Gabe Rocks!

First Week with my personal trainer

I have great news. I believe I have found the best personal trainer (for me) in the city (at least). I am exchanging a significant sum I’ve made contracting earlier this year to up my game big time. Up until I this point, I felt like I’ve hit a frustrating plateau. Some things improve, some things get worse, I felt like I’ve made good use of the summer, but I need to do a lot more to start actually making a dent on my size.

It’s incredibly helpful to make use of somebody much more knowledgeable than me in well… almost everything when it comes to the body. Despite this being it’s own incredible challenge, I’m grateful for the opportunity to turbo-charge the progress I’m trying to make. I’d never had personal training before, I have to admit I was incredibly nervous. The prospect of throwing all my financial resources into investing in my ability to change my situation is… daunting.

This very much felt like a shot in the dark and I am thrilled it was dead on. He spent a lot of time asking questions between exercises. If nothing else, the opportunity to talk about my situation (judgement free) with somebody who knows what needs to be done was very relieving and helpful. I was weighed in a 574lbs. (260kg) Both sessions this week highlighted my lack of creativity when it comes to modified body-weight exercises. It seems that there is a great deal that can be done with a bit of knowledge to make real practical improvements within reach.

Feet first

I’ve underestimated how important feet are for…everything. It’s all too easy to forget about them when almost everything you do is sitting. What I never quite appreciated until now, is that there’s actually a lot going on in your feet that seriously impact all manner of activities. One of the exercises my trainer had me do was to do a modified stand on my toes (*very hard to do at my size!) and hold it for a short period of time. I believe him when he said that the muscles in your feet are vital to almost anything done standing up. I can certainly attest that when they were sore afterwards, it was pretty hard to do much of anything.

OpenStax, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

I was introduced to other exercises, but on the first day it felt like the big challenge was just staying upright for the entire session. I wasn’t used to standing that long and I’m excited for the time where that no longer feels difficult. I was not expecting the first two sessions to change how various movements felt afterwards. It seems that some movements, such as going up stairs and getting up from sitting are just that little bit easier. I’ve also done so much walking over the last week that that is flowing better too.

Feeling optimistic

It’s been a LONG time since I’ve felt this optimistic about my trajectory. I can say that I haven’t felt this clear-headed about trying to lose weight since I last was making serious progress by biking and cooking (keto) every day. I am still far too large to bike, but I’m taking this as a very good sign. It fills me with hope and joy that so much of what I miss may be within reach in what can be a (relatively) short and (incredibly) challenging time.

One of the things I want to highlight, is that I didn’t get to this point overnight. It’s only since December that I began writing about this mission, and before then I was dealing with challenges not directly related to this problem. In truth it’s all related. People love to say “everyone has the same 24 hours” which is true, but everyone has different things taxing those 24 hours one way or another. I feel incredibly lucky that things have aligned in a way that I get a real chance to push forward.

Turning the ship

Throughout my journey making progress on turning around my situation, I’ve come across various metaphors I find helpful for conceptualizing challenges and strategies. “Turning the ship” is how I describe the process of trying to limit your backwards momentum and increase your forwards momentum. Some people can immediately turn 180 degrees, and I’m happy for them, but I’ve been writing for the benefit of those who don’t find it that straight-forward.

You have to make peace with the fact that most likely, you can’t do everything in this moment to correct your situation, instead you need to focus yourself on building momentum. Your life is like a massive aircraft carrier in the water. The heavier you are the more time and effort required to turn around even slightly. Over time, your good changes open more doors for better changes. That’s the true process, healing your lows and growing your highs. You’ll feel a whole lot better when your ship isn’t moving the wrong way and is instead moving in the right direction.

Previously in: Why can’t I stop eating?

Of course, turning the ship isn’t the end of the journey. Picking up some good habits and dropping some bad ones will definitely help, but in severe situations it’s often not enough to make enough progress to make transformative changes. When there is a great deal of long-term damage accumulated, it takes more energy to push through the forces weighing you down. As such, I want to share with you the concept of escape velocity which in the context of changing your own lifestyle.

Escape Velocity

Escape Velocity: The minimum velocity required for an object to leave the gravity of a nearby planet / object.

Learn more (YouTube) [Wikipedia]

Large objects (like planets) have a massive gravity field called a gravity well. The more mass accumulated in the object, the harder it will be for objects to escape it’s orbit. Thus, as one accumulates bad habits and becomes dependent on self-destructive coping mechanisms, “gravity” builds up making it harder to escape the damaging lifestyle. As somebody who has struggled to make lifestyle changes I can say the greatest barrier was often not specific habits themselves, but rather trust.

When one has become accustomed to letting themselves (and others) down, you lose trust in yourself faster than you realize. This insidious self-doubt permeates every every thought, leading to a wide variety of self-sabotage and self-hatred over time. When one starts making progress, even small steps that are overcome by setbacks, it builds useful momentum forwards. I believe that for those who are struggling with getting anything done, the ideal strategy is to build momentum however you can.

I didn’t start with tackling any of my problems. I was struck so low by particular events that I was paralyzed with shame, horror, and despair. I felt entirely useless and my first step to reversing it wasn’t rebuilding my life in a single event. I chose to start writing. At the start, one (short) article every two weeks felt like all my mind and effort could muster. Of course, I would try to take on changing a habit here and there every once in a while, but hardly anything stuck. It was only this year that I was able to incorporate regular exercise on top of accomplishing writing on top of struggling financially.

Now things are different, thanks to consistent effort over a long period of time, I have achieved my goal of raising my level of productivity over time and gotten to the point where not only can I share my situation, but get to the point of getting a trainer involved. This may sound like hubris, but as of now I am feeling great about the fact that I think I am very close to being at escape velocity for my health troubles.

How does a rocket leave orbit?

Rockets require constant and increasing amounts of energy (fuel) to lift off, fight gravity, and leave orbit. I believe repairing damage from years of living an unhealthy lifestyle is quite similar. The goal is to build up energy from consistently becoming more productive at reversing what needs to be reversed. Most of this I believe is making incremental steps towards enhancing one’s own agency to dispel learned helplessness. As one gradually becomes more competent, mobile, and mentally strong, then the work becomes less of a struggle.

This does not at all mean that the work is done. I’ve really only begun my weight loss journey, but I believe I am now fully equipped to take it on. My mind is so much clearer and I have much fewer doubts these days. I have a path and I just need to put the effort and time in. No longer am I in constant dread of relapse. I know that as long as I continue, making better changes will only become easier and easier.

So to be clear, I believe I have achieved escape velocity on the grand arc of my mission to turn around my overall emotional and mental state but have really only begun lift-off on the weight loss. I eagerly await the moment that exercising itself feels fun and challenging, and making healthy meals for myself is second-nature. That’s when I expect to have achieved escape velocity for weight loss, which is likely still a bit far off.

For me, the difference is that I have drastically resolved the problems weighing me down. I don’t expect to be perfect moving forward, but I have a much firmer resolve and clear purpose that really brings it all together. I believe over time, this itself will yield more fruitful results. I hope that you are able to lift-off whatever troubles you’re trying to solve, and that you also achieve escape velocity and reach your dreams amongst the stars.

Extra Memes

These are made with my voice, but not my words. I was pleased to see somebody else sharing their experiences turning around their own life situation. They made a series of posts which included a series of captioned images. I found these touching and inspiring, so I took the liberty of voicing them and adding music.

So thanks to xweetok on Funnyjunk for coming up with these.

More Motivational Memes

And of course, I wouldn’t hit “publish” (actually git push) without sharing some other motivational memes I’ve collected. I’m hoping that in my next post there will be much to celebrate. As always, you can browse the full collection.