A picture I took this morning during my jog on the Delaware and Raritan Canal towpath. I hate waking up so early, but the autumnal beauty is stunning.
How about that gap in entries, eh? Sorry. I’m a terrible writer. Sure, I write well, but if this was going to pay the bills, we’d be in a van down by the river.
Anyhow.
I’m becoming bored with before-and-after “Hey everyone, look at how skinny I am” thing. It’s somewhat embarrassing. I always wonder what the hell I was thinking for so long. That said, I think it doesn’t hurt to show it here for the sake of comparison, because I think the changes are pretty extreme:
Especially that picture. Yikes. “What the hell was I thinking?!” indeed….
How did I go from looking like a fat lump shoving a smore into his face to being That Guy who takes pictures of himself in locker rooms? Good question.
The whole thing was a process. And it requires total investment in that process. If you don’t have that internal buy-in, nothing I say or nothing you read will do a goddam thing to help you.
As I’ve said previously, the process is a rewiring. It’s like when you get behind your entertainment center and you marvel at how wires can develop such intricate knots. You unplug everything, identify which cords belong to what devices, and try to do better.
Before you can change your thought patterns, you have to isolate and identify your thoughts. You need to know what the patterns are. See where the kinks were and work around them.
So without further ado:
Investigate what you’re taking in. Focus on the foods which give you the most amount of pleasure. How much are you eating those things? How much alcohol are you drinking? Drugs? Write down the things which you know are A Problem for you.
Track your physical habits for a week. Track everything. Sleep. Walking—every phone has a step tracker, use it. Video games. Sex and/or masturbation. Sports. Screen time. Everything. Write it all down. Separate exertion and sleep from lethargy and indulgence. What do those two lists look like? Take note.
Once you identify what foods and behaviors you overindulge in, tell yourself to put them aside for the most part. Replace them with healthful food and physical exertion. Find the things you enjoy about these new behaviors and dwell upon those aspects. If you dislike most everything, focus on that one little thing you do. Be intentional.
Every day ask yourself “What pleasurable thing will I do today?” Sometimes that’s a jog. Sometimes it’s a weight routine. Sometimes it’s sitting on your ass playing Atari. Sometimes that’s a whole pizza. Never beat yourself up for lapsing. But be honest with yourself. “Today, I would rather eat something outside what I ought to eat, and that’s okay.” And don’t blow smoke up your ass, be 100% invested in your choice.
As you go through the process, be sure that your healthy pleasure days outnumber the less-healthy ones. And really, for the first 30 days, focus primarily on healthy pleasures over unhealthy dietary pleasures. Again, be intentional.
Don’t dwell on old patterns or failures, focus entirely on pleasure. You will develop new habits. They will become more powerful than old habits. You will get high on what you’re doing. Enjoy everything.
It is my opinion that the only thing that works for bodily reclamation is a dedication to an austere hedonism. Denying yourself for the sake of a better body will result in you saying “Fuck this shit” and not continuing. This is why diets rarely work. This is why you never return to the gym after you overdid it for two days in a row. This is why all the gimmicks fall apart just like an old used ThighMaster®.
To paraphrase Orwell: “It is not enough to merely put up with the process; you must love it”
You must learn to transform unhelpful patterns of behavior into healthful pleasure-seeking indulgences. You cannot expect to do this in a continual state of ascesis.
Once you get to that point of pleasure, then you get into the realm of habit. Once you get into the realm of habit, you create results. Once you see results, you want more results, because it’s such a high. Once you’re turned on and tuned in, you want more pleasure, which creates new habits, which provides more results.
Wash, rinse, repeat. This is continual improvement.
In many ways, this is a sexual process. You will tap into that built-in pleasure-seeking well of energy. If you’re attentive and mindful enough, you will learn to cross those wires. It’s wild when that happens.
“Wow, so I’m going to lose weight and possibly climax? Yay! But…there has to be a downside. What is it?”
It’s this: You will do this for the rest of your life.
There is no “maintenance phase.” This becomes part of your day to day. As long as your body allows you to, you will need to engage in the process.
Just like you must brush your teeth, or bathe, or eat your vegetables, or learn to put up with a sports team which continually breaks your heart, you must develop these habits and live into them.
But the great thing is that the more you do, the more you want to do.
That’s my thesis. That ‘s what I hope to cover here.
And hopefully it won’t take a few months to really get started breaking things down.