Weight: 272.1 pounds
Distance: 2.4 miles (treadmill jog/walk)
Total miles: 12.0Fat people walk a (heavy duty) tight rope when on a work out or diet plan. Just the slightest breeze or distraction can send us toppling head over heels down onto the huge pile of fat people that fell off before us.
Of course, falling off the healthy lifestyle high-wire now and then is okay. We all have temptations, weaknesses, meat lovers pizzas, etc. Most folks that fall, just brush themselves off, slap themselves on the back of the hand for screwing up, and step back out onto the thin line of righteous healthism.
The problem with overweight people is that most of us have fallen off so many times, we're getting used to it.
When you're standing at the edge of the high board at the neighborhood pool for the first time, staring down into the icy blue water below, your body has a MULTITUDE of natural mechanisms that help you to NOT jump off. As I am not (yet) an endocrinologist, I can't tell you what those are in scientific terms, but I'm pretty sure that "crapping your pants in fear" is one of them. Your instincts help you avoid things that you're not supposed to do. They scream into your subconscious, "You're not a bird. You're not a fish. Now quit fooling around, and climb down off that thing before you hurt yourself."
If you are able to push through those warnings, things change. You adapt. After 4 or 5 leaps into the pool from 3 meters up, it starts to become old hat. No big deal. Even a little boring. Pretty soon, those natural mechanisms that kept us from doing it, don't seem to be affecting us at all anymore. It even gets to the point where falling into the water is easier than standing on the board in front of everyone.
Same is true for those of us that are "big boned." When it comes to working out and eating right, we've screwed up so many times, our psychological systems have adapted. We've actually gotten good at failing. It just comes naturally.
This past weekend, I fell of the health wagon, and I fell hard. On my face. Into a pile of broken glass. And snakes. And Indian food. Then I fell off again the following night with a deep dish grease pie from the Hut. Two "off" days in a row where I wasn't scheduled to run, and I crashed and burned.
Of course, each night, after I had sinned, I felt terrible. But why couldn't I sense that BEFORE I dove head first into that enormous heap of Malai Kofta? Why didn't the alarms go off as I picked up my FIFTH slice of sausage and ham pizza with extra cholesterol?
Somehow, I need to find a way to re-instill those instincts. Something to "scare me straight."
Perhaps training for a marathon is part of that. No more 3 meter board for me. I'm going for the 26.2 mile platform, now. I've now publicly committed myself to running it. There is no way out. When May 1, 2011 rolls around, I WILL be in that crowd of runners at the starting line, whether I'm in shape or not.
If that isn't terrifying enough to get me back on track, then I'm in bigger trouble than I thought.
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