self-Destruction
How One Number Can Create Opportunity Or Cause Self-Destruction
One number can either motivate me or sink me further into self-destruction.
300 pounds.
A few words come to mind when I look down at the scale and see it. But one word, in particular, hits me like a wave in the ocean that just overtakes and knocks me right on my ass when I see that number.
Failure.
I’ve seen this number multiple times in my life. 300 pounds is not a number many people have seen when stepping on a scale. It’s jarring. There have been instances where I’ve seen this number and became motivated to make changes.
When I see my weight fall under 300 pounds, I promise myself each time I’ll never see that number again. I have gone years without hitting that number. But when I stepped on the scale yesterday morning, I was once again faced with the cold reality of failure. It read 304.5 pounds.
There have also been times when I saw that number pop up, throw my hands in the air, and said “fuck this!”. At my heaviest, I have reached over 330 pounds. That’s close to what I weighed in at to start 2023.
When I’m 300 pounds plus, I am not a fun person to be around. I am in constant pain. I don’t want to leave the house. My office is messy and disorganized. Our household spending goes through the roof because I’m ordering food on Doordash.
I hate myself for how I look, how I feel, and what I’m doing to the people I love. It’s a dark place. I need to find a way to motivate myself to bottle that initial stride to make it stick and help me live a healthier lifestyle for the rest of my life.
But I’m working through a plan to put me in the best position to achieve my health goals. And maybe my plan can help you too.
First and foremost, I need to work on keeping myself in a good mental state. I need to take control of my emotions and put them towards things that make positive changes in my life.
For the last four years, I have allowed the news and social media to impact my emotions. While it’s impossible to ignore completely, I am going to make a concerted effort to fill my time that I would use watching or reading content that is centered around political and social commentary and fill it by consuming content that promotes positive mental wellness and makes a positive impact on my life.
Next, I need to find various ways to keep myself motivated and committed to a healthier lifestyle. One venture I will be embarking on to achieve that is taking on a sales role. To be completely honest, this is outside my comfort zone. I’ve tried sales in the past and it did not go well. However, my approach will be sharing my experiences while using the products and hopefully show how they help me become healthier.
But I do want this to be successful, both financially and personally. So this will provide motivation I did not have in the past to get healthy.
Also, I need a healthy but realistic outlook on moving more and what I eat. Look, I am never going to be a runner. I can’t really lift weights because of my back. And nobody wants to see me do a Jane Fonda workout. But I have found exercising in the pool to be a great way to get moving. It’s a matter of committing myself to doing it.
I have a membership to the Y, and I am able to step away from work in the mornings. I just need to find that motivation each day to go. I was given walking sticks as a birthday present a few years ago and found them very helpful in supporting my back to help me take longer walks.
As for food, I would like my daily diet to center around whole foods that are clean and are not inflammatory. Obesity does not mix well with the steel rods I have in my back from a spinal fusion when I was 15, especially now that I am fifty.
I’ve done weight loss programs that had you count points/calories or told you what you can or cannot eat. That’s not sustainable. I’m simply going to eat when I’m hungry, keep food in the house that helps me achieve a healthy lifestyle, and allow myself an ice cream cone at the boardwalk or a hot dog at a Phillies game without allowing that to become the norm in my everyday life.
Finally, I will be making a concerted effort to become more organized at home, and more engaged at work. I took off this week to get my office organized and help get our house back in order after the holidays.
After a week away from work, I’ll feel more motivated to take on some projects that I’ve been putting off. I’m also going to work towards helping my family be in a better financial position. Having things in life organized gives me more time to work on myself. Also, sitting down at night is more satisfying and relaxing when you can look around the house, the yard, and your bank account and things are in order.
This isn’t going to be easy. As a human being, I am not infallible. I will have missteps and times when I might not make the best decisions. But I must be ok with that.
I can’t let failure get in my way anymore and I hope you won't either.
Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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Great start, Jim.
You're not just making a decision, you've initiated an actual, achievable plan for success.
A few thoughts (maybe they help, maybe not - we're all different) -
Look at the scale each day as a competition with yourself when you were at a healthier weight. Set achievable weekly goals like "I want to get under 300 this week", and after you do, "I want to get to 296 this week". Large numbers seem insurmountable, and that affects motivation - "Not having this cake won't make a dent in the 70 pounds I want to lose, so why not eat it?". But when you're only a couple of pounds away from your shorter term goal, you think "I'm almost there, I'm not gonna screw this up now".
Find your competitive mode. A few of my friends and I did a weight loss competition a while back. We were all in the habit of getting together for beers and burgers and the like, and dieting was impossible as it would disinclude me from my social activities. We all decided to weigh in one day, put $100 each in a pool, and decided that after 8 weeks whoever lost the highest percentage of their starting weight would take the pot (we used percentage instead of actual weight to keep it balanced). More than the money, it kept us focused on a friendly competition as to who had willpower and who was slacking off, and every single one of us lost substantial weight (it also kept us communicating while out of the bars).
People also often talk about "treating yourself" (like allowing yourself "an ice cream cone at the boardwalk or a hot dog at a Phillies game"). While that might be psychologically soothing, there is something else we need to realize - taste preferences are as habitual as any other activity. It is said that it takes about 3-4 weeks to form a habit, and that's generally true. I was addicted to things like Big Macs and Coca Cola, and craved them like crazy at the start of our competition. But I found no great desire to eat fast food anymore after 8 weeks. And I had switched to Diet Coke (I'm aware that diet sodas have their own negative effects on weight loss and health, but I wasn't aware then). Regardless, afterwards I tried a Coke, and it then tasted too sweet - I had literally changed my taste receptors. I never went back.
The biggest culprits are alcohol and nighttime snacking, traps I've fallen back into.
Also, don't be discouraged by fluctuations. Everybody's different. Sometimes we will lose 1-2 pounds a day for 4 days straight, other times we'll stagnate at the same weight for days while doing and eating the same things. Your body chemistry is always making adjustments as you go, so stay the course regardless.
It's true when you say "sitting down at night is more satisfying and relaxing when you can look around the house, the yard, and your bank account and things are in order". Best of luck to you, sir.
ZL
I get this. Similar struggles. Diets don’t work, having decent food in the house does. Deprivation doesn’t work, and allowing occasional treats is necessary to a full life. A fitness habit you don’t think twice about helps - I hope you build that pool visit into your day!