Monday 1543: Game on the Line

Before we get too deep into the blog post, we first must perform an exercise in the art of visualization.  Picture yourself, if you will, attending a professional basketball game where you spent $1,500 to sit court side.  Imagine that your two favorite teams are playing, and if one of your favorite teams is the Timberwolves, picture a different team who doesn't have all of their hopes pinned on Spanish Bieber who shot 27% from the floor coming off the bench in the Euro League.  Let's say it is Michael Jordan's '95-'96 Bulls playing Magic Johnson's '85 Lakers.  In this match-up, you have enormous hopes of seeing MJ do a breakaway dunk from the free throw line, Kareem drop a sky-hook over Luc Longley, and Scottie Pippen banging bodies with Magic Johnson.  You've been hyping this game to all of your friends and family, who happened to have also shelled out $1,500 to line the court alongside you.  The first whistle blows, the referee tosses up the initial jump ball, Kareem tips it to Magic and then...nothing happens.  It isn't that the two teams aren't playing hard.  There is a ton of competitive spirit on the court, but no one seems to be able to score.  Scottie completely shuts down Magic, who can barely get the ball up the court.  Ron Harper keeps trying to get it to Jordan, but he inadvertently keeps dribbling the ball off of his foot.  The first half ends and the score is 0-0.  You know that you're watching basketball greatness, but is it possible that both teams are so great that they are just cancelling out each other?  You look around the court and see the looks of confusion on the faces of your loved ones.  Didn't you just tell them that Jordan dropped 60 the night before and that he surely had an encore planned for all of them?

The second half tips off and it is more of the same.  Both teams are giving everything they've got on defense, and both teams keep making stupid, obvious mistakes on offense.  As a Bulls fan, you are happy that with all of the mistakes your team makes, including when Dennis Rodman punched a ref, kicked a cameraman, and peed on the Benny the Bull mascot costume at half-court, that somehow you're still in this game.  However, you're also more than a little disappointed because you've got a certain level of expectation of what this team is capable of, and now you've invested $1,500 to see those same results again.  Time continues to tick off the clock and the defensive game of the century continues to wage on.  Finally, there are 10 seconds left in the game. Jordan has the ball in his hands, and everyone is on their feet.  Jordan backs James Worthy down, fakes left, crosses over to his right, jumps up as he fades away and....

This is currently where I sit with this weight loss challenge.  I honestly don't know what comes next.  For the past three weeks I have lost exactly zero pounds.  I've also gained exactly zero pounds.  Nobody pays and gets excited to see a 0-0 game (do you hear me soccer?!).  From my years of weight loss fights, I can tell you that having stagnant results is the worst possible scenario for me.  If I lose weight, great!  Whatever I'm doing is working and I should keep doing it.  If I gain weight, shit!  But at least I can go back and look at what I'm doing and make the adjustments necessary to right the ship.  When I go almost an entire month at the exact same weight?  Well, now I start to question what the hell is going on and whether or not this is the exact weight that I'm stuck with at this lifestyle that I'm settling into.  I can assure you I am not comfortable with this weight or this lifestyle.  

Although the lack of posting in the past few weeks was mostly related to being busy at work, being stressed about money, and just having a general lack of things to say about anything, it is also hard to come here and continue to post the exact same picture of the scale week after week.  When I mess up and gain, I usually have a funny story and some personal affirmation that I can continue on.  When I do well and I'm happy, my blogs are no where near as much fun, but everyone seems to like a good success story.  When there aren't any results at all, well, I feel like I'm writing play-by-play for that 0-0 basketball game.  So, I guess I'm at a point where I'm waiting to see if Jordan's final shot goes in to win the game (which is what we've all come to expect) or if the Lakers defense was just too dominant and we end the game in a tie.  The worst possible case (which has happened more than once in the past three weeks) is that Jordan misses off the back of the rim so badly that it ricochets all the way back to the other end of the court and scores for the Lakers.  Seriously, I've done some really dumb sabotage things in the past couple of weeks in hopes of gaining weight and seeing the number move in some direction, just so I know that I don't need to replace the batteries in my scale.  I have seen the numbers go up one day, but they always settle back down the next.  

I'm going to settle back down this week and try to jump start the system.  I was at 258 this morning, so I'm really hoping to see something in the 256 range by Friday.  It is going to be tough because I have a social calendar filled to the brim every night this week, but I have to stop using that as a crutch.  Other people are able to go out and not weight 260 lbs.  I just need to make smart decisions and control what I can control.  I also need to get back on the literal basketball court.  We took last week off so that everyone could mend and because we were always short guys, but we are going to get started back up today.  It should be interesting. 

In the meantime, I'm going to use this picture that was taken a couple of weeks ago as my motivation to keep moving.  I'm hoping it is the Scottie Pippen alley-oop that I need to start putting points back on the board.  

Seriously, how do other fat people always avoid being photographed in profile, yet, someone always catches a picture of me looking perfectly round?  For further proof of this phenomena, go ahead and browse my Facebook pictures. Two pictures can be taken on the exact same day, and from the front I look great, from the side I'm all blimpy.  There's a reason all my Match.com pics are taken of me looking straight forward, preferably with my fat all stretched out and evenly distributed as I put my arms around two friends' shoulders.  Anyway, this picture was taken the week I hit 257 for the first time. I was super proud of where I was at and imagined myself looking pretty svelte.  Now that I've seen the picture I know that 257 was a great accomplishment, but it is nowhere near the end of my journey. 

I guess at this point the best we can hope for is that we don't see this:

But instead, maybe one of these:

Jeff Pool, 23