Day 2 - Pants And My Struggles With Them

The alarm didn't stand a chance. My wife had stirred at around 5:30am, and in my semi-conscious state, I determined that the wake-up call I had set for myself was no longer a priority. I bumped it ahead 30mins and went back to sleep. So much for being pumped to get this underway. As I awoke, the guilt set in. "What am I doing? Why must I cheat myself?" And then I realized that maybe, just maybe, this isn't that big of a deal. One morning out of hundreds more to come will not likely be the catalyst of my undoing for this, the final round of the ebb and flow that is my weight.

The lasagna is now a distant memory, heartburn subsided, ready to take on Day 2. The scale was kind to me this morning, especially considering the damage that could have been done. Down a few pounds from yesterday morning, and feeling OK. On go my pants, one leg at a time, just like anyone else, but there's a problem here. They're tight, and quite filth-ridden. My wife notifies me that my new pants are in the dryer. As I fill the tattered basket with all of our freshly laundered...laundry, I think about all of the unworn clothes that have hung in the closet for what feels like an eternity.

The vast majority of my current wardrobe was purchased back when the scale read 225. Back then I thought, "There's no way I'll ever let myself get bigger, so lets start replacing all of my 'big guy' clothes". This was against the sage-like advice of my wife, who had mentioned that I should hang on to the old stuff "just in case". At the time I thought she was being a little mean, but it turns out she knows me much better than I do. I usually had three to four pairs of pants on hand (a mix of denim, khaki, and dressy), and as I began to expand, the converse was happening to the choices of clothing available to me. One day, none of my jeans fit. "That's OK, the dress pants were a little bigger. Those will work until I drop the weight back down." Not long after, the dress pants weren't an option. "Oh well, the cargo pants used to need a belt to stay on, but now they fit just fine on their own." What the...? Shouldn't THAT be enough of a sign to smarten up? Of course not. I'll just head out and get a new pair of pants to hold me over until I fit back into the old ones. Just one. Within weeks, I would be known as "the guy in the grey pants", because they were the only pants that fit me, therefore, the only ones I would wear. Just this past weekend, I finally broke down and got another pair of pants to compliment the "grey big boy pants" I purchased so long ago as a temporary fix. Want to know something? Those big boy pants were getting a little tight, so I went up one more size for these new ones. This was one alarm I could no longer continue to set 30min ahead.

Day 2 was better than Day 1 in that, my intake was much more balanced. No gorging, great portion control, all that stuff. I even resisted an offer of a Slurpee during the day, one of my favourite treats that I'll gladly save for the weekend. On my way home from work, I stopped in at the store to get the final ingredients for my "egg-bake", my own classic concoction that is delicious, healthy, and light. Without getting into too much detail: eggs, dry whole wheat pasta, mushrooms, bell peppers, jalapeños, red onion, cottage cheese, Frank's Xtra Hot Sauce, Montréal Steak Spice, oregano, basil. The majority of the dish is the veggies, the pasta is added just for a little extra bulk. My wife had the ingenious idea to substitute the pasta with some hash browns, so I put a few of those in this time as well. When I finally got home I was a little hungry so I had a classic snack while I began the food prep for the egg-bake. Cheese on a bun. Likely something else I should cut out, but hey, we're on Day 2 here. Everything in moderation, I only had one. We had planned to take in a movie, but because this dish requires a lot of food preparation and bake time, we postponed the movie for Day 3. That's how important food is in our house.

I hit the treadmill at around 10pm. I felt much better than Day 1, having to take it down to a brisk walk every few minutes was a must, but I hammered through it. I wonder how long it will take to finally feel comfortable running again? Baby steps. Don't want to burn out. By the end, I had doubled my production from Day 1; 2miles/30min. (I wish the display had a Metric option, what the heck is a mile?) I then dropped to the mat to finish the day properly, by doing the little workout I'd missed this morning. I'm not looking to set any records here, just getting started. 100 crunches, 20 push-ups, and 20 tricep dips. I'm done, and now I don't feel so bad for sleeping in. Hit the couch for some light TV, and then off to bed. I make sure to turn off my 6:30 alarm in advance, there's got to be some re-tooling in that department. Another day done, and I now feel that this is officially underway. My brain has switched over to "determined", and I'll be damned if anyone's going stop me. Namely myself. Or those grey pants.