5 Sticky Notes On My Computer That I Want To Have Made Into Refrigerator Magnets

1. Life is hard.

2. I am not that important.

3. My life is not about me.

4. I am not in control.

5. You are going to die.

These strike me as true in my heart. They come from a man named Richard Rohr. He didn't invent them. They are timeless truths.

They sound harsh to many people when I tell them they are a code by which I strive to live. I don't know if they're harsh. If anyone would like to know how I understand them, how they apply to my challenges with food, eating, body, and addiction, please comment and ask. I would be glad to offer my 2 cents.

King Harley

Doctor, Doctor, It Hurts When I Do This...

Went to see a new primary care doc last Friday (3 days ago). Thin, pretty Romanian woman. With grave concern she soberly told me that I was going to die from diabetes complications and obesity if I didn't lose weight and manage my blood glucose levels better. I was shocked. Exploded the cuff on the blood pressure machine when she told me, I did. I just couldn't understand why no doc had ever told me these things before! Why hadn't I read, somewhere in the literature, that people actually died from the complications of uncontrolled diabetes and morbid obesity!

Why, I was flabbergasted, floored, shaken to my foundations! I had been liberated (yet again, for about the umpteenth time since I was a small boy) from my ignorance! I was free---free---freeeee! Finally, I could book that scuba expedition, buy that kayak, put that big order in with my broker for Speedo stock!

Fact is, addicts are never motivated by death, fear of death, or loss of this, that or the other. I'm an addict. I know this from experience. I have the most beautiful amazing children and wife in the world, yet neither fear of loss of them, nor fear of the pain I would cause them to die so meaningless a death from complications of diabetes and morbid obesity, have motivated me to get healthy.

Sorry, doc.

So fear of death and loss ain't gonna do it for me. Oh, and I should mention that my mother and father tried to instill deep shame and guilt in me, and even though they were quite successful, shame and guilt have not done it for me, either.

What's the motivator? It would be easy to give the histrionic cry of, "I don't know!" But that ain't it, either.

What I know, in the depths of my heart, is that the only motivator is feeling in my heart the real truth that I am part of something greater than myself...god, love, the Infinite Heart. The last chapter of the book in the 12 Steps is revealed to us in the first five words of Step 12, "Having had a spiritual awakening..."

So, that makes my primary sin pride, self-centeredness, hubris. I cut myself off from god, love, the Infinite Heart that connects us all and everything as one. I continue to cut myself off from that Source because I believe that I am less worthy of that love than everyone...anyone...else. How twisted is that? My imperfection is worse than everyone else's imperfection, my shadow is darker and deeper than your shadow, my demons are bigger than your demons!

Hell, that's obnoxious and annoying - even to me. What a childish ass. I wouldn't want to give love in any form to that guy. Yet that's exactly what he needs. He needs someone (a father would be good) who would stand there and wait for eternity for him to bow his head to the least of himself so he can free himself from the prison of being cut off from what he loves most. God.

I would like to write that I have a plan and I am going to follow it come hell or high water. I could, I suppose...both write it and do it. Despite the stereotype of fat people, I am not weak-willed, stupid or lazy. I don't need victory. I need surrender. I need to feel in my bones that this is the only battle in my life in which surrender is the only way to "win." I need humility to accept what I don't want to accept, that I am no lesser or greater a part of this amazing universe than anyone or anything else. I also need a plan, but that's secondary. If I devise a cunning plan and follow it with addict's pride and no real humilty, I will subvert my own cunning plan and set myself up to prove that I'm just a worthless unlovable addict.

So, as I started out writing about the evil ol' doc visit at the start of this "diet," I end up realizing that this path, for me, is a spiritual awakening, or at least an opportunity for one, an opportunity to step outside of my broken-record addictive thinking that seeks only safety, comfort and security.

Now, what are those first 11 steps again...

*Sigh*...I give up. I think I'll go Google 'Navy Seal OA Sponsors from Hell.'

Semi-funny self-deprecating humor aside, I would be grateful for any prayers.

Also, so as to do something along with praying while I am stuck in a rowboat in the middle of the ocean, I'll row. Two things have worked for me in the past: 1) a low-carb, high protein food plan and way of eating and 2) Eckhart Tolle. I'll try and bring a plan and a spiritual practice together in my next entry and see what happens. Finally, a sponsor would be a good thing to add...oh, and maybe OA meetings. There's a concept. More on that later, too.

In this moment, I want God and vast quantitites of venison jerky.

The King has left the building.

Waking Up Is Hard To Do

Welcome to my part of our weight-loss, health, diet, eating blog.

This may be a little unorthodox. Just a warning, not an apology.

I'm an addict, but I'm also a lot more than an addict. I deeply feel that each one of us is truly a particularly formed and miraculous manifestation of god, of the source from which we came, to which we will ultimately return, and which we are a unique expression of in this present moment.

I wish I treated myself as if that were true.

I'm very smart, yet I don't fully grasp how it is that I treat myself as less of a person than I treat others most of the time. My calling in life, and my current occupation, is to help others really feel the truth of who they are, their divine source and nature, their unity as part of all that was, is and will ever be. I do this with other addicts whose substances of "choice" are drugs and alcohol, and with people dealing with various forms of mental illness, from the severe to the amusingly neurotic. I feel hypocritical about this sometimes, but, the thing is, I'm very good at it, I help people on a deep level to make change in their lives.

I'm also quite cocky in some ways (if you didn't notice) despite my shortcomings...as a matter of fact, I have a secret part of myself that feels I'm so special that I'm both worse and better than other people. I've got both ends of the spectrum covered! That part of me isn't in charge as often as it used to be, but one minute with that arrogant prick at the helm can wreak enough havok for 100 years. I've hurt a lot of people that I love, including myslef. That part of me is actually the little boy part I will speak of in a moment or two pretending to be a mature man.

I'm resentful about having this particular problem in life....obesity, compulsive overeating, an unconscious alcoholic, sexually and physically abused, sadistic and passively abusive mother who raised me and shoved food down my throat so she would feel she existed, was loved, in control of everything and wouldn't have to deal with her own feelings.

I realize that, even if my Hansel-and-Gretel Witch of a mother was to blame for making me morbidly obese, I am 100% fully responsible for my mind, body, soul, spirit and heart in this and every moment. No one can attend to me but me. I also realize I am not that little boy anymore, and that my mother is a whole person and the Devouring Witch is only part of who she is, the part she needed to pretend she was in order to make herself feel safe and in control. I also realize that the people-pleasing, love-seeking, spoiled and stubborn boy was what I became in order to survive the emotional and physical abuse that my mother unconsciously passed onto me.

My father is a dependent and physically small man (5'3" and only slightly overweight when he ran the ice cream parlor on the aircraft carrier on which he served in the navy, just at the end of the Korean war) and wasn't willing to challenge my mother's over-feeding of me for fear she would be angry at him. My father's father died when my father was very young, and my father was raised by a stepfather. His stepfather was a good man, but I know that men who didn't know their fathers are left with a hole inside that is hard to heal and they feel as if they are lost, incompetent and don't have what it takes to live their best lives. That's my dad...he is a good man, but didn't psychologically leave his mother and grow up, so now my mother is his mother.

I think every ounce of unnecessary fat is an ounce of sadness, anger, hurt and unlived life.

I think I'm using more resources in the world than I'm giving.

My life is ruled by the message that I have to choose between myself and others, and only one of us gets to exist. I have to manipulate, steal, cheat and lie in order to get any love for myself, which I have done ad nauseum. I know that my obesity and compulsive overeating in large part (pun intended) is an unconscious assertion of my right to exist and take up space in the world.

That's right, in my heart, there is a part of me behind the curtain that feels like I have no right to exist, so I keep getting and staying large as a way to say Fuck You! to a world that rejects and doesn't want me for anything but a garbage can.

Here's some history:

I'm an almost-40-yr-old caucasian male, married, with children. I'm 390 pounds and 5'11". I've been diagnosed as an insulin dependent Type 1 diabetic since age 20 (I have poor blood sugar control).

I was born fat and have just kept getting fatter since then. Although, I seem to have plateaued at about 390.

Maybe I'll insert more of my childhood history in the future.

I played sports my entire childhood and was very good at them, despite being 215 pounds by the end of high school. Being exceptionally good at everything I did...hockey, wrestling, baseball, academics, art, socializing...blah blah blah...helped me stay in denial of my addiction and health problems until pretty recently, when my life began to unravel and fall apart in many ways (perhaps to be discussed in more detail later). Don't let anyone ever tell you that hitting bottom is about losing things in life...it's about waking up from denial.

I consider my addiction a battle in which the only way of winning is to surrender, and the only enemy is denial, not food, eating, or my body. As long as I live with the belief that I have one iota of control in life I am at risk of allowing my addiction to run my life.

My mother was morbidly obese by the time she was a teenager, and then she lost wieght through diet and exercise, achieved a "normalish" weight, and hasn't really been obese since then. My maternal grandmother, Nanna, was morbidly obese, diabetic, and died of a heart attack due to diabetes. My mother's side of the family has serious obesity, as well as alcoholism, various and sundry kinds of abuse, and paranoid schizophrenia.

My father's side has diabetes, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, a little bit of cancer, and a massive heaping helping of downright evil codependency.

That's enough for now. I have this strange paradox of working very hard and yet not doing enough. I'm tired and Queenie is nudging me from our bed.

That's another thing...life really is beautiful and amazing, and I have an amazing wife and children. I'm deeply grateful for what the universe has given me...yet, I'm also deeply unsatisfied with the resevoir of unlived life I've hoarded.

What do you call two MD's standing next to each other?

A paradox...get it...a pair-a-docs!

If I can only learn to use my powers for good instead of e-ville!