So I’m getting behind and I’m combining a couple of days. Sue me.
5:30 AM: Spin class and the second day of weight training (Back and Biceps). Today I tried to do concentration curls and had to reduce my weights to the ones that look funny from the separate rack of weights. Because that’s how out of shape I really am. So there I am, pulling the impression of Arnold a 5 year old in the eighties might have done.
I’m gonna be honest, writing about this stuff doesn’t do much for my writing bug. It’s almost as though I’m reporting when I’d rather be writing creatively. That being said, I’m here for the long haul, so, on to my diet…
Diet is going well. I never even tried Greek Yogurt before but it’s really making an impression on me. Also, fruit. I’ve always been that guy who buys fruit, says I’m gonna eat it, and then find it three weeks later rotting into a black wilted demon pod. Now, I’ve eaten almost all of it. Except the berries, they went bad in two days. Note to self: Freeze Berries.
Today, due to exhaustion from all this new exercise, I took a nice long nap.
I faced my biggest challenge today, working a the hip pizza joint. It was a 50/50 kind of situation. The first 50… I’m surrounded by food that smells like it should be in my mouth. Bread sticks, pizza, potato skins, all need to be in my mouth.
The other 50… I feel great. You may not know but I am one of the many human beings who suffer from depression. It’s an illness that can really make things difficult when trying to make changes in your life but I can tell you this; if you make those changes, it gets better. My body and its chemistry are starting to fall in line and I’m finding myself with an edge on my depression.
I feel like my body has become so used to being annoyed with my choices that it didn’t even realize how bad of shape it was in anymore. Bloating is one of those things; I never realized that I was all that bloated before because I’m pretty sure that I’ve been continuously bloated since I was 19. Now, for the first time I can remember, I don’t feel bloated. The strange thing is, I think that constant bloated feeling is one of the major sources of my insecurity. I don’t look much different in the mirror but I feel so much thinner already.
Day 4: I’m in so much pain. I feel like there are a bunch of tiny trolls in my muscles wrenching away, trying to put all the pieces back together. Unfortunately, due to this pain, I have to take a day of rest from the gym. I had to put on a tie today for a class that I’m acting for and it literally hurt to do. It HURT to put a tie on. I just have to keep telling myself that this is good pain. I’ll get through it. I have a strong will to survive. I won’t die. Although, if I did get in the first fight of my life on this day, I could probably die then, I wouldn’t be able to lift my arms high enough to defend myself. Or if ice fell from a building… not sure I could cover my head. So… that’s that.
Took another nap today. I’ve been concerned that these naps would ruin my new sleeping schedule but they don’t seem to be causing a problem. Something to keep an eye on.
Something about happiness: The majority of my adult life has been spent medicating myself, of what illness, I was never sure. I wasn’t happy so I medicated, through booze, smoking, relationships, food, whatever. Here’s the thing, in much the same way that I learned that smoking creates the very hole that you are trying to fill by smoking, medicating in any unhealthful way does the same thing. Every time you have a bad day and say, “I need a drink,” you are pretty much guaranteeing to perpetuate a cycle of further bad days. I hear people I know (not excluding myself) all the time proclaim their intent to “Get wasted” or “Do shots” or “Let loose,” and there is a problem with this thinking, it leads to a loss of inhibitions and fear. This loss of inhibitions and fear sounds intriguing but the truth is that inhibitions and fear are natural security measures that protect us from making decisions that we’ll regret in the future. So, make that night out about friendship and furthering your heart and mind rather than how drunk you intend to get.
I don’t know if this is a problem for as many people as I’d like to pretend but I’ve found myself, all too many times, meeting someone for the first time that I’ve apparently met before, sometimes on more than one occasion. They know be my name, they think the conversation we had was really interesting and would like to talk more about it… Who are you? I’m sorry. This is not a good feeling, and it’s a change that is long over do. This is one of the prime reasons that one of the goals I set for myself is to live a life in which I remember names and conversations. It’s time to be okay with being happy.
Now, a note on POOPING: That’s right, POOPING. Get the giggles out now and let’s get on to the dirty business of POOPING. Three and a half days of a better diet and POOPING has become glorious. One thing I’ve noticed is that it happens less. I imagine my body is like, “Oh man, he’s putting some pretty good stuff in here, we better take our time getting everything out.” I realize that the truth has more to do with dietary fibers and such but isn’t so much more fun to give your internal organs personalities.
Money: Something I’ve been doing, that I failed to mention, is tracking all my money on paper, the old fashioned way. I’m doing this to have a more direct relationship with my money. Very much in the same way that a gambler turns his money into chips and forgets that it’s real money, I do the same thing. I forget that money is money until I don’t have it any more. This creates a problem for me and my plans for the future. I end up relying on big paydays in order to satisfy my dreams of travel, visiting family and sometimes even just trying to stay ahead of my bills.
This diet, this change of habits, is going to make me rich. When before, I would look at my account and think, “I only have $200 to get me through the next two days.” WHAAATTT!? What was I spending $200 on that it was “ONLY” $200? Since I started this 30 day routine, which is 4 days in, I have spent about $50 on items other than bills. That’s twice as long and a quarter of what I was worried about in two days.
To put this all in perspective, my average night out after a stressful night of work, would cost me about $30 – $40 at the bar and $10 – $20 on Ubers and cabs. That’s an averae of $50 a night not counting all the eating out and miscellaneous stuff during the day. Before, I would be out on average, 5 nights a week (Industry people, you know what I’m talking about). That’s $250 a week on going out making it a grand total of $1125 a month. Guess what… That’s a plane ticket to Europe. 2 trips to some places in Central and South America. 3 trips home to see mom. It’s half the cost of the new equipment that I need to start my photography business. It’s nearly twice as much as my bills. And that’s just in the drinking and going out department. I’ve spent a grand total of $17 in eating out in the last four days. What? That doesn’t seem right. But it is.
Movie Screening: I was part of a horror movie short titled, Cheap Plastic Mask, and it had its first public screening tonight and the turnout was really nice. I’m horrible at these things but I think I fared pretty well. Made a few new friends, had a couple of beers (this was a night I previously chose to let my guard down), and remember my conversations and the names of the people I met.
All in all. Success is happening. Looking forward to looking forward.
30 days with an idiot 
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