Brandon, Who Lives At Home

I've been gone for a bit from blogging, it ties in perfectly with my commitment or lack thereof to my weightloss journey. It has completely took a 180 in the worse way. In june things started to come to a head. I was having binging episodes every other week that eventually turned into every week, by October I had completely reverted back to my old self. Using food to cope with any and everything, and mindless binging and gorging until I felt absolutely disgusting. The last week weeks of December I had a binge pretty much every day. Ive gained an absolutely absurd amount of weight in a very short time. My lowest was 322, I'm currently up to 371. I haven't been on a weightloss journey in the last month to be honest. December I out did myself with just how much I could binge, how many days I could binge, and how miserable I can make myself feel. I fully realize I'm on the path to complete regain. I have to stop this  now. I have to get my head in the game, now. If I don...

Is now. Years ago, just after I first made this blog I had gotten a very mean-spirited and destructive letter from my my grandma. I've kept that letter as a constant reminder of how completely clueless my family was to my internal battles of depression. That letter nearly killed me. Recently I got into a shouting match with my brother about him and his sons eating of my food and how the budget realistically and by all means technically, didn't cover 4 people it covers 2. I had discussed the issue with my therapist earlier in the day, and she said I should definitely say something about it. I warned her that I knew it wouldn't go over well. It didn't. Well along with being called selfish for suggesting they get their own food (because there is literally none in the house right now because of the addition of them) I was called a useless fat lazy slob among other things. That was maybe the first time is been called fat directly to my face in years. Several things ...

In every train wreck there is a point when the wheels come off the tracks. That is the point I'm at right now. Its interesting, my blog doesn't get half the traffic it got earlier this year or last. I suppose that's partially my fault, I've taken writing hiatus' several times this year for extended periods of time, and I just haven't been as successful as I have been in previous years. All my trials are reductive, its the same thing rehashed to lesser or greater affect. My weight has been stalled for months, I'm not progressing. I'm all washed up and I think a lot of the original readers seen that and jumped ship. I don't blame them. Right now I'm back in my annual holiday dark haze, I'm miserable and unhappy and lonely, and, useless and ugly and its all coming to a head. I see my psychiatrist Wednesday and idk how that will go, I'm pretty unhinged right now. I've had fantasies of going on one last giant disgusting binge ...

I can't live without the internet, but its killing me. Some of my favorite people on Tumblr and Instagram trigger my body shame and self hatred. Its wanting to look like some of these people so bad. I just end up feeling disgusting and I end up binging my feelings and then I spiral into a very bad place. But without these platforms I also feel insignificant like I'm missing out. Like no one would notice or care if just disappeared one day. I don't know what to do, I have kept going in extreme circles because of various trigger events. I'm just not happy with my body. I only look decent in that black hoodie. My fat placing makes my body so awkward I hate taking photos in bright or soft colors. There just doesn't seem to be away to get passed this. I've considered just straight blogging. No internet usage aside from that. Delete all my social media apps and just stay away from the majority of the internet world. I know that if I do these it will initi...

I realized today that the big eating holidays are right around the corner. Its trouble considering my recent history. That makes it even more important that I keep control over my eating and stay on track.  I want to be able to eat freely on thanksgiving so I need to stay on track now so the damage won't send me higher than where I currently am now as of today 325, I went up to 334 after last weeks bender but now were back in good range. Now I just have to allow myself to break out of this bracket. I took the day off from the gym today, plans to resume tomorrow. I have laid out some good meal plans for the foreseeable future that if I stick to will result in consistent loss. Of course consistency this year has not been great. My mind is in the right place I will just have to truly fight my former self not to break routine.

We are officially two days into my fast. Will I go for the full 72, its quite likely. My mind is in a very calm place.. Its almost like not eating at all is less stressful. Today I hit the gym once again, had a rather nice session too.  I've been watching horror movies. 28 days later, 28 weeks later, I'll eventually get to dawn of the dead (2004), then fear the walking dead. Plus some other spooky flicks. Not too much to report on.

So after a week of diet destruction I've decided I once again want to be skinny. So the journey continues. The past few days continued my binging bender. Yesterday I ate a dozen donuts among many other things. While feeling disgusted I decided I had enough. Food seems completely unappealing to me right now. Ive decided to do a 48-72hr fast. While also hitting the gym. I've already hit the gym today and I'm feeling good. I'm terrified to step on the scale so I won't until Wednesday or Thursday. The goal is to occupy myself. Movies, music, gym etc. Once the fast is over. Its back to kicking ass and taking names. I'm no longer going to restrict myself. In fact I'm going to create a reward system. And an off day, that way everything doesn't seem so forbidden and taboo.

Well it's day 3 of my descent into failed weight loss, total regain, precautionary tale. I've put two overloaded peanut butter and jelly sandwiches down my gullet, a banana and a yogurt. But who's keeping track lol. I'm not too scarred of going back to be 600lbs at the moment. Perhaps my time losing was only ment to be temporary. Like taking a college campus our. I was just here to get an idea of the experience but at the end of the day, go back home. My plan is to binge out on chips today, buy a box of half dozen donuts and eat them all. And have a nice pizza for dinner My ugly face just before my misguided blonde ambition

*This has been sitting in my drafts for weeks now and even though my recent post pretty much summed everything up. This does s better job* I haven't posted much over the last several months mostly cause I have such little to say and feel so unmotivated to write. That being said, its been many highs and lows, my current weight is 324. I could be out of the 300s if not for the cycle of binge eating and desatructive restricting loop I got myself stuck in. Anytime ive been this close to breaking out of the 320s I do something that rockets me back into the 330s for weeks. I think a large part of my lack of motivation is that I just don't feel like someone who has lost 200lbs and that's because all of my clothes are old, even the smaller stuff I have is old, it was either my brothers or my friends, but I really haven't had that moment where its like "wow." Me and my therapist were talking about this for several weeks, I really need a new wardrobe. I just cant af...

I've gone off the deep end. My weight has continued to yoyo because every time I get to a near new low, I immediately derail. Currently I've been on a two day long binge-eating bender. I can't seem to resist the urge to over indulge in sugary foods. Then once I do all bets are off I'm gulping down anything and everything. My once patented ironclad willpower, gone, perished. Now I'm in limbo, I'm depressed and frustrated and I don't know if I can keep this up. I've been considering just diving back into the loving accepting arms of food. I'm just in a place right now where either I'm fully in or fully out and I've been out for 2 days now and one foot out for weeks before that. Well the good news I'm back to blogging. That's my ugly ass, and don't ask about the hair I thought I could pull it off like Odell. I was so wrong

For awhile now I've had this idea in my head that things were just a lot easier when I used food as a way to cope with any situation. You're supposed to replace that habit with something healthier when yo embark on a weight loss journey, but I just left an empty void there. A void that I believed at times was worth the weight because at least when I had a situation that was hard for me, I could instantly urn to food, it was always there to console me. This past week I gave up on my weight loss journey and truly dived into the deep end, I binged and binged, I had fast food, and sugary treats, you name it, all in excess. One thing I told myself during all his is its nice to just be carefree again, its nice to have my confidant, food, back. I may end up miserable but at least at certain times I could make it go away while eating. The truth is, while I was doing all this binging and destructive eating I just felt empty, I kept waiting for that feeling of bliss and comfort I w...

The Journey ended 7/25/17. I reached my breaking point with myself and just decided to call it quits. My heart is obviously not in it anymore. I've been on a food-bender ever since, eating what I can only assume are billions of calories a day, I haven't  been tracking. I guess you can say I'm completely prepared to revert back to my old self, both in size and habits. I had to deactivate my Instagram account because I just couldn't pretend everything was going okay, and because I really didn't want to let a lot of people down by announcing I was done. So its gone, as well as my Facebook. So what now? There isn't much I can say beyond what I've already said, the journey I embarked on was too much, I gave it a go, but in the end my ideal self at my goal weight just wasn't possible, I'm just another failed attempt at weight loss, a precautionary tale really. Now I eat myself numb to oblivion. Its over.

Its been an interesting couple of days, I'm glad to say my eating is on point. Mental, that's another story. Our microwave died which is how I usually cook my veggies, well I decided to boil them on the stove the other day. As I sat in the kitchen watching the pot waiting for it to get to a boil, a fire suddenly ignited underneath the pot. Suddenly there were flames starting to consume the pot. At first I was so shocked at what had just unfolded, after all I originally planned to go back to my room and let the veggies tend to themselves, but I didn't! A first wave of panic hit me, as I got up and saw the flame getting bigger. I removed the pot real quick before it would be completely engulfed. Once I had removed it all I could see was the fire engulfing the entire burner, I suddenly imagined the entire house burning down, if nothing else a completely destroyed kitchen. I literally said "oh no" several times as it was totally a bit overwhelming. Finally I snappe...

. I have to lose this weight, I have to remember what I want. I want the  life I never had. I want to be able to enjoy things, to walk out in front of a crowd and not worry about if my weight is making them stare at me. I want to be able to buy cloths off any rack at virtually any store. I want to be able to fit in the rides at amusement parks, sit in the seats comfortably in movie theaters. I want to rediscover the world from a new perspective, I want so much more. I have to get my focus back, I have to get my consistency back, I have to! I have to do it for me, for the guy that wrote those blog posts in 2015 at the precipice of complete and total mental implosion. He was so miserable all the time, physically and mentally, yet he kept on, he kept fighting because he had what he told himself was a delusion dream, but a dream nonetheless. That guy was so sad, he was so caged in, he was so hopeless, he would never believe how close we've come. I owe it to him to se...

The week has come to a conclusion, and I'm glad to say I've come out this end in a better place then when it started. My plans for the weekend included working out and watching something everyday, eating appropriately and avoid negative situations. That's it, its that simple! Also do my homework for therapy, but that's it. When I started writing this I was a day ahead, but the reality of things its only Thursday! So upon the actual weekend the above are my plans.

Anxiety, every so often I'll reach a point of heightened anxiety because of a collections of reasons that have been building up. There has been some disappointing news around here lately that really has me questioning humanity. My city has had a shocking rise in heroine usage, which consequently has led to a shocking number of overdoses. I don't know anyone on the drug, but a friend of mine has a younger brother who is an addict. Recently some county councilmen proposed a law that would allow EMS workers to refuse  to respond to overdose calls. Essentially let them die is his suggestion.  All because the drug Narcan is expensive (Narcan is used to treat these overdoes) I cant begin to grasp the place of mind this individual must be in to so careleslys discard life like that. What's more shocking is some of the response I've seen regarding it. One person on Facebook said they think they should help them (overdoes) the 1st time, and none after that . One of my close...

Somehow I did it, I made it through my 48hour fast. It was tough, but by the end I had entered a delirious phase that had me pondering how many addition days could I fast. The answer was 0, 0 more days. When I started this I was up to 337.8, now I'm back down to 328.4. The fast was a success, now I just have to remain in my calorie limit, not binge eat, and work out and I should be on the path of continued loss. Actually if I remain consistent I could be out of the 300's in a matter of weeks. Take a look at the video below of an old peak-weight me. (notice the box of Little Debbie snack cakes?) ⚗️👀 #weightloss #weightlosshelp #weightlossjourney #weightlossprogress #healthandfitness #weightlossbeforeandafter #weightlossgoals #obesity #pretransformation A post shared by Brandon Hall (@brandonwholivesathome) on Jun 25, 2017 at 2:34pm PDT

Awkward looking, but oh well I managed to get through my first day of fasting, it wasn't too bad until near the end of the day when I just wanted to break into every item of food in the house and country, but drowning myself with water helped curve these cravings. Last night I hit the gym, it was refreshing and made me nice and tired for a good nights sleep when I got home. Today will be the true test, as I have to really keep my mind busy to not break off of this, I have plenty of water on hand. I've been catching up on the Walking Dead , I'm on season 6, I actually don't want to watch anymore until tomorrow, honestly I just watched too many in a row this morning. Gym tonight, that's really the only thing on the agenda.

So I'm going on a 48 hour fast to offset the damage I did the past couple days, it started at midnight. Its going to be incredibly hard because I find myself wanting to eat even if I'm not hungry. Sometimes Ill remember the flavor of something and immediately start craving it. If I can survive this 48 hour fast I will have regained complete and total self control and I know moving forward Ill be able to go through with my plans. The plan is to do this 48 hour fast, actually its between 40 and 48, but Ill likely go the full 48. this will allow my body to burn a great deal of the crap food I have and produce minimum fat gain. Then from that point on its back to business, I'm lowering my calories down once again to 1,200 for the remaining 3 weeks of the  5 week program I started. 3 Meals  a day, working out, avoid triggering situations, integrate more with the weight loss community at large, write up a newly updated version of future-self/Ideal me , and that's that. ...

This is going to be a post of me trying to figure out myself, analyzing things. The journey has been going slower than ever, its taking me forever to actually drop lbs now, but why? Thursday I went to visit  my friends Nick and Melissa, they just had a baby, every time I'm over there my eating takes a dive (every single time). I told myself before that I wasn't going to break trend, I wasn't going to indulge in any of the temptation food they had laying around, but I did. I didn't just indulge, I over indulged, I had tons of snack cakes, and had a dinner far bigger than anything I usually would have, today wasn't any better. Now that I'm finally back home the I'm starting to let it all set in. So why am I breaking trend so much lately. Not just here, but at home. There was a period when I set out on a certain path, I was unrelenting, now I struggle to stay on one. To be honest I should probably be about 20lbs down further than I am, but since February ...

Because I like to punish myself, a while back I created a Tinder profile. It all started because I was helping a friend pick out pictures, and what to put in the bio of his. I knew in my heart of hearts, and my minds-eye that I should not venture down that road, but much like the dead cat that was too curious for its own good, so was I. So I made the profile and proceed to use the app as intended, swiping left occasionally, swiping right occasionally, it seemed a little fun at first. Then my brain happened, the thinking, the analyzing, the fun was over pretty fast. So I did get some matches but the Tinder culture is set up very predictably once you think about it, that being that its a very superficial platform, some people just endlessly swipe right to see who will match with them just to feed their ego, then they unmatch you. The first time this happened to me I was completely thrown, but I got over it and just came to expect that some matches are going to vanish (sometimes ...

Its been an interesting time since I  last blogged, I think I need to do it more, but truly I was burnt out. Honestly I was just tired of focusing so much on my weight loss and I just didn't feel like writing. I do a plan on changing focus a bit, I'm going to start writing about various things in my life and in general, and these things wont necessarily have to do with weight loss. So how have I been? For the most part, good. I just recently had a short bout of the blues , but I'm working towards keeping my mind from negative cycles. Blogging obviously is one of the methods. I'm going to start watching Extreme Weight Loss again, I stopped a while back when I learned what really goes on behind the scenes, it was also distorting my own weight loss aspirations. Now though, I'm just going to use it as inspiration, seeing the bodies transform should give me something to continue to work towards because lately I've been asking myself if I want to keep doing this, i...

You may have noticed my blog has been rather neglected lately, I just didn't blog in the last several  weeks,  but a lot has happened in that time. One day I went disc Golfing with some friends for the first time since I was at my peak weight. The first time I went, all the way back in 2013, was a nightmare. I just wasn't physically able to do more than 4 holes, I was exhausted from the small amount I did play, I decided that day I hated the game and would never do it again. It seems I lied. My friends asked me to go to weeks ago on a Monday and I reluctantly agreed. The experience was ten fold different. We spent several hours on the course hiking through various terrains. I managed to get through all 20 holes, and most importantly I actually had fun. The experience was a night and day difference from the first time I went. I changed up my eating routine for the umpteent time. It's working out quite nicely so far. It still involves drinking a lot of water, specially ...

An old blog post from the passed surface because of some keywords I was looking for to see if I made reference to an event from 2013, I did but not to the extent that I wanted . Anyways, I came across this post from April 8 2015, 2 years ago. You have to take a look at it, its very telling and sort of enlightening but also kind of demonstrates just how much my mind yo-yo'd mental health wise in 2015. In the post I basically mention that I don't think changes will happen in my life until around the 3s, at the time I was likely in the low 500s or high 400s. It reminds me of how I pretty much thought things would miraculously change with each first-digit change, but it didn't quite happen that way. My mind was mentally stuck and stayed that way... until well, really certain parts of it are still stuck but they aren't as stuck as they were then. My thinking has changed a bit, obviously my body changed, but back then I couldn't see it, or didn't care because of the ...

Quite often I come across a sight or sound, or even a smell that reminds me of the past. Sometimes I remember them fondly, other times not so much. Today I was in the car as we pasted a neighborhood that sits adjacent to a highway, I lived in that same neighborhood once as a child but not nearly that close to the highways overpass. When I looked at the street from above I suddenly remembered being a kid and riding down that road on bikes with a friend to dark tunnels that we weren't supposed to go in. I often adventured far off and to places I likely wasn't allowed, but my friend was less inclined. I remember convincing her to go with me in the tunnel one day, because I didn't want to go down it by myself. It was full of broken glass bottles and various debris. It was pretty scary to a then 8 or 9 year old. We rode our bikes down that glass covered tunnel, which was positioned to the far right of two other tunnels but the one in the middle cars sometimes passed through (t...

So I've decided to work on improving my photography, improve my composition etc. I think I'm going to get a new lens soon, a 50mm, something sharper than what I've been using. In other news I got some protein powder to help increase my protein intake, the flavor I got from Quest is called Cinnamon Crunch (like the cereal). The taste is taking some getting used to be quite honest, but its not horrible. I'm working just being myself more and not caring who does or doesn't take to me. The official weight for the month is 338.6 but my peak low is 334.6. Muscle development is in full force. Eating has been pretty solid, but a few bad apples have slipped into my diet, they are becoming fewer and fewer though.

Lately I've been more pictures than I used to, and actually going specific places just to shoot. Unfortunately I've been finding that my photographers eye and actions don't sync up. This means That I've been pretty unimpressed with my shots lately, they all come across boring, non-compelling, and well... mediocre, and its really unsettling. I still feel very passionate about photography but I don't seem to have the eye for it I used to. Its rather discouraging, but this was the one thing I thought I was actually semi-good with and now the reality seems to be the opposite. I recently went on a 3 hour road trip to a state park with a friend and I was really excited about it, but once I got there I just found that I couldn't see anything worthwhile, but my buddy was shooting all over the place, I've noticed his eye for a good photo is better than mine and he is just starting out. Its kind of funny isn't it? I could see the opportunity in a photo far bet...