My mp3 player died recently and I’ve been using my Centro smartphone to listen to music since then. But I only have about forty songs on it since loading them onto the phone is a very cumbersome process. So the other day I decided that since I have internet access on the phone for free, I would just figure out how to stream music. That way I’d always have plenty of new stuff to listen to.

Naturally, I did a couple of web searches, read a lot of postings and guides, and I even downloaded some software. For almost two hours I fiddled with this and that and while I got close, I was never quite able to get it to work. It was so frustrating because clearly what I was seeking to do was possible, but I felt like I just couldn’t get my arms around the technology part of it. Eventually, I gave up and decided it must be a problem with the phone.

Last night I mentioned all of this to Devin. He picked up my phone, hit four keys and voila ….suddenly music of the precise kind I was looking for began pouring out of the speaker.

For whatever reason, I actually got MAD at him for knowing how to do what I wanted to do and not hesitating for even a second. Just click, click, click, click and there you have it. There was a part of me that was so disappointed that he was able to get it to work, when I wasn’t. I wanted him to be wrong …even though what was happening was that I was getting the results I wanted (i.e. high energy dance music on my phone).

Of course, I went ahead and used his method and listened to all kinds of music this morning during my run with Paco and everything worked just fine. IT WAS SO AGGRAVATING!

The lesson, of course, is that it doesn’t matter how smart or resourceful I think I am. It doesn’t matter that I’m a good problem-solver, that I pay attention to the latest technology, and that I’m curious about the world. Despite all of that cleverness, there are always going to be times I need someone’s help because I can’t figure it all out by myself. I might not like it and I might wish that I had thought of it first, but I have to accept that there are people out there smarter and more capable than I am.

When it comes to weight loss and maintenance, I tend to think to myself “I’ve read it all, I’ve lived it all, I’ve heard it all …I know it all.” Half the time I don’t read articles that people give me on weight loss since I figure it’ll just be a re-hash of what I’ve seen before. I don’t spend time doing research and I rarely ask other people for advice. Heck, I was recently called on to be a spokesperson on “healthy lifestyles” for a company here in San Francisco that’s thinking about initiating a weight loss program. What more could there possibly be for ME to learn?

Apparently, a lot. Several times lately I’ve heard from people who have successfully dealt with eating issues that I felt were unbeatable. At the scale, I’ve weighed many, many folks who mention that they’ve overcome night eating, or that they are learning portion control, or that they are simply telling people in their lives they need to stop sabotaging and start supporting them.

Click, click, click, click…

Tonight I somewhat unexpectedly experienced something I call “compassion fatigue.” It’s a syndrome I usually only go through when I’m leading too many weight loss meetings, or I’m too emotionally involved in the daily goings on of life. Most of the time when I deal with people, I have good and charitable thoughts about them and their motivations. I think one thing that makes me a good friend and a motivational leader is that I look for the best in people and I’m adept at speaking positively.

But some days I look out at that sea of faces and I think “eh….whatever.” Or someone comes to me at the scale and pours their heart out, and all I can think of is what I want to have for dinner. Or a particularly challenged person starts walking towards me and I have an almost overwhelming desire to run in the opposite direction.

Tonight it was two people who showed up during the last three minutes of my meeting, and then wanted me to run through the whole program with them afterwards, showing them all of the materials and giving my little speech BEFORE they would decide whether or not to join. And as I stood there and did my tap dance and smiled and cracked my jokes and did everything but stand on my head, these two just ignored everything I was saying, leafed listlessly through the materials, and with their body language told me they weren’t interested.

After that (they didn’t join) my two co-workers went through their usual glacial motions, wrapping everything up so slowly that I wanted to scream. One of them has been going through a long period of depression – this evening when I arrived at the location she was lying down on the chairs with the lights off, dozing. After she (finally) got up, she was totally unkempt, had a dazed expression on her face, and acted as if she were about to keel over.

There’s a part of me that understands that every one of these good people has things they are going through and could use a compassionate helping hand.

Then there’s the part of me that shouts (inwardly at least) “C’mon GET A LIFE!”

So there you have it. Not pretty. Fortunately for most of the 25 people at my meeting tonight I did have some words of encouragement or reassurance or praise. I did my best to smile at the right times, nod my head appropriately, and engage my active listening skills. It was exhausting.

Here’s hoping I wake up tomorrow refreshed, filled with enthusiasm and ready to rock.

I swear, if I went to bed at 9:00 p.m. every single night, I’d only weigh 120 pounds! So much of my excess caloric intake happens at night and/or as a result of being exhausted. I know this is an important issue for me to address and I’ve written a lot about it, but it’s an amazingly challenging habit to overcome. Or rather, getting enough sleep is an amazingly hard GOOD habit to establish.

Last night I crawled into bed around 9 with a good book, and fell asleep about 25 minutes later. That meant I got an unusually luxurious 7.5 hours of sleep last night (I’ve been operating on 6 or less). So even though I was sleepy this morning, my run was pretty good, and I had plenty of energy at work today (which is important since, as you probably know, I stand at my work station). Then tonight not only did I feel relatively strong all through my kickboxing class, but even afterwards, the prospect of riding my bike home didn’t fill me with dread like it often does!

As I was parking my bike in the garage tonight I was imagining what it might be like to actually get 8 or 9 hours of sleep at night. That’s something I don’t recall ever doing consistently (except for times when I’ve been home sick). I wonder if I would have trouble getting “that much” sleep. Would it give me insomnia?

Anyway, I’m going to at least try going to bed on time two more times this week. I want to see if getting rest is also helpful for my overall sense of self control. I did feel pretty “snacky” at work today, but I think that was about nerves (I’ve got a lot going on).

So I’m gonna hit the hay. I still have another 100 or so pages to go in my book!!

It’s funny but for the first time I can remember, I had a boring time at the shrink this week. Usually I have loads of things to talk about – depression, anxiety, guilt, anger, sorrow, etc. But as I rode my bike over there after work, I was thinking that the only “negative” feelings I’ve been having lately are related to the fact that I can’t believe how good things are going in my life right now. I’m simply not used to feeling so pleased with my home life, my social life and my work life, all at once!

I’m not “cured” of my eating issues and I’m definitely concerned about being a little bit too heavy right now, but I feel optimistic that I still have the power to change. Sometimes the hardest thing about weight management is what goes on between the ears, rather than between the teeth.

When I was younger, I often used to think that “if only I weren’t so fat” my life would be better and all of my problems would be solved. It was convenient to be able to blame my weight for all the things that didn’t go right in life. Whether it was my work life or my love life or my physical health, I could always point to how unfair that was that I was overweight even though I didn’t “deserve” to be.

Probably the biggest lesson I learned from becoming a thin person was that my weight really didn’t have all that much bearing on my success or happiness. Sure, it is MUCH nicer to be lighter and I can certainly do more, and achieve more, than I could when I was lugging around 50 extra pounds. Yet weight loss in itself didn’t magically make my worries go away.

The one thing that being thin HAS done, however, is to teach me that if I’m ever going to address the core issues that impact my life, I can’t do it by stuffing cookies and ice cream into my mouth. I can only help myself by confronting my challenges and dealing with them, not by hiding behind a curtain of sugar and fat. That’s hard work to do and it isn’t always easy or pleasant – no wonder there’s a temptation to avoid it all by overeating.

But fortunately, I’ve had the tenacity to keep at it, even when I would have much preferred just to drown my sorrows in a vat of chocolate. It’s a lot of work to be mentally healthy and it’s occasionally painful and unpleasant. Nevetheless, it’s not impossible.

And it is soooo worth it.

I got my first job in 1978, working at a drug store in the suburb where I lived. I’m starting to sound like my Dad talking about the “old days” but back then there were no chain drug stores (at least not in our town), and we were one of the only business that the law permitted to remain open on Sundays. It wasn’t a particularly remarkable job, although I do remember that you had to be 18 to work there because we sold liquor (and delivered it to people’s homes!).

Every year I get a statement from the Social Security Administration that shows my total income for each of the years since I started working way back when. This year when I got that statement, I decided to do something with it – I translated each year’s figures backwards into “1978” dollars. Then I put that data into a graph.

It was an interesting and, to be honest, a depressing exercise. Because when I see what’s happened to my income stream prior to 2002 and subsequent to 2002, it paints a stark picture. For 25 years, things went according to what seemed like a natural pattern. Each year I made a little bit more than before, with very few exceptions. Then, after I got laid off in 2002, I pretty much hit bottom. Since then, despite what felt like herculean efforts, I’ve only managed to climb part of the way back to where I was before.

And what this graph doesn’t show, is that now I actually work two jobs, so my overall income is not only smaller than before, it reflects a significantly greater number of hours worked. In fact, the most recent year of the report refelects the fact that in my last job I actually took a voluntary pay cut in order to receive more vacation hours. This is not the American dream that I had so strongly bought into for so long.

What this graph also doesn’t show is my level of happiness or depression, my level of job satisfaction or discontent, or (more statistically measureable) my household income — Devin and I have shared finances since we met in 2001. It also doesn’t show some of the more tangible things about my lifestyle, like the kind of home I live in or the car I drive.

In fact, Devin says the graph is meaningless and he doesn’t believe in such a thing as defining things in “constant dollars.” He says it shouldn’t bother me at all.

But it does.

I’ve thought about graphing my weight year over year since 1978, but unfortunately (or rather, fortunately) the government never kept track of that! I remember that despite having been on a number of crash diets, my ultimate weight –like my income– pretty much climbed year after year until 2002. I do recall that during a time when I was very emotionally disturbed in the early 1980s, I weighed less than 130 pounds ( !! ) and during the height of the dot-com boom, my weight peaked at over 200 pounds. Both of those extremes were regrettable.

Since 2002 tho, my weight has fluctuated generally within a band of just about 10 pounds (with a few exceptions). In comparison with my past, that means it’s been remarkably stable. And fortunately, unlike my income, my weight has not “recovered” it’s previous heights.

Devin often tells me that he loves me no matter what, and that my weight isn’t important either – just a meaningless number that doesn’t say anything to him about the truth.

Since he stuck with me these past six years and more, I have to say I am a remarkably lucky person. I don’t know how many relationships could last through all of these numbers, whether or not they really say anything about self-worth. We often are driven by labels that we put on ourselves (okay, I guess society has a hand in that as well). And quite often we judge ourselves as falling short of the mark.

What I’ve learned over the past six years, working with thousands of people on weight management, is that numbers are tricky things. They can be important indicators of success, but they can also be completely meaningless. I know plenty of people who’ve gained and plenty of people who’ve lost and plenty of people who’ve stayed the same. But from their weight alone, I can’t really tell you much about their lives. Personally, I think of pretty much all of them as being winners.

If only I can convince myself of the same.

My weight loss meetings were really good this week. That’s not something I always say. A lot of times I feel like I could have done better, or I focus on the things I forgot to do, the questions I forgot to ask, or lost opportunities to hear from members, etc. But this week was different – although I did talk a fair amount, there was a lot of laughter and we covered both the important stuff about food, recipes, and portions as well as addressing thoughts, feelings and self-talk.

I begin every meeting asking people to talk about their successes or questions or challenges, and I also spend as much time as I can in meetings celebrating weight loss awards. As I do that, I try to get people to say MORE than just “I ate less and wrote it all down.” Because although I recognize those things as being important, I feel personally that most of us know we SHOULD do those things, but still have trouble doing it anyway.

So I try and ask things like “what’s your favorite thing about this process” or what’s a challenge you’ve overcome”? That usually gets the ball rolling.

Ironically, outside of the meeting room, this week was a personal weight management disaster for me. I did a lot of stress eating, I “forged” entries in my food log, I binged late at night and overall just didn’t feel like I was doing anything right. Probably worst of all, most nights I got less than six hours of sleep (which always leads me down the wrong path).

And while I was able to hold the line – none of my bad days were as bad as the Fourth of July – the information machine told me this morning that I was up 3.4 pounds this week. It didn’t seem fair. After all, I did two kickboxing classes and two abs classes and was very consistent about running and walking. Shouldn’t that count for something??

Argh!

At times like these it’s hard not to feel like a raging hypocrite. You know…do as I say, not as I do. That kind of thing. I stand up in front of group after group after group working through the process and getting people engaged and motivated. And then I go home and have three pieces of candy and a bowl of ice cream. That can really be annoying.

Nevertheless, the one kernal of knowledge I have about managing my weight successfully is that there really and truly is only a single requirement that will make this whole thing work, eventually:

Never give up.

I had an insane day of intense activity at work, arriving at 7:30 and leaving at 5:30 without a single moment’s rest. When it came to eating lunch, I did so standing up, while working at the computer! Of course, since I do a weight loss meeting in my office building at noon on Thursdays, I wasn’t making it any easier on myself (even though I was only away from my desk for 45 minutes).

As I left the office, I was thinking that I could stay til midnight and not finish half of the things I’d meant to accomplish today. But I was bound and determined to make it to a kickboxing class. And while it seemed like pure lunacy to walk out of the office while I had so much left to do, I realize that last night I stayed til 8:30 and that didn’t even seem to put a dent into things.

The class I’m taking at my new gym is really good and really rigorous, and even though I feel exhausted just thinking about it, it’s a lot of fun. Tonight by the time I arrived (a few minutes late) my brain felt as if it had an electric current running through it and my body was completely tense. It took me a very long time of intense physical activity before I even began to feel some of the stress leaving my body. Only at the end, after ninety minutes of leg work and cardio work and abs, did I sense even a semblance of relaxation.

Riding home on my bike afterwards (yeah, I know!) I was in such a good mood. Funny, huh?

The thing is, I totally love my new job. I have a great boss who is both really demanding and incredibly motivating. My coworkers are a great bunch and I am constantly amazed at how hard working everyone is. (Of course, that may be influence by the 2.5 years in the glacially-paced state government). Although there are many tasks that I have to repeat, overall my days are completely different from one another — I never know what to expect when I get up in the morning.

So even though today I felt tense and anxious and guilty about all of the stuff I didn’t accomplish, I simultaneously felt happy and proud that I’m finally doing something that I really love. For a long time I thought only if I worked in public service or had a profession in the “helping” fields would I be able to get a sense of satisfaction from work, but I was wrong.

Working soley for a crass, money-making company has been nothing but fun! I’m not saving the polar ice cap or protecting low income consumers, and I’m not making the world a better place. But it’s hard to argue with the sheer joy I feel at thinking about everything I’m learning and doing, day after day.

Still, it’s important to me to feel like I’m doing some kind of “meaningful” things. Whenever I start to think about quitting my weight loss work in order to free up time to finish things at the office, I realize that wouldn’t work. There’s a part of me that needs work-life balance. That might mean leaving “early” to go to kickboxing, or “wasting” my valuable lunch hour leading a meeting. But by rounding out my life like that, I think it actually makes me more conscious of everything I’ve got going on.

So, here’s to that old saying …”when you have a job you love, you never have to go to ‘work’ ! ”

A friend of mine who I admire and who has not only lost a lot of weight but is also a terrific meeting leader came to me tonight and asked for “tough love.” With a wry smile she told me that she’d been having trouble with uncontrolled night eating and was gaining too much weight for comfort. We’d talked before about this before, and while I’m really eager to help, I’m just not the drill sargeant type. Besides, I’m a night eater myself!

So, no, I didn’t tell her she had to STOP, but I did ask her what she felt she had to do in order to make her goals of eating less happen. And we talked about how she simply needs to find a strategy that will get her to do the right thing. (I only wish I knew what that would be).

By happenstance, in the meeting tonight one of the other members described (in positive terms) how her weight loss buddy “caught” her in the cafeteria staring at a plate of donuts. Apparently her friend said something along the lines of “I wouldn’t eat that if I were you” and this was mentioned as being really helpful.

Personally, I don’t want anyone telling me what I can and can’t eat. Uh uh. No way. Doesn’t work for me. As soon as you tell me I “can’t” have something, that thing becomes the target of my every move until I eat it (and lots OF it).

But here’s what I came up in retrospect as I’ve been thinking it over. If there is any “tough love” I can give, it’s not about telling people what to do. It’s telling them “hey, listen, I’m not perfect, I’m not a superman, I have no magical powers, and yet …. I have lost weight and maintained that loss.” You can say all you want about how it’s different for me because I’m a man, or because I ride my bike to work, or because I don’t have children at home, etc. etc. All of which might be true. But I’m not all that special, and frankly, if I can lose weight in spite of all my crazy psychological issues, my nutty family, my history of bad eating habits and decades of yo-yo dieting, you can too.

You might not want to hear this, but it’s true – ordinary people can lose weight, and no matter that you are a beloved child of God, you’re probably fairly ordinary, just like me.

It’s hard not to get hurt when you burn the candle at both ends. But that’s what I’m often tempted to do, now that I have a job that I love so much, in addition to all of the other activities that I’m engaged in (church, weight loss meetings, the gym, etc.). It’s hard to me to figure out where to say “no.” Do I give up things in my personal life and give that extra time to work? Do I potentially sacrifice my professional progress by leaving work unfinished at the office in order to attend to my private life?

Obviously I’m not alone in needing to strike a healthy work-life balance. Ask anyone with children how they figure out the proper amount of time to devote to work and the proper amount of time to devote to family life. I don’t think there are any simple answers. But I do know that one thing that most people end up sacrificing is sleep. I remember when my sister was trying to make tenure at her university, while raising her three kids and establishing a second marriage – she used to say “I can sleep when I’m dead.”

To which I always silently responded “but won’t that just hasten the process!?”

Anyway, today I had one of those “have to do it all” kind of days – I slogged through a tremendous number of challenging tasks at work, then I dashed off to do a 90-minute abs-and-cardio class, after which I hopped on my bike and rode three (hilly) miles to church to attend the communications committee. Talk about exhausting.

The problem is that by squeezing so much in, I didn’t have the chance to eat properly. Besides, the more rushed and stressed I am, the more likely it is that when I do eat it will be something junky and fast, rather than something healthy. So despite everything that went on today, I still managed to overeat and to make a few unwise choices. Stress, and being too tired, will do that to you.

On my bike ride home after church tonight I was thinking about how overbooked I feel, and how likely that is to lead me away from healthy choices and towards unhealthy ones. After all, it’s a short step from “I’m too busy to hit the gym” to “I’m too busy to make a salad to bring to work” to “I’m too busy to worry about my health and weight.” And believe me you, my office is full of people who spend no time whatsoever either exercising or eating right.

So now it’s time for me to trundle off to bed. Maybe after a good night’s sleep, I’ll be able to figure out when and where to say “NO” tomorrow. Wish me luck.

When I was getting ready to fly home from Portland the other day, I decided to see if I could find a reasonably healthy snack at the airport. You might be surprised at how much easier it’s getting these days to find things like non-fat yogurt and salad and lite soups etc. when travelling. It’s a welcome change from the days when chips, donuts, crackers, and fast food were the only options.

Unfortunately at PDX (at least in the E-gates terminal) I had no such luck.

The only thing I found that seemed reasonable was a turkey wrap. I often get wraps and I know they can vary pretty widely in nutritional content, so I was prepared for it to be a kind of good-enough-for-now choice. After taking one bite, however, I put that notion to rest.

Turns out the first thing I noticed was the complete absence of any vegetable matter. Most wraps have at least a lettuce leaf or something in there. The second thing was the unannounced presence of some orange-colored cheese (American? Cheddar? Couldn’t tell). But by far the worst unhappy surprise was discovering that the whole thing had been slathered with several tablespoons of mayonnaise.

Now from the time I was a toddler until about six years ago, I was a pretty big fan of mayo. Not that I ate copious amounts of it, but I did put it on just about anything that resembled either bread or a vegetable. And mayo was the base for many a salad dressing that I liked.

What’s funny is that I don’t remember consciously “giving it up for good” but I’m certain that it has been several years since I had more than a very small taste of mayonnaise. I find that mustard and salsa (and sometimes NOTHING) is preferable as a salad topper or sandwich ingredient. And given the high caloric value of oil/fat, I’ve found that cutting out the stuff can really help keep the day’s intake in check.

Anyway, I decided I would pick apart the wrap to see if at least I could salvage some of it. But the mayo was all over everything (and had even congealed somewhat in the fridge). I gamely scraped off a few pieces of the wrap and the turkey, but soon gave up.

The weirdest thing of all to me was how unappetizing mayonnaise has become to me. Just seeing it, tasting it and touching it, my stomach felt a little queasy. When you’re not used to that kind of thing, it can be pretty pungent. So prying open my sandwich didn’t leave me with a great feeling.

As I sat there feeling mad at myself for wasting $8.00 on something that was unappealing and not worth eating, I remembered something that Kelly said in her meeting last week. “Your body is not a garbage can. You do not need to ‘throw food away’ in your mouth!”

So I reluctantly walked over to the REAL trash can and tossed the sandwich away.

And you know what? I didn’t starve to death on the way home. I actually discovered in my bag I had a peach and a lite snack that I had forgotten about. So on the plane ride (which was not much over an hour, anyway), I had just enough food to keep me entertained, and not too much so as to get me in trouble.