Resolutions

2009 wasn't a very good year for New Year's resolutions. Typically I give myself pretty achievable tasks, but this past year apparently was too rough to even achieve those. Of course, the biggest thing was my weight. The entire year, I waffled between 235 and 250 pounds like a car stuck in the mud.

No more of that, though. I'm tired of faltering. From this day on, I'm putting myself on a strict diet. I'm not going to speak much of it, because I know the more I talk about it with others, the less I will be motivated to stick with it. I will, though, definitely talk of the progress that results from it, of course.

I've set up an Excel file to track my calories each day and week. If I don't hit my minimum by a certain time at night, I have to make an emergency run to Burger King or something and get what I need. No excuses. Time to get firm with myself.

I managed to snag my father's Gorillapod for my camera, so I'll be able to take some more exciting photos. I'm going to be taking a lot of progress photos, if this all goes to plan.

2010 will be the year I hit 300.

Outerwear

I used to really hate winter. Well, I still do (what's the point in snow now that it can't cancel class?), but I used to hate winter because it forced all the studly college boys to cover their bodies with bulky jackets and such. Now, I don't mind so much. A truly large guy's size is actually accentuated by a nice jacket or hoodie, I've found. Plus it also makes me look bigger than I actually am.

I went to work last week and was chatting with my boss with my jacket and scarf still on. I happened to catch myself in his window and really liked what I saw. I don't know if it was just compared to my boss (a 5-foot-nothing little guy), but I thought I looked pretty big. My mother got me a nice white Under Armour hoodie, and that coupled with a scarf and my backpack... I don't know, I was just impressed with myself. I ended up puffing out my chest a little bit, and I think I missed most of our conversation after that point.

Needless to say, that day turned out very well. It's amazing what a little boost in self-confidence can do for your productivity.

Hunger

A huge side effect of all this beer drinking and binge eating seems to be an increase in my appetite. I tend to be hungry a bit more often, but when I am it's quite noticeable. Like audible gurgling noticeable. I don't really see it as a problem--I'm almost proud of how often it occurs--because it forces me to eat more often. The only trouble is when I am in, say O'Hare airport where all the food costs me an arm and a leg, I have to just deal with the pangs as best I can.

It is quite powerful, these hunger pangs. As an example, it used to be before tests and such, I am usually a nervous, anxious mess. I can't even stand the thought of eating, when I'm like that. But before the test that I took on Sunday (and believe me, I was nervous), the hunger seemed to overpower it. I had to make several food stops before and after it! I was quite impressed with myself.

The only trouble is, if I have to ignore the hunger for too long, it almost seems to go away. If I had a graph of my hunger over time, it would spike immediately and slowly taper off. This, I assume, is a product of my childhood where I would frequently ignore meals out of laziness. I need to learn to act on my hunger immediately, not only to take advantage of a large appetite, but also to decrease the amount of time until this gut starts rumbling again.

Diary of a Gainer

I'm quite disappointed in myself. Back when I first started this blog, I promised myself that I would stick to it and not let it collect dust like every other Blogger blog out there. It was quite easy to maintain that promise while I was still gaining weight like crazy and attracting so much attention. Granted, this blog has already outlasted the majority of blogs on the web, but as the pounds stopped piling on, there was less and less to talk about.

It is entirely my fault, this dust-collecting. I tried too hard to make it interesting to you, the readers, to read. It's hard to not become infatuated with the attention I've been given over the years. But unfortunately, that meant if I couldn't think of anything worth writing about, I didn't write anything at all. So, in an attempt to reignite my desire to chronicle this experience of mine, I've given the old blog a new coat of paint and I've decided to change up the tone a bit.

So, from now on this is more of a journal than a blog. The main reason I keep this place alive is that I want to be able to look back on my experiences. I want to be able to remember what it was like to be that skinny, pale 140-pound teenager yearning for a body he could be proud of. While I would hope it were interesting enough for folks to check on a regular basis, I'm going to stop worrying about that and focus more on keeping my motivation alive.

It has been tough lately, though. I have a huge test tomorrow up in Chicago that has taken up almost every ounce of my attention over the past few months, and I'm not even sure if I can pass this year! On top of that, my boyfriend was generous enough to share his (swine?) flu with me here in our shoebox apartment, so I'm not even going to be at 100% mental strength for it. Despite this, I've been in oddly good spirits. I feel as if my belly has grown in the past few weeks, even if the scale says no change in weight. Every morning, I'm greeted by a shapely form that I cannot resist hefting and wobbling in the shower. It's sparked quite a bit of creativity in me, as well--I've been doodling occasionally and have some very creative story ideas floating around my head just begging to be written down.

It is amazing what being happy in your body does for your esteem. The only thing that bums me out is that I haven't been to the gym since graduating college in May. I've been doing occasional push-ups and curls with milk jugs, but somehow it's just not quite the same. Hopefully by the time it gets warmer around here again, I'll have a job and enough income to start going to a real gym again.

Then again, I've said something along those lines almost every month. Who knows what'll happen this time.