The Monster Within

It has been 3 months since I agreed to participate in Schulte and Swann’s “Brotherhood of the Traveling Shirt.” Overall, everything has been going well. I have lost 29 lbs in 3 months. The first 12 came off in two weeks. After that, I’ve been averaging about 1.5 pounds per week. If you have been following along, you’ll know that I have chosen to lose weight slowly in hopes of keeping it off long term.

After 3 months, you’d think that I would be well adapted to my new lifestyle of smarter eating. Again, overall I think this is the case, but this weekend I learned that old habits die hard and that I’m still capable of diving right back into them. My wife and I had some time to ourselves this weekend because my parents wanted to spend some time with our son. With 24 hours of unusual freedom, we decided to have some fun starting with watching the Iowa vs. Ohio State game at a local bar with some friends. All it took for me was a few beers and my old 270 pound self took over. We went from the local bar to a restaurant for dinner and then to a movie. I ate and drank without a care for the night and ended up feeling stuffed and bloated by the end of the night. It wasn’t until today that I entered everything I consumed into a calorie calculator. It was even worse than I expected. Even after a sensible lunch and breakfast, I found that I ate and drank almost 5,000 calories for the day! I felt terrible this morning. Although I had a great time, it was certainly not worth more than doubling the amount of food I need in a day.

I also noticed that I craved food all day today and couldn’t get satisfied with what has been a satisfying amount of food for me any other day. I also have noticed urges for food that I haven’t had in a while. It feels like a genuine addiction problem. If you think of the old metaphor of the devil and the angel on your shoulder, this weekend I feel like I’ve only had devils on my shoulders. I didn’t go as overboard today but I had a little more than I should have had. Stepping back I can see what’s happening. I can also see that this is the point where I would usually fall more and more into old habits until I’m right back to square one.


I was in the KZIA studio with Scott, Ric and Matt Hoover on Friday talking about this very thing. Now that I have lost a little weight and it is starting to show, people are starting to compliment me. With the compliments comes some complacence. I start to feel like things are under control and that I can celebrate a little. Even though I am aware of it enough to talk about it on the radio in front of thousands of people, apparently I’m still blind enough to think that I wasn’t affected by it. That is, until I was slapped directly in the face by it this weekend.

It’s going to be a tough week and I have no one to blame but myself. I’m sure I’ll be craving more food than usual because of the unusual amount that I had this weekend. I am more thankful than ever that I wrote that simple email to KZIA a few months ago. Without this public accountability I would probably have severely fallen off track by now. I have also been faithfully wearing my Gruve device to track my calorie burn. It is a huge help too. It constantly reminds me to get off my butt. I’m not sure who first said it, but simply put, it helps remind me to “eat less and move more.” It sounds so simple doesn’t it? Eat less. Move more. I botched that whole concept this weekend but I can’t let it drag me down. I’m putting things right back in motion.

Thanks again to KZIA, Matt Hoover, Muve Inc, Jane Jakobsen, the Mac, my friends and family and everyone else who has been following along. If you are someone who has struggled with some of these same things, I can’t say enough about some sort of large scale accountability. I can see that no matter how focused I am on any given day, the 270 pound monster in me will always want to come out. Thanks for helping me keep the monster in check!