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My Health Log: Page Five This journal consists of five pages, archived for convenience. Please click on Page #1 below to start at the beginning! PAGE #1 Aug -Oct 2003 (newcomers, read this FIRST!) PAGE #3 Jan- Mar 2004 PAGE #4 April- May 2004 PAGE #5 May-Sept 2004 PAGE #6 October 2004 - April 2005
June 1st, 2004. Weight this morning was 242. I'm not sure what's happening, but I hope it keeps up for a while. I've been full of energy and really pumped lately, so I suppose I'm burning the calories. For a person of my height and body size at 220 pounds,, I'm not REALLY overweight according to certain tables. Amazing. 22 pounds away from not really being overweight according to CERTAIN tables. Ha ha. And I'm getting braces for the first time in my life. The orthodontist said by the end of the procedure I'll have a Hollywood smile. I asked him if I'll look like Tom Jones. He said, "Why? Do you want old ladies to throw their underwear at you?" I told him that these days, I would take anything I could get June 3nd, 2004. From the Dhammapada:
Today I speak of emotional attachment to food. Food can be a friend, a lover, a source of comfort, a means to tranquility and solace. It CAN be these. But should it be these? Well, if you don't mind carrying around a whole lot of extra weight. When I realized that my extra "baggage" was ruining the quality of my life, I began changing my emotional relationship with food. It took a little bit of time, and I was fortunate in that I had somewhat of a head start because of my background as a psychic/psychological type of chap. Was it easy? No way. Did it bear fruit? Hell yes. I would say that a fifty-pound weight reduction in a year's time is proof that an approach works. But, there was a price to pay. I changed. I'm not the same person I used to be. I'm not as weak, not as passive. I'm more confident, self-assured, assertive. "But," I hear you think, "This is a good thing." Hee hee, not according to some of the people who got used to the OLD ME and think that I lost my mind when I climbed out of my box... well, sorry -- I like the new me, possibly for the first time in my life. Yes, there was a price. The changes in attitudes, mindsets, emotional reactions, was paid in emotional coin. If you plan to drop large amounts of weight, and you plan to do it through changing what's inside of you, go into it knowing this from the beginning. You will change. You may lose friends. It is not a free ride. June
7th, 2004. "He can truly enjoy the feast who would just as willingly
fast." (Meister Eckhart) I think that most of us are compulsive by nature. We tend to overdo things. Statistics bear this out. As a nation, WE CONSUME TOO MUCH. Not just food, but everything. We are a society obsessed by excess. We go through resources like a wildfire. And for some odd reason, we seem to feel that we deserve to do so. How did I get it home? I walked it home. Like I said, it burns some serious calories. Do you know what I've found out? The average restaurant serves enough food in one meal to feed me FOR THREE MEALS. Wow. Recently, something happened about which I became really angry. I mean, it rattled my cage. Confidences were violated, my judgment called into question, words attributed to me that I never said, and the pitiful thing is that it was all really over nothing of great importance -- just a bunch of egos. And what happened? I craved food constantly. Mostly high-carb stuff: pizza, chips, nuts. I went into this revelation, examined it; learned something from it. There was definitely a cause-and-effect relationship between the emotion of anger and the craving for food. Eventually, the anger passed, and so did the cravings. I learned something. There may be a time and a place for anger, but it takes a lot of energy out of you. Next time I'll be less willing to let other people pull my strings for me. It's about time to archive this chapter and begin anew. Summer is here and with it, a new season of challenges and changes. This began as a piece of paper stuck on the wall next to my bathroom mirror. Each Sunday I would weigh myself and make a little dot on the chart. Recently, I asked my son to design for me an electronic version to make the "bookkeeping" easier. As you can see, weight reduction has its peaks and valleys. That is not a smooth curve at all, but a bit of a bumpy ride. The key, I've found, is to not let those temporary weight "peaks" cause you to panic. There are a lot of factors involved: water retention, sodium intake, lack of fiber in your diet (I'm being discreet here), the natural ebb and flow of your body cycles, the periodic demands of your body for more calories, etc. If you stick with your emotional program, however, you WILL observe physical changes over time. June 10th, 2004. One of my very early memories involves me trying to save an animal's life. My uncle had caught a fish, and as I recall it was a fairly large one. I was a very small child. I was preschool age, I think around four or five years old. Anyway, he dumped the still-living fish in the backyard, where it lay gasping in the summer heat. I clearly recall running back and forth between the fish and the kitchen with my sand pail, carrying bucketsful of water and pouring it on the fish. My Mom commented, "That probably feels good," before noticing that I was really upset. At this point, my memory becomes blurred. I think I became so upset she must have taken me away, because I don't know what happened to the fish. My memory of the event ends with the fish looking at me with one rolling eye. I assume the fish died (and it had to be a miserable death) and was eaten. The memory of that fish's eye, looking at me as though pleading with me, has haunted me for forty years. As I've often commented, it ain't easy being a sensitive redneck. To that fish, whom I couldn't save, I dedicate my promise to eat none of your relatives, and this poem:
Sorry, man -- I tried. I just wasn't big enough. You can see the progress I've made in the tracks left in the fabric. There are eight holes in the belt, about an inch apart. I started off on the first notch and gradually worked my way to the last notch. The last three notches are holes that I've had to drill myself. Now the belt is growing a bit looser, and I'll have to drill another notch. I COULD buy a new belt I suppose, but I think I'll just keep wearing this one until it wraps around me twice!
June
11th, 2004.
Banishing meat does indeed open new vistas ... Lentils are
magical; soybeans are wondrous; the things you can do with
the miraculous SPAGHETTI SQUASH! I said,
"Chicken is an animal, son." He looked puzzled for a
minute, said, "Oh, I was thinking of these vegetarians who
eat chicken and fish." June 21th, 2004. Dhammapada
XV Most of the time, we live our lives in isolation from our feelings. We're separated from our true sensations as though there's a thick cotton blanket between us and our emotions. I'm not sure why this is. Maybe the world is so sharp and jagged that we had to do this to keep from getting cut when we were growing up. At any rate, this lack of sensitivity to our own feelings creates a hunger for strong sensation. We feel dissatisfied. Some people seek satisfaction through power, fame, money, sex. Others through drugs, liquor, smoking. Food. The problem is, none of these expediencies is what we really want. We want to FEEL, and we want full expression of those feelings. So the only solution is to clear away the cotton, to remove those distractions that keep us from expressing our true feelings, to quit being afraid of our emotions. No distractions, no dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, we must focus on NOW, because NOW is all that we have. It's the fear generated from dwelling on the past and worrying about the future that weaves that cotton blanket of despair that keeps us from our true feelings. With the distractions gone, we find our mind becomes sharp, like a diamond. We then find that we can experience with our diamond-mind the truth of pure emotion. When we love, we love with everything we have. No half-way love, but full-hearted, healing love. When we have compassion, it's toward all living creatures, and we feel it with every fiber of our being. And when it's necessary to be angry -- and sometimes it is -- we let it happen, we don't suppress it because it isn't "nice" to be angry, and we examine the source of our anger and make it right. Sometimes we have to be angry to catalyze change. If I hadn't become angry about my weight, I wouldn't have done something about it. But don't use your anger as a club to beat up yourself and others. Anger is meant to be a constructive, cleansing force, not a destructive tornado. When we hurt, we embrace the pain and hug it to us, for pain is a precious emotion too. We don't flee it. It instructs us; we welcome it as a teacher. And when it's time to have fun -- splash in the rain puddles and shout like a little child! July 4th, 2004. I apologize for not posting regularly; I'm going through some emotional stuff that's requiring a lot of thinking and introspection, and it's making me too tired do do anything but work and deal with getting through my day. It won't be much longer though. I was never considered a handsome person when I was growing up, not even when I slimmed down in my high school years. I don't have what scientists call a symmetrical face, and I think that there's something about me that just generally reminds people of Charles Manson or someone else disturbing. It used to bother me quite a bit that there were other guys who were great looking and that girls fell all over them, regardless of the other guy's character, intelligence, or how the guys treated them. Like every other kid who's ever lived, I thought that it just didn't seem fair. Many younger women of my generation (and I know this is a gross generalization, so please forgive me) seemed to go for the prettier guys who don't have a lot upstairs rather than the plainer ones who would treat them better. Old, old story. I think many men are the same way though. Lots of guys will throw over a wonderful woman for a younger model with a curvier figure and an IQ of about 50. Perhaps
people in general just don't have a lot of sense when it
comes to separating attractiveness from what's important in
a relationship. When you don't have that great
face-and-body to grease the wheels for you, you have to
develop more effective strategies for getting through life.
I didn't understand the advantages of being unattractive
until I got older and it didn't matter to me anymore. See, I
had to develop my personality, spirituality and sense of
humor. July 21st, 2004. I decided that I was dangerously close to falling into a rut, so I needed to do something totally out of character. I had a little time on my hands before my busy season hit, so I got in my car and drove to New York for a few days. I also took the opportunity to visit friends in New Jersey. I've never been to the New York / New Jersey Area, so this was a big adventure for me. I saw Broadway, Times Square, the Upper West Side, and a whole lot of people in a hurry. I also almost walked my feet off. I think I got the hang of the subway system too. I'm prepared for my next trip; I'll be better organized. I'll take more money next time. In terms of my weight, I've been hovering around 240-242 pounds, so I haven't had any significant progress to report. If my pattern continues to hold, though, as soon as I begin performing again I'll tumble off another ten pounds or so. I fully expect to see 220 pounds by the holidays! I've been working with a director on my show trying to make it better, and I hope that this will make it more marketable and boost me to the next level. I'm not getting any younger and seeing homeless people sleeping on the streets of New York in broad daylight makes me very aware of the uncertainty of my future, although I could always become East Tennessee's only wandering Buddhist monk, wandering through the trailer parks begging for food. I suspect my diet would be high in rock salt and buckshot, though. I'd get plenty of exercise running from pit bulls too. If you want to see my college performing schedule, log onto www.apca.com, go to Artist's Schedules and look up Jon Saint-Germain Peace!
And while I'm at it, here's a precautionary "Fairy Tale" from the 1800's written by Heinrich Hoffman that I read when I was in the First Grade.
This cheery little precautionary tale, gruesomely illustrated with full-colored 19th-century engravings depicting Conrad's maiming in loving detail (and the Scissorman himself lives in my mind's eye in vivid detail to this day, his long legs clad in red tights, long blond hair streaming behind him as he rushes in from the closet to maim poor Conrad, who, after all, was guilty of nothing more than a full-blown oral fixation) scared the living daylights out of me. Not because I sucked my thumbs, but because even at that age I knew that sometimes administrative mistakes were made, even by magical beings, and I was afraid that I might somehow make it onto the Scissorman's list by accident and wake up one morning sans thumbs. And you never know, you might be relaxing one night, reading a book, writing a letter to a friend, or just nodding off for a nap, when:
Because that's Life, and the Scissorman is always waiting there at the end of it, waiting. Snip snip!
Now the unusual thing about this plant is that it's extended several very long leaves toward my chair in such a manner that they sort of hug me as I sit there. The other unusual thing is that to do this, these leaves had to grow AWAY from the light source. This had caused me to do some serious thinking. Is it possible that the plant is somehow aware of my affection for it? And is responding to it.? August 11th, 2004. Well, I finally got my dental appliances put in, and quite a piece of work they are. These are called Bihelix and Quadhelix expanders, designed to spread my teeth apart preparatory to actually getting braces. These torture
devices look like this, for your informati
The dental tech says I can anticipate a night of aches, headaches and soreness for the next few days. Ha ha, the price one pays for beauty! Before: August 17th, 2004. A question I've been pondering lately is if there's a difference between having a big ego and a belief in yourself to accomplish something worthwhile in your life. Most of my friends in show biz toss off the statement "Well, we all have big egos," as though it's as evident as, 'Well, we're all erect Homo Sapiens," but I really don't think that I've ever had a big ego. If anything, I've always felt inadequate. I don't want to have a big ego, though -- it's a very unattractive trait. Is there a difference though, between being an insufferable egomaniac and a self-confident person, at ease with yourself, with a calm belief in your abilities? Recently, the question has been tickling the underbelly of my mind: Can I be more? Is this what the reinvention is all about? The braces, the weight reduction, the lifestyle changes? Belief in yourself, the conviction that you can be anything that you want to be, is the American dream. It's a good thing, the best thing. If it is, why does it feel so scary? August 18th, 2004. Only verse can commemorate this occasion: Fully dressed and fully awake A line I thought could not be crossed, crossed. There is a hill, behind which is a pathless path for which I strike -- Ah hell, I'll just tell you: This morning I weighed 239 pounds. I BROKE THROUGH THE 240'S!!! Monday I had three wisdom teeth removed, and at the surgeon's advice (since apparently I had really long roots that encroached into the sinus cavities) I did it under general anesthesia. Now, bear in mind that I've never had any kind of surgery in my life -- not since I've had my tonsils removed as a child, and I have no recollection of that at all. This was new territory for me Here's what I remember of this experience: Doc puts the IV in; "Ouch," I think. He makes a funny remark about pumping me for secrets while I'm out, I give a silly laugh and close my eyes. I open my eyes immediately, feeling a little sleepy, and wonder why my mouth is dry. Turns out it's dry because my mouth is full of gauze; the procedure is finished. Here's the thing that I'm pondering: when you sleep, there's a sense of passage of time. I'm aware of consciousness, that time is passing, the sensation (or is it illusion?) that I AM. But with this dope they gave me. it's like I WASN'T for the 20- 30 minutes of the surgery. There was no sensation of time or existence between the moment I closed my eyes and the moment I reopened them after the procedure. From my point of view, it was instantaneous. Like part of my life was edited completely out. Scary? I don't know. Maybe this is what death is like: you just close your eyes and there's nothing. Or if you believe in an afterlife, you reopen and you're in heaven, the Astral Planes or The Emerald City of Oz. September 1st, 2004. This morning: 234 pounds. 'Nuff said.
A couple of days ago, due to intense emotions, I had a powerful urge to go on an eating binge. I thought about riding the urge through, as I've done before (and documented strategies for doing so on this blog) but this time I decided to learn from the experience. So I let it have it's way with me. I studied the impulse, where it came from, and where it led me. It was, I'll admit, fascinating. Since the major part of me knew that I wasn't going to suddenly balloon back up to 298 pound over a single gorge-fest, I wasn't worried, and I could enjoy the spectacle of myself totally indulging the compulsive food urge. I saw how satisfying the promise of devouring all that food would be -- how warm and comforting! I was like a bullet fired from a gun. I ate and ate; all my favorite foods. My appetite drove me past the point of satiety, beyond the point where I could even taste the food, and to the point of physical discomfort.
Afterward, while I examined what had happened, I kept coming back to that image of being propelled like a missile. There was a definite sense of momentum to my urge, like falling, or being caught up by something that gave me a hard push. It literally made me overshoot my mark, going past the point when my body said "Stop! Enough!" and propelling me into the red zone. I was an arrow, released from the bow. Bad aim? No, the aim was impeccable. There was too much force in the shot. It lacked subtlety and nuance. The shot hit the target, flew right through it, and endangered innocent bystanders. At least no one was eaten, I thought to myself. But a skilled marksman would put just enough force into the shot to penetrate the target and go no further. No more, no less.
Why indeed? While we're at it might as well ask why do we cling to memories of lost love; try to hold onto dead relationships, hoping they'll work out; expect other people to suddenly become sensitive to our needs? In other words. why aren't we realistic? Could it be that sometimes the Siren's call of a dream, the beckoning of the word 'maybe,' is preferable to reality? If so, then we really need to get a damned life!
I've moved more times than I can count through the years, been though many housefuls of furniture -- but the old fellow has always been with me. The last time I saw my dad alive, we were sitting on the porch of his small house. He had his oxygen tube in place under his nose, because emphysema was stealing his life away. We weren't saying much; just looking out at the sky and the trees. He said, "You never had much of a childhood, did you?" This, coming from my father -- who wasn't a man to dwell on the past -- astounded me. Apparently my father, a man whom, in my childhood I had both adored and feared, had been doing a lot of thinking. All I could think to say was, "It's okay, Dad. I never missed anything." After a while, I stood up and kissed my dad on the forehead. I was nineteen years old, with a pregnant wife at home I had to get back to. He looked shy and and little awkward, as he always did when I kissed him goodbye. Emotion was something he wasn't always comfortable with, but I think it pleased him. I hope it pleased him. It was the last time I would see him until he was in his coffin. I think he told me what he did because he knew what was coming; he was making his plans. Taking care of loose ends. Dad, how I miss you. How I wish I could pick up the phone and tell you about my successes and my worries, how I wish I could ask your advice when I don't know what to do. How I wish I could hear you say that you're proud of me. I love you. May you be at peace. Thanks for the cool bear. September 11th, 2004. Weight: 232 pounds, my friends. And you can really begin to tell a difference. A friend of mine began doing research into the caloric count of foods he had been casually consuming for years. He was horrified to discover the cumulative effects of several cans of soda a day, or a bag of corn chips here and there. He was so horrified in fact, he took all the devil food from his pantry and made several bags of groceries to get rid of. For my friend Orion, I have this special exorcism:
Feel free to use it if you think it will help. September 14th, 2004. Weight: 227 pounds! I'm officially in the weight zone I was in during my late twenties. I feel pretty good, except that it seems to have released some major, long-stored emotional crap. I was up all night dealing with it. I think this is stuff involving my relationship at the time, which made the term "dysfunctional" seem like the Brady Bunch by comparison. I'll get my head around it fairly quickly, though. I've worked through weight-buried emotional issues several times during this process, as you regular readers all know. Let me remind everybody that I've learned that weight serves as a bandage to bury emotional wounds, and as it comes off those buried emotions rise to the surface and have to be acknowledged. With me, it's usually about my sensitivity to loss. I'm a clingy bastard. September 15th, 2004. Put another notch in my famous "reduction belt." soon it will wrap around to my back. September 21st, 2004. I had to retire the reduction belt and I dug out a very old belt from years ago to begin another one. REDUCTION BELT -- The Sequel! It's about time to archive this chapter and begin another one I think.. Weight down to 225 now. I have a hard time believing it. I'm on the verge of closing some major doors to my past and opening new ones to my future. The thing about major changes in your life is that even when you see them coming -- even when you PLAN for them -- you're still never really ready for them when they arrive. I'm a little stunned at all the positive things that have happened for me lately. I'm also quite sad at some of the things I've had to let go in order to make these things happen. Life is a lot like horse trading: be sure you check the teeth before you buy. But once you get a good nag take care of it and ride it through until the end of the course. I've worked very diligently to get where I am today. But while I know I'm taking necessary and inevitable steps, I still have mixed feelings of gladness, apprehension and a little sadness as I say goodbye to the old me. |
Here's
the promised picture; me at 240 pounds, a new "Morpheus"
suit (I'm Prophesyin'") and a steely gaze. Note the
stubbly 80'ish George Michael look.
So
occasionally I like to go to Flea Markets and sift though
other people's junk. It's amazing the amount of STUFF
we've produced. Most of the things that animals
produce are returned to nature. Most of our STUFF winds up at
Flea Markets. Anyway, due to a fortunate fruiting of
karma, a friend of mine came over and we went to a nearby
Flea Market, within walking distance. I picked up a
virtually unused Nordic Trac©, with all the
accessories (including the very cool book, personal stereo
and drink holder), for $20! I had one in the past, and
wore it out. I'm serious; I loved that thing. It
burns some serious calories.
June
8th, 2004. Behold my weight reduction chart, a graphic representation
of my progress over the past year. The vertical column
is my weight in pounds, the horizontal column at the bottom,
which is hard to read, is divided into weekly intervals.
June
11th, 2004. To the left is my belt, that I've worn for the past year as
a record of my weight reduction.
June
30th, 2004.
Why do we seek satisfaction in cravings, in overeating,
addictive behaviors, in overdoing stimulating experiences of
any kind? You know, scarfing down a whole box of
cookies or pint of ice cream by yourself without all that
much enjoyment. You don't even really taste it after
the first few bites. What do we hope to find at the
bottom of the carton?
July 28th, 2004.
One reason I really love poetry is that it comes closer to
truth than anything else. Although these days I no
longer believe in truths (I think there are only views) I
still think that poetry gets closer to the very essence of what it
is to be human. Take, for example, this excerpt from
Omar Khayyams' medieval epic the Rubiayat:
on:
After:
I
think that more than anything else, this lack of belief in
myself has held me down, kept me from being more successful.
August
28th, 2004.
Yes, it's definitively another plateau crashing -- this morning I weighed 235 pounds!
September 8th, 2004.
My weight is fluctuating, as it does, especially since I've
been craving tomato juice with its high sodium content.
Ill have to flush my system with lots of pure water.
Thought I'd post a picture so you could put a face to the
madman behind this project. A much leaner face, I
might add, than that a year ago.
September
9th, 2004.
That tattered old chap you see to the left is my teddy bear,
bought by my dad for me on the day of my birth. That
makes him exactly my age, 44 years old.
hee out, unclean foods!