Brandon, Who Lives At Home

Yesterday was amazing. I never got so many hugs. I felt like Beyonce for a day. I was sent off with ice cream. One member made me a poem, another gave me a sketch book and pastels cause she knows I like to draw and I doodled a lot during session, someone selected a song for us to listen to because the night before they heard it on the radio and the song "makes me think of Brandon, cause he makes me smile." the song was September by Earth, Wind & Fire . It's such a upbeat song and so infectious, I was so touched. We were all dancing in the room whilst having discussions about confrontational wordage that instantly makes people defensive, even if you're rightly  addressing something wrong they did. I.E y ou always ... Or you didn't , You statements makes people defensive and tune out. But "I" makes things more neutral ground. I feel like you didn't listen to me ...." I'm not sure why I've added all that. back on topic,  3 people to...

Keep  your eye on the prize .  The prize is the goal weight and so much more, that's what everything is for. Try not to get so easily distracted when the numbers don't go in the right direction. I've proved I can do this. Seeing is not believing.  Just because you don't see the results doesn't mean they aren't there, there many factors why I don't see the changes visually, but there aren't just visual changes happening . My health has improved as well. Show appreciation for people/moments/things that bring you good times. I don't think I do this enough, just telling someone how much I enjoyed something they did for me, or just being around them, or saying hey, this was really fun (not that that happens very often) or that was very nice . Just hey, you are valued. Loosen ties with people now that you are questioning the validity of friendship with.  My circle of friends  isn't particularly large so the thought of it getting smalle...

I spent the last couple of days trying to help a good friend of mine find her worth, shed been feeling really worthless and down lately and has a lot on her plate and on top of that that she's been battling sudden asthma attacks, which her doctors are trying to figure what could be the source. Shes overcome a lot and does a lot for my friend Nick whom she is dating, but he has been grossly taking her for granted. To not vilify the other friend I won't mention all the things that have transpired(ing). I basically told Melissa she has to have other things to live for,  she  has her job, and him (and of course Belle of the ball, queen of them all) so when he frequently disappoints her it  doesn't keep reducing her to virtually nothing because he takes up 98% of her metaphorical pie chart. She's 2% of his. I told her she needs some hobbies, maybe start a blog, start (back) looking into social groups in the area, do things that make her happy and feel good for herself. Her...

Nathan at his highest weight. When I first started this journey I had few inspirations, The Biggest Loser, Extreme Makeover Weightloss Edition come to mind. They only took me so far. They never really elevated me. They gave me some very unrealistic aspirations. It wasn't until this year that I got my first burst of external inspiration, and it came from YouTube. When I first started this blog in January I often mentioned how I searched the weigh loss journey tag in YouTube to find others embarking on their journey. I found quite a few, but the biggest inspiration came  from a guy named Nathan Gleason. He had uploaded a video of a day's worth of his eating, and  logged them into Myfitnesspal. His videos weren't big budget, action packed, or full of suspense, but they were very honest, humble, and insightful. He uploaded videos daily for almost two months consecutively, and

Something kind of progressive to talk about for once, and that is the goal I set for this month, in spite of the absolute nightmare things have been lately. I told myself last month that I wanted to cut red meat, and so for this month it is being cut by 99%, the only red meat currently in the house is pepperoni, mom is planning on making a healthy addition of her beloved homemade pizza. She was going to have turkey pepperoni, but was grossed out by how it looked. Also, at work the other day my pants kept sliding down, I think I may have lost some weight do to stress last week, or something, because my new pants were a lot more snug a week ago.