Perfect Machine
“Disgusting”
“Pathetic”
“Gross”
“Fat”
Mean right? Wouldn’t you say so? Would you EVER be friends with someone who talks to you that way? I certainly hope not… I would hope you had the self worth and courage to stand up to that friend and tell them to go fuck themselves. But what if that wasn’t your friend? What if those insults were coming from you?
You and your inner dialogue to yourself. You’d tell yourself to stop right? Man, that’s so much easier said than done.
After I had lost 110lbs, I had a lot of folks ask me what did I do and what I recommend. Honestly, it took a lot of patience, persistence, and psychology to get me to drop all that weight. If you’re curious about what I did, you can listen to my friend Sonya’s podcast “What Won’t She Say” with the episode named after me to hear about how I used basic principles of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to track WHY I wasn’t losing weight. I found a pattern which helped me lose it, but ultimately not the root cause of all of it which would help me sustain that weight loss goal.
2018 vs 2020. Hey! I still fit in those boots at least…
Truthfully, the psychology of losing weight is so complicated and so individualistic. Motivation, habits, behaviors, etc. are all different between people. Sugar is incredibly addictive, and even the most motivated folks can have into the sweet, sweet dopamine highs it can give you. There ain’t enough “willpower” in the world to stop dopamine… I don’t give a shit WHO you are. The key is to re-program your brain into getting dopamine highs off of WANTED behaviors (like running or eating a salad or juggling or whatever it is you substituted your unwanted behavior for a wanted one). It’s complicated as hell. Don’t get me wrong, just as the podcast implies, I DID hack my brain giving myself dopamine highs from working out and I did face some really hard truths about myself. There’s just another layer that I’m working to uncover.
Last year, one of my goals was to be a fitness instructor. Sure, I know the science of fitness and I’m armed with the advantage of both being a success story and understanding the psychology behind it… but I didn’t become a fitness instructor. Why? Because I have the absolute worst body dysmorphia…
Since moving to Texas and getting a girlfriend, I’ve gained 15 pounds (not her fault… just happy weight!). I know, it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the 110 I previously lost, and really I should be proud of myself that I kept off any and all extra weight for nearly two years after reaching my goal weight. Still, I can’t help but look in the mirror and loathe myself some days.
The beginning of 2021 I was KILLING it. I was doing jiu jitsu all the time, coupled with CrossFit; I was in a bulk phase but I was a complete monster. Now, my body composition isn’t the same and I’m heavier than I was which doesn’t make me feel so good.
I’ve always been kind of careful about how I present my body on social media, not because I give a fuck about bragging, but because I don’t want to give the wrong impression to those who have self-image issues. I have teenagers, especially young girls, who follow me and what I say can be damaging. I don’t want people to see me lose weight and suddenly my life becomes this magical parade of happiness. No, I still have the problems I had when I was fat, albeit less health problems (proud to say my blood pressure dropped and my resting heart rate us 50… I got a good ticker!). Losing weight didn’t solve my mental health issues, or make me more financially stable, or helped me live a lavish lifestyle. Those existential problems still persist (the only problem is now I can’t eat those problems away… I now have to deal with them… fuck).
People see folks on the internet who are fit and think “man, they must fuck better, have more money, and are happier than me.” Let me tell you the truth… they don’t fuck better, their finances could be garbage, and they probably have bad self esteem too: some of the best body builders I know have really bad body dysmorphia… they’ll pick apart every single flaw, every single accessory muscle, every single rep on the bench. They’re hyper critical too and they’ll be the first to admit it.
Body dysmorphia, people pleasing, rejection sensitivity dysmorphia as it turns out are all products of ADHD. That nasty little RSD, it fuels this sense of not being good enough. You wanna know just how bad RSD can be? Every time my boss sets up a meeting with me, I IMMEDIATELY think he’s going to fire me. Shit you not, last week we had a meeting in which he told me I was doing outstanding and gave me the biggest bonus I’ve ever had… AND STILL I left feeling like I wasn’t good enough. It’s incredibly tough to break that mindset, and because of that it leads to things like people pleasing, fear of trying new things, paranoia, body dysmorphia, etc.
So now combined with the fact that ADHD makes it really hard to have impulse control, it’s like rowing a boat with one oar. I just keep finding myself going in circles.
I mean, she looks so happy doing it… maybe this isn’t so bad? This is what I get for picking a boat analogy when I don’t know shit about boats…
Talking to my counselor we had to sit down and talk about how many times I binge eat a week in which she then proceeded to ask me if I ever made myself throw up after.
Me: “No, no… I absolutely HATE throwing up…”
Her: “Good, good…”
Me: “Instead I compensate by running 2 miles…” my need for comedy never fails.
I pick apart my body constantly. Some days I’m a lot kinder to myself than others. Currently, I’m angry at myself for the weight gain, but I am trying to look at this with respect to physically performing better rather than “looking good naked” (which is subjective). I take great pride in being strong… and I need to focus on that rather than how I look. Am I strong? Am I mentally well? Those are the things I need to focus on rather than a numerical value… but it’s hard to look in the mirror still.
I know most of you would think I’d end this blog with an answer, as I seem to always have a magical revelation at the end of my posts but really… I don’t. Sorry, I got nothin’…. I guess this is just Chapter 1 on a new journey: finding the balance between loving myself and as I try to figure out how to make myself the “Perfect Machine.”
Stay tuned for when I figure that out I guess.
