And, With Hat in Hand, I'm Back...

I have chosen to start up this blog again without notifying anyone. I would like to see if I can grow this blog organically -- plus, I am ashamed to let anyone I know know I have fallen so far. At least for the time being I am not going to notify any of my friends and family.

Since this blog, and writing, helped me tremendously by forcing myself to write about my adventures and my quest, I am just as happy to write in a total vacuum.

What happened? On May 1, 2010 I ended my vegan quest down 60 lbs, and erased my impending heart-attack levels of bad cholesterol. I then went back to drinking, but eating healthfully. Once in a while I would drink to excess and a trip to the pizza parlor at 2 AM would soon follow. My work-outs became less frequent. I gained a few pounds, but I thought, "Hey, I know how quickly I can loose it!"  But, I missed chasing fun. In seemed to have an iron grasp on me.

I last wrote in this blog 1 year after I started. My life was looking up as a new job, and new girlfriend shined brightly upon my new self. But, there was an inexplicable hole in my life, one that was nagging at me. As my girlfriend wanted to curb my drinking (a fraction of what it used to be), and cut out my once or twice a month cigar habit, something changed inside of me. I rebelled. Not because of her, of course, I had been rebelling (unknowingly) since I ended my quest. I missed having fun, I thought. I was an idiot.

For the past year I still ate oatmeal for breakfast, and salads for lunch, but I also ate, sometimes, like the bad old days for dinner, only sporadically exercised, and weekends sometimes became heavy drinking affairs. Sadly, as I shuffled to the shower in the morning with a throbbing headache I would pass the empty pizza box on the floor that lit up like a Las Vegas neon sign saying, "SHAME!"

I gained back at least half the weight I lost, and lost my girlfriend.

Somehow, a 42 year old man was acting like an 8 year old, and any chance I could I would, whenever she was not around, chose to live my life like Ernest Hemingway. Whereas she viewed a few glasses of wine on the weekend, plus a couple of drinks during the week, as "excessive," and forbade me from ever enjoying a cigar with the boys, I knew that was not "excessive." What I chose to do, however, was push the limits - I was dumb. She was a remarkable woman, one of the most beautiful and classiest people I ever met, but I could not change who I was -- I could only change how I was behaving. Even at my goal weight - which is disgustingly far away now - I would still like to let loose a little once in a while with the boys, or around some big sporting event. Something she did not want me to ever do again. To live a purely healthy life, and then pick one or two days out of 30 to have a right proper drink up and then quickly go back to healthy living was off the table in this relationship. I could not live with that - I was 100% fine with a demand to live a healthy life, with a couple of days allowed for blowing off steam with the boys, providing I stayed healthy and at my goal weight. That is what I came to the peace table with, but it was rejected. I will always respect and lover her. But I must start, yet, another new chapter in my life.

Minutes ago, after watching merely the trailer of the new documentary "Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead" I decided to recommit myself to my health. It seems like a cruel pattern. When my now ex-girlfriend gently and positively supported my healthy lifestyle I rebelled like an ignorant child. When I made a commitment for this Lenten Season to go back to my good old days I quickly broke my "no drinking" rule and chose to chase fun.

 

This weekend I was with friends in a bar when the lights came on at closing time at 4 AM. I felt miserable all day. I felt like a loser. I felt that everything I accomplished from Nov.'09-May'10 was lost - like it never happened.

Today, April 4th, eight days shy of my 43rd birthday, I am recommitting myself to get my life back....again!