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Name Calling:

As a heavy child, I was no stranger to name calling. Maybe it was this early exposure to hurtful name calling, which has caused me to focus on the good kind of name calling.

I have been called many positive things: Dad, Husband, Physical Therapist, Captain, Comedian, Actor, Magician, Entrepreneur, Author, Rock Climber, Sailor, Computer Geek, Kayaker, Tri-athlete and Doctor. . . among others. When used together they are accurate descriptors of "me." I have worked hard to earn these names. These names are honors that I take seriously. They are like ribbons on the chest of a solider and I wear mine with pride.

What I wear with the most pride are the names that I am no longer called. I have worked hard not to be called "heavy-set," "husky," "Big Russ," "big guy," or simply "fat," "obese," or "huge."

When I started my weight loss journey, I never thought that I would ever wear the name "thin," "slim," "svelte," or even "fit." Frankly, I would have been willing to settle for "chubby," or even "stout." I thought that would be the best I would ever do. As I progressed along the road to weight-loss I began to see myself as just "thin," "slim," "svelte," and "fit." I began to form an image of what I could become. What I thought I would never become. I now had a new name I was looking to add to my repertoire: "Loser." I wanted to be a loser and stay a loser. Fueled by the clear image of what I have become, I feel that I am a loser and I feel confident I will stay a loser.

When I first lost weight, I still saw myself as a fat person. My body image was out of whack. The first time my reality came to blows with the outer reality was during a walk down the hall of a nursing home.

In case you are not aware of this, old folks, many of whom can't hear well whisper very loudly – this is OK because they don't really care who might overhear. Routinely, my walks down the halls of the nursing home would be narrated by an endless stream of commentary on my "fatness." Not so much cat calls as: "Oh that poor man, how can he even walk when he is that fat?"

On this one particular day, as I rounded the corner, I heard a resident gasp as they looked up at me and they "whispered" to the resident next to them: "My goodness isn't that man so . . . . TALL." I was in shock – I was TALL. For the first time ever, I was TALL. Not "fat, " not "huge" but just TALL. I had arrived! My hard work had paid off! Finally, recognition from a representative of a group that is notorious for telling it like it is! I felt pretty good about myself at that point. That is until the resident in the next wheelchair piped up and "whispered:" "Yeah, and he's bald too!" Nice – I lost 200 pounds so that people could notice that I am bald! No matter, I focus on the names that I have earned.

The truth will set you free

Boy, do I love a good story. I guess we all love a good story. A good story can make us laugh, make us cry, transport us to a new place and even inspire us. The only thing I love better than hearing a good story is telling one. I love to see how my stories move people inspire people and on the rare occasion make people laugh. Sometimes, stories can do us harm. If we listen to the wrong stories, we get bad information and bad information leads to bad decisions.

If you think about it, the storyteller that we hear the most is ourselves. We are constantly telling ourselves stories - I don't know about you but my internal dialogue is constantly running.  When I'm thinking, I'm telling a story. Sometimes the stories I tell myself are hard to believe. But I'm a born sucker - I have been known to tell myself some real fish stories.  But every time I buy it hook line and sinker. The immortal words of Dr. House, everybody lies. What he fails to mention is the …most startling fact;  more often than not, the person we like to his ourselves. Well not a lie really; more of a story.  We will just call it a story with some mis--information. I mean we don't lie really, we just dress up the truth for ourselves. I mean, if were going to go through trouble making up the story, we might as well make it worth hearing.  When the story is real bad, “dressing it up” means “softening” some of the details that are hard to accept. Most of us are passionate, caring human beings - if you needed to hit a friend with some hard reality.  You might soften it a little bit. Did you ever need to tell someone something really bad? How did you start? Did you just hit them with it, brutal, hard - in their face. Or did you . . . soften it. Make some of the details a little less . . . harsh. You might even change some of the most offensive details to make them. . . a little less offensive. Now, who is your best friend - - no really, your best, best friend - the one person in the world - You would never offend. You guessed it.  It's YOU. And when you have bad news to tell yourself - you tell a story. Your subconscious mind works on the it, softens it & like a political spin doctor makes it fit for your consumption. By the time you tell it to yourself, it is a work of art, easy to hear and one hell of a lie. Most of the time the story is so good, we believe it the first time we hear it. If you have never lying to yourself, CONGRATULATIONS . . . . you're doing it right now.

I once read that someone asked Norman Schwarzkopf what makes a good leader and he said: "Tell the truth. Tell the truth to your troops, tell the truth to your superiors and most importantly, tell the truth to yourself.”  If the road to failure is paved with good intentions,  most of us are speeding down that road in a car with a license plate from the state of denial. (And the reason we are always late is because the person in front of us is from the state of confusion; at least that is what we keep telling ourselves)

Nothing gets better until you stop softening your story. If you want to change your life - if you want to make it better, tell yourself, the truth! Trying to solve a problem without admitting that something is wrong is like trying to hit a target with your eyes closed and your gun pointed in the air. {Trying to spit watermelon seeds onto a plate with your eyes closed and your head tilted back; none of the seeds make the plate. 

They just keep hitting you in the face} Telling yourself the truth gives you the freedom to change.

The only question I get more than how did you lose 200 pounds is: how did you let yourself get to be 400 pounds. To tell the truth, I lied. I lied a lot - I lied to myself. I told myself a story, and it was so whopper! I convinced myself it wasn't that bad. “What's one more pants size?” “This is just the way I am?” “I'm big boned” lies, all lies - and I believed every one of them. When I teach my weight loss classes I love to bring in an article I found on the Internet entitled calories that don't count. I own my ice cream store (yes, I really owned an ice cream store) I even hung.  The article on the wall, to help people lie to themselves while they were buying ice cream, as if they needed any help. But remember, we all love a good story.  I still love this one.  I just don't believe it anymore.

The story, from the best of my recollection (and with a little embellishment) goes something like this: in a study just released from the school of hard knocks.  It has just been discovered that the following foods have no calories whatsoever. Thus confirming the long-held belief that these foods eaten under the specific conditions mentioned below, can be consumed in mass quantities and have no detrimental effects on your waistline.

1. Food eaten during the process of cooking. It has been determined that because tasting and eating food while cooking is a process necessary to complete the task properly, the food eaten while preparing food is exempt from the laws of physics, the rules of chemistry, and therefore devoid of calories. This law is important to the evolution of man, because it allows for every cook.  To avoid the dangerous and uncomfortable results of bad cooking.

2. Food from someone else's plate. Based on Norberg's universal law of ownership, and the fact that possession is 9/10 of the law, food that does not belong to you does not have calories. Based on this law, if you are able to get someone else's food from them.  The universe rewards you by allowing you to eat this food guilt free. When you think about it,  it's only fair.

3. Food eaten quickly. Based on Eisenstein’s law of universal time and calorie consumption, the faster you eat something, the less calories it has. If you combine this law with the principle of diminishing return, it is possible to eat something so quickly that it has no calories at all.

4. Food eaten standing up. When you eat standing up, the energy required to maintain that standing position is always proportional to the amount of energy that you are consuming in calories - based on this absolute truth, it is always true that, no matter what it is that you are eating, if you do it standing up, it is free from a caloric standpoint. It has long been theorized that standing on one leg would actually use more calories than the food being eaten, and therefore would actually cause you to lose weight. However, sadly, no one has ever been able to accomplish this long enough to produce a scientific result.

5. Food originally intended for children. Since it is well understood that children do not require the same amount of calories as adults, it has been shown that food made for children does not have any calories. If an adult were to consume a food that was manufactured for children, the adult would get a complete caloric “pass” in the food would have no calories.

6. Food that does not taste good. Since most of us enjoy food that tastes good.  More than food that doesn't our body senses.  When we enjoy food, and therefore negates all calories from food that tastes crappy. It is believed that this law alone has kept White Castle in business for over 60 years.

7. Food prepared for holidays and religious observances. We all know that God does not want to see us get fat and we are also reasonably sure that God would like to see us have some fun. Therefore, based on law of divine intervention to consume for the purposes of religious observances and holidays and events that involve baseball will never have calories.

8. Food eaten while standing in front of the refrigerator at night. In addition to the aforementioned law of all food that is eaten standing up having no calories, the light from the refrigerator also negates all caloric effects. In the 1950s through the government program known as “Better living through chemistry.”  A special light bulb was developed and placed in all refrigerators.  It is this light bulb and the specific light waves it gives off that allows us to eat in front of the refrigerator at night without the fear of gaining weight.

9. Food with writing on it. If your food has writing on it, it is obvious that someone went through a lot of trouble to make that food.  In most cases this food is part of a special event. (see also: Food prepared for holidays and religious observances) It would be rude not to eat it. Since rudeness is not supported by Newtorn’s first law of food thermodynamics - any food eaten for the express purpose of avoiding being rude, has no calories. The good news is this law also applies to any food offered you by gray-haired old ladies. 

10. Food that has fallen on the floor. Since no one in their right mind would eat dirty food, you have to be crazy to eat food that has fallen on the floor. Since we can't be responsible for our own actions, when we are doing something crazy, it would not be fair for us to get fat in the process. Based on this law, if we eat food that has fallen on the floor (five second rule or not) we can eat as much as we want & never gained any weight. This is why college students never, ever gain any weight on spring break. 

The best news about this story is that if your food qualifies under more than one category.  It may actually have negative calories and could be considered the newest form of fad diet. You should try it; trust me. I wouldn't lie to you.

YOU DON'T WANT MY SHOES!

I spend a lot of time looking into the faces of desperate people as they ask me the same question: "How did you lose 200 pounds?” Over the years it has occurred to me that they are not interested in my answer. What they really want is THE ANSWER, the big answer. They want the secret.  They want a one-stop solution. They want to learn what I did in the hopes that they follow in my footsteps. I don't blame them. I remember being there myself. I remember searching for answers - I wanted the fast track. I wanted this problem over with and done.

The good news is there is an answer - I'm not sure if you can call it a secret really because as it turns out everyone already knows it. The real trick, the real art is making the answer fit in your life. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that the best way to lose weight, scratch that, the ONLY way to lose weight is to eat less and move more. In fact if I were to tell you that you would probably want your money back for this book.  You would probably say to yourself what the hell do I need this book for? This guy has devoted his life, stolen my precious time, and sacrificed countless trees - to answering a question that has a one sentence answer. A one sentence answer that everyone already knows!  - That sucks!  Ahh! But here's where it gets interesting - and we need to make that one sentence answer fit us. Each one of us is so different and the factors that influence how much we and how much we move are so complex that what you need is a personalized solution. A solution that fits you like a shoe. The reason your past the attempts at dieting have failed is because you were trying to wear someone else's shoes. Have you ever bought shoes from a thrift shop? If you have, you probably got your money's worth. You get a set of shoes that fell apart and probably hurt your feet. If I were to give you my answer, my "secret" as to what I do right now to maintain my weight, it would be like giving you my shoes. The truth is that if I did give you my shoe and probably wouldn't be your size. It would either flop around on your foot and then fall off or you wouldn't even get your foot into the damn thing. Even if it was your size, once I have had my foot in it, you don't want it anyway! Trust me, (and this is supported by anyone who's ever gotten close to my shoes) you do NOT want my shoes! To complicate matters even further the "shoes" I wear today are not the same "shoes" but I wore a year ago. My "shoe needs” are constantly changing - my old shoes wear out and they need repair. Sometimes my shoes need to be maintained. And sometimes they need to be replaced.  (discuss maintenance programs here) Let's face it all of our shoes could use a little polish.