My Weight Loss Journey

I have felt odd about sharing this elsewhere, so I will do it here. Looking back, it appears that roughly when I learned the results of this last presidential election, I had a paradigm shift that led to significant changes in personal habits. Essentially, it became clear that rather than edging toward an uncertain future, we will instead be plunging headlong into an apocalyptic scenario. It is no longer realistic to consider humanity's ongoing survival in its current state, not with the degree of change that the climate is currently undergoing.

So I started drinking too much. I was drinking so much that when I went for a little lunch meeting to prep for a writing gig, I had to excuse myself to the restroom, where I promptly vomited. Just barely keeping it together. So I explored edibles and, critically, stopped exercising regularly.

Now, I have at many times in the past, attempted to stop working out. It eats into my schedule and is frankly annoying, but every time I stop, my work ethic dies out, and this time, combined with the munchies brought on by edibles, I was taking in something like 5x as many calories as usual. So I developed a gut. And I began to settle for that, but when I tried doing my usual stretches, I now had a physical obstacle in the form of my belly. I also played my first slapstick comedy role during this time, and the gut was unattractive for the persona that I have developed.

But then I decided to get back into shape, to go running again. Then the California wildfires hit the very next day, and suddenly, the cardio that I wanted to do could literally kill me, so I drove south and kept exploring edibles, kept eating. And then I experienced the odd sensation of not needing to eat anymore. Eating became a choice for pleasure rather than mere sustenance, because I could feel that my extra fat stores could sustain me, particularly since my writing habits have me living pretty sedentary anyway.

The fires did eventually get put out, and the air cleared, and I finally returned to slowly get my body back into shape. And it was not that hard. The hardest part was and continues to be the cardio. I used to run 2 1/2 miles every time, and now I am hitting a mile on a good day, with lots of breaks thrown in. That being said, I can feel myself improving. Work ethic is up, my abs are coming back, and this timing is critical to some degree because I am doing creature work, modeling, and medical skill demonstrations in a couple weeks' time.