What did they just say?

I was busy doing my own thing when I over hear a conversation on the phone.

Now I know I should not listen in on otther people conversations but when in a small area with few people it is hard not to. This conversation without going into detail blatantly insulted someone who was also in the vicinity, and who I am sure must have heard it (I was 10 feet farther away and I heard it!), by commenting on their weight and demeanor. This person I find to be a positive person and with bounds of energy and who to my understanding is quite gentle. 

The ignorance of people to still judge people based on looks and to comment on them with little discretion when they are in the same room is unbelieveable to me. I do not care what generation they are of, or what race, religion, sexual orientation, or nationality as none of it matters WE ARE ALL OF THE HUMAN RACE, (Though I do question to myself if people with such poor moral choices are still considered apart of it).

Words hurt, even if the words were not directed to me they still pissed me off. How dare someone judge people like that then spread that word to others.

Ignorance is not bliss.

Is it too much to ask of people and society to respect people as people?

Does it matter how big or small people are? 

I can't speak for everyone who deals with weight issues but I can say from experience we are tired of society being the judge of what we should look like, how we should act and how we should live. 

Counting Down the days to "Normalcy"

On December 2nd I have what I hopefully can say is my last Physio appointment.

I am back to 8 hour work days with little or no issues at this point in time and the road to recovery is looking good but only time will tell which is partially why there is a 2 week break in between physio appointments. My therapist has worked hard at helping me progress through my health issues from the accident. I am so thankfull for her efforts to help me where I was to where I am. Every week we go through a symptom questionaire and she totals my points and each one is rated from 0 to 6. my first visit I was at 67. I had so many issues and frustrations, my emotional health was very poor and I was quite despondent because of the lack of progress in my health getting better. This last week I was at 11 total. A big difference 8 weeks makes!

Sure I still have a sore neck and the occasional headache right now but the intensity and acuteness of it has dissapated. My anger, sadness, anxiety, frustration, not feeling right, depression, confusion, memory loss, and so much more that I suffered from when I first saw Jessica has all but gone, I still have anxiety about driving but I feel that 98% of the time the other emotional symptoms are not there. I remember my first day at Physio how I broke down because of all the emotions I was dealing with and feeling helpless that I was not getting consistent care from the doctors. Jessica assured me she would see me through it and help me get better., and she stayed true to her word.

Now I find myself waiting and coutning down the days to my re-testing and appraisal of my health in regards to my accident. I yearn to get back to the gym, to go back to a normal life and do the normal things I used to do . It is as if I see the end of the tunnel and am almost at the finish line, I can taste the victoy i am just not there yet though. I know I have to ease myself back into the gym going slow at what I was doing before as my body regains the strength and endurance I once put it through. The loss of control of my own life and exsistence due to being rear ended has been difficult mentally and emotionally and I am ready to be done with it. 

I had a health goal for this year and I know I won't hit it but that just gives me determination to not let the chances I am given in life to slip by me. I am lucky that my accident was not worse, I can just imagine what state I could have been in if the lady was doing 100km/h when she hit me. Would I even be alive at the speed of that possible impact? The thought of that just makes me feel blessed that I have an opprotunity to have the year of Scotty Mac 2.0 this coming year. It gives me renewed enthusiasm to move forward with my weightloss goals and attitude towards my health. I am working at setting new exciting goals for this coming year that I want to achieve now that I have had a chance to see my own potential. I have an aggresive goal for weight I want to hit, more so than this year, I have some gym goals I want to hit in regards to weights I lift/push/pull. I have goals to the amount of times a week I go the gym and amount of time at the gym per day. I want to learn more about nutrition and what my body needs and what it craves and ween myself off certain types of food not just the junk. I am even considering taking up DDP Yoga (mainly because it has to be a manly Yoga since it was developed by a former professional wrestler). If you arent familiar watch this video: Arthur's Transformation; it is quite inspiring! 

Life never gives you a clear path on where you are going and sometimes there will be detours and bumps along the way. I find when this happens you must accept it, learn from it and figure out how to make that road be more in the direction you want, how to make the road a little less bumpy. After all who said that you have to go on the journey where no others have travelled as only I can know the direction to take. This journey for me is 4 wheel drive and time to go off roading!

7 Months Since the Accident..

Well here we are 7 months from the accident and I am still recovering from my Post Concussive Syndrome (PCS). I never would have thought that my accident would have caused so many issues in my life and health. I feel for those with this devastating diagnosis. 

 

I am very thankful for my physio-therapist who has helped me so much in getting back to somewhat of normalcy. Though I must say i was cursing her my first few visits as she put my neck and head through the ringer as she worked on my neck. There were many days where I had serious doubts about my health and life and where I would end up if i didn't get better soon. 

Irritability. Sadness/Depression. Fogginess. Dizziness. Migraines. Pressure in the Head. Confusion. Sensitivity to Light & Noise. Blurred Vision. Just not feeling like myself. Nausea. Balance Issues. Feeling Slowed Down. Difficulty Concentrating. Difficulty Remembering. Trouble Falling Asleep. More Emotional than normal. Nervous or Anxious.

All of the above symptoms occurring on a daily basis and then some. 

This journey has not been easy on me or my family; people see you and you look normal and that everything seems good but under the surface you feel like your in the middle of the ocean during a raging hurricane being torn in all directions. You hate to disappoint them but you feel lost and like you are letting them down when you put your own health above doing what others expect of you. Skipping family dinners, being holed up in bed because you cant bare to think of even standing or walking somewhere; wanting to just take a pill and wake up in a month (or six) hoping to feel better by then. not to mention the pressure of trying to pay bills based on one income and when you do return to work even in a very limited role your pay hardly pays one bill because you are only work for 2 hours a day.

I have had some highs and lows in this process from the beginning, some days I feel like I am almost back to normalcy then I will randomly have a setback that makes me worry and anxious about how long i will be suffering for and if the symptoms will ever truly go away.

Today I feel like I am on a good path and that I may be getting better, but I have felt that way before and then only to fall flat on my arse with a setback that makes me realize how frail I still am.  

One day at a time, one moment at a time is all I can manage right now, thankfully the moments are coming up more often now.

So... I started writing a post and then stopped...

So I started writing a post last week and I just couldn't find the words to convey m thoughts and emotions adequately so I stopped with hopes I could find the words.

As the week went on I could not find the words or drive for what I wanted to say, this week the same thing. I thought "What is wrong with me, usually I have lots to say?" I then found myself aware of my true feelings: anger, frustration, anxious, stress, fear, lonely, lost, lethargic,lack of sleep, lack of empathy, depressed, feeling emotional, all feelings at once and numb at same time. My headaches have been coming back for last few weeks a bit stronger than the week before and now I am back to popping Tylenol like they are Tic Tacs (do those still exist?).  I think I might be having a set back in my recovery but am unsure.



I will be going to the doctor's office tomorrow (Saturday Aug 6th) for a follow up on my concussion  and the symptoms I now have. I just feel like I am not me right now.



Reading the post that I originally started to write I can now hear it in the typed words. To me it sounds like I just want to escape the world, runaway from it all, and the fact of the matter is, I do. I have felt like I just want to get off this Merry-Go-Round called life lately, runaway to where no one will find me and escape reality.



Just the other day I was driving home from work and I had so much angst and anger in me I started yelling at the top of my lungs, I was just trying to get the bad mojo out of me so I would not bring it home.

The following is the original post i started to write; if you read this you will hear my angst, frustration, anxiety and anger in the words written.


I find that I am doing a lot of writing about what I should be doing and not actually implementing these actions. I have nothing but great intentions with poor execution on those intentions. 

This is not just for weight-loss but in life in general. It is hard for me to implement the change I crave now that I have been out of my routine of taking actions in my life to change what hasn't been working for me. I know what i need to do but lack the follow through. 

I feel that most days that i am like butter spread too thin on hot toast, I get lost and diluted from what I need to do. I want to be able to just take a step back from my life and forgo the things that are not necessary in my life. Just focus on me, have my only commitments be to myself and to my family, all else just to be put on pause while I get my shit together. 

How nice would it be to not have to worry about work, bills, appointments, meetings and life in general. To be able to just wake up in the morning and have full focus on myself and doing what is required to get healthy. Unfortunately we live in the real world and it cant be done so i will have to re-evaluate everything, every action I do and decide if it is truly needed in my life . I am thinking of a few things that I may say a temporary goodbye to but with so many conveniences in modern life can I  truly say goodbye for more than a day? How nice would it be to say good bye to the internet, imagine if you can going back to a world without Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or news and information at your finger tips in an instant.

I am my own worst enemy , and the reason for my own failure.

A harsh way to start off just by reading the title of this blog isn't it?

Well it is true.

I start off with good intentions constantly but then fall flat on my face, assuming I get off the couch at all! I don't know why I just am struggling so much right now. I am back in the old rut that I used to be in; I have gained most of the weight I have lost this year and just seem to constantly find excuses as to why not to go to the gym today. I was doing so good, I had made so much progress then the accident came, I stopped my routine due to injury and now it feels impossible to get back into the groove. I am my own reason for failure. I am my own worst enemy as I am sabotaging myself and I don't know why. 

Maybe I am just in the belief that "Here I go again failing so why do I try?" mode; or "I am just going to fail so why put in the effort?" line of thinking.

The truth of the matter is no matter what the words are that I hear, the venom spewed the most comes from within me. I have said time and time before that we need to have our head on straight and to prove the ongoing internal dialogue wrong. It is constant work to fight the thoughts, to constantly prove the negativity wrong, to stay positive and focused on what is truly hard to do when giving up on yourself is so easy. 

I admit i suffer from depression from the cycle of wanting and trying to lose weight, it unfortunately is natural in the process for a lot of overweight people., I don't discuss it often but I also don't avoid admitting it when the time comes. Facts are facts and the fact right now is that I am feeling down about myself, about failing myself and losing all the traction I once had in changing my life. It is creating a vicious circle of negativity that is directly affecting my health and life. I know that if I don't change something now I will probably be dead in less than 20 years. 

I think about how much of my life I have wasted not taking care of myself and now I am in my last 20 years and it is too late to change. There is too much weight to lose and it is just so hard to do. I try to imagine how I can turn things around in time and I feel like I can't because it had been my struggle for most of my 43 years how can I now change it in less time than that? Sure I know the old rhetoric about living healthy and getting active, and I have tried, but have you had a Iced Cappucino with a shot of Caramel before, or a fresh Honey-Cruller donut, or basically anything unhealthy? They just make it all so damn tasty! 

I need to change my habits and mind set but it is tough when giving up is so easy to do. I am surrounded by bad choices everywhere, even when I don't buy the stuff for our house they still make their way into my life. It is so easy just to have rice or pasta with dinner as to not make a fuss over a separate healthy edible meal for myself, and what one persons thoughts of healthy are not the same as someone else's thoughts especially when there is four of us that are being fed. 

I always feel like I have to cater to everyone else and I just never seem to be be able to just focus on me. I let people sabotage my actions by sacrificing what I want to do in exchange for me doing what they want. I need to learn how to put myself as a priority. To do what I want and not to cave in just to appease the group or to not make waves. By far this is my greatest weakness: being to giving and catering to the needs of others. 

Sometimes I wish I was back in Nimpo Lake just focusing on me and my health like I did in 2004 when I had lost 160 lbs; but I know now i could not be away from Tabitha for that long while I get my shit together. She is my everything and I miss her every time she goes somewhere without me for the weekend (or week).  I need to find that happy place in my daily life where I can just escape and focus on me (and not do it at 4am just so I can fit everyone else into my day at same time and thus sacrificing my sleep). 

I need to change things that are not working in my life, I need to find that happiness in all areas of daily life in order to walk the right path of who I am and who i am trying to be. I need to set myself up for success before I can even think of catering to others; I will always be a caterer to others needs, it is who I am but if I am to survive I need to learn to put my needs ahead of others; i need to get my head on right and fully commit to living a healthy life; I need to make the right choices with eating and being active. 

Summer time should be fun time..

It is summer time here in the sunny Okanagan and I am anxiously awaiting my physical transformation. I am finding myself wishing I could be doing so much more stuff but my weight and self consciousness makes me sit on the side lines.

Summer of 2017 I want to be able to do some if not all of:

 - Golf a full 18 holes on a full size course

- Play baseball/ softball on a team

- Go swim at the public beach and not feel like I am a whale

- Frisbee golf (does this exist here in the Okanagan?)

- Rugby ( I love this sport!)

- Go for a run 

- Live a more active life

I will get there.. 

Friday's Rants and Raves - July8 th

Everyday is a new beginning.

I am viewing this new lifestyle as a new challenge everyday in hopes that when I do have a bad day i just shake it off and start anew the following day. For me it is apart of letting go the past and focusing on the here and now. It does not matter what I did yesterday, last week, last month or 3 years ago, just what I do in this moment now. My attitude towards every day being new will empower me to give it my all and not be hung up on what wasn't, what could have been or what should have been done. 

Being an introvert I think too much about mistakes I made or past accomplishments too much. I quite often catch myself living in the world of what ifs; this needs to change in to a world of action and results. I have talked many times about giving myself credit for my achievements and I will continue to do this however I can not live in the past too much. I need to stay focused on the now so I can push myself farther, harder and better, I can't let myself get complacent on what I have achieved. I know I just got back to the gym a little while ago but i was starting to find myself just happy doing the same weights everyday and not pushing to do better. 

I found my leg press popped me out of that complacency and I now try to push myself harder everyday, in a safe manner of course. It can be from just doing more reps in a set or doing an extra set or increasing the weight and working from there. I was looking in the mirror just the other day as I was walking from one machine to the next and I truly noticed that I was viewing myself as a gym guy, envisioning myself with bigger shoulders and chest from the work out I was doing. I was focusing on specific areas to work out more and envisioning doing more weights, sets and reps to get the results I am wanting. This may sound normal to some but to me it is a first. Most times I visualize my self as I am, fat. I think of "I need to lose this roll", "I need to stop this jiggle", or "this sag needs to go"; I was looking at the negative of myself and not the in the moment positives. My mind is changing to the "damn I just pressed 430 pounds", or "I can start to see some definition in my triceps" or even "I can feel my pecs getting bigger and stronger". 

I am constantly trying to catch myself being negative towards my own actions; I need to change this internal monologue of self deprecation. I am worth every positive I deserve to give myself. The negative talk is bullshit and I am better than what I am thinking I am, I am just starting to believe it now. As I have said many times on here the best way to predict the future is by reviewing your immediate past, and here is mine:

IN THE LAST 7 MONTHS I HAVE ACCOMPLISHED:

- lost over 20 pounds

- joined the gym

- gotten a personal trainer

- stuck with changing my meal plans to a healthier way of living

- continued to go to the gym on a regular basis (despite a temporary absence due to doctors orders)

- faced many things I was intimidated by and faced them head on 

7 months, that is over 1/2 a year of success in several areas that I avoided in the last 11+ years. Now in-spite of this reflection the best thing I can do to honour these accomplishments in the here and now is to continue to be active everyday to perpetuate this winning streak.

The results I want will come, in time, but they will arrive, I just need to be patient and stay consistent to who I am and wanting to be.