Brandon, Who Lives At Home

Ive decided to go to bi-weekly weigh-ins, therefore I won't be weighing in this coming Monday. This is just for mental health measures. A bad weigh-in simply wreaks havoc on my entire week, so now this new system is in place to kind of balance me out. I'm not particularly fond of weeks where I maintain, but I tend to handle them well, however when I gain everything hits the fan. I'm not sure if I've ever gained weight two weeks in a row, at least not in the current year. This new system ideally should ensure that I don't see the numbers go up unless it's muscle related, (and granted even determining that's a tricky slippery slope) Suddenly it's October it's that time of the year where I begin realizing what I actually won't be able to achieve by the end of the year and my anxiety takes the wheel. Somehow we are on the precipice of a new year already, in just 3 months it's over.  I'm still in the high 300s, in terms of numbers I cert...

All this so called progress, just to potentially go so many steps back because of those crushing words...                   Today was a pretty good day up until that point. I came home this morning after spending the night over at Nick and Melissa's. I only just came out to them that night, it went perfect, as far as coming out goes it's been a incredibly smooth process. Everyone has been great about it. I came home this morning knowing I had to see my psychiatrist and my therapist. When I seen my psychiatrist and caught her up to date on things she was quite thrilled with how I've progressed, it's quite funny, I immediately thought of comments on the blog here as she said how I've come a long way, she was particularly pleased to see that I'm noticing faults like my distorted thinking and things like weigh-in day (which are Mondays) effecting my week. I've never seen my psychiatrist that happy, it ...

It's been an interesting weekend, yesterday I chopped my beard because I thought it was making my face look bigger. I was looking at selfies from a few months ago and a more recent one and I could swear the recent one looked 50lbs heavier. This is rather interesting development because the last time I cut my beard I cut it because I thought my beard made my face look thinner, and I didn't  want that false impression being sent out into the world. However after cutting it this time I was just in a bad place, maybe I just don't like my face I don't know. This picture is from February, when I thought it was making my face thinner. It  accentuates my chin, and conceals my double chin, while outlining my face creating the illusion of definition. Yesterday I also got around to going to see my father at the assisted living home, that wasn't as awkward as expected. Seems I've moved pasted the resentment I've had towards him. It was a pleasant visit. I stay...

So the numbers don't lie, I may have problems with how I look overall but the data is clear (and honestly it's harder to admit than you'd think) I've lost weight over 170+ LBS in the last year 200+ overall. Those are some rather high numbers and some might  might find this kind of loss inspiring. I know there was a time in my life when I simply thought that I reached a point of no return, that there was simply no way to lose the weight without radical intervention. I'm talking a surgical procedure, some type of one-off competition tv show or some other extreme measure. I felt hopeless. Somehow at my lowest point I decided I wanted a different life than what I'd been experiencing and it started with losing weight from what seemed an impossibly high starting point, but I couldn't wait for the lbs to lose themselves. So I took action like I had many times before, but knowing it could not end up like the many times I tried before, this had to be different, I...

I reckon it's time I finally discuss the big misery topic I've been so vague about the last few weeks. It's pretty much come full circle now, after a lifetime wait I decided to address it. First in therapy, then to two select friends (not the two you might think), and just recently with my mom. Now I suppose I will here. Obviously it took me a very long time to get to this point, but in the past few months I truly realized I wasn't going to truly be happy  or make any real progress in terms of my mental health if I kept having to repress who I was around other people, if I couldn't just be myself a little bit more. I started truly realizing how much these things mattered. It's hard enough masking your emotions  but masking a whole part of your identity puts an incredible strain on your life, and might be why my depression tends to yoyo so dramatically. Perhaps those days are behind me because finally at 28 I'm ready to be myself, be brave, be honest ...

I went to see my doctor today, it's time to redo a lot of my lab work, also I need to start doing the labs for the kidney specialist. The doctor greets me with a congratulations she says I see you hit the 200 mark on our scale.  I wasn't sure at all what she was even talking about so  curiously I replied,  200?  Suddenly thinking "does she somehow think I'm 200 freaking pounds?!" which  would have given me a devastating amount of anxiety having to clear up that I'm, in fact,  not 200 lbs all of a sudden, but still well into 300s. However she says,   you've lost 200 lbs see , she moves a computer monitor that shows my highest recorded weight of 567, and todays of 367. It was a perfectly even 200, she goes on to say well you've probably lost more on your scale , ironically or not, no, because I've only been going by the date I knew my exact weight which wasn't until last year, but I always say I think I reached the border of or just over 600 off ...

So right away I gained weight this week, an even 2lbs to be exact. Last week was tangled in terms of overall eating, I stayed within calories but then there were days when I had unusual things like a flat-bread pizza that wasn't at all geared to the healthy side of things, I had Chinese food for the first time in over a year last Tuesday, and it's just been a mixed bag of questionable little additions that I know I should probably avoid but then didn't like Reese cups when I'm at my friends . There was no exercising so that didn't help either, I'm actually in a very poor place with this gain, not that I've ever taken a gain particularly well regardless of the circumstance. I just see numbers going up and I immediately feel like I'm failing, and see the goal weight slipping further away, and of course my depression monster has been taking its multivitamins  and is ready to skewer every thought in my head! Worse is it's all my fault, I know I jus...

Yesterday, the entirety of the day I had a lurking anxiety in my gut that I could not shake or explain, my overall mood was pretty well balanced so this was particularly odd. Throughout the day the anxiety slowly increased, but I would just barely notice. I kept asking myself what's this all about ? I thought maybe the potential selling of my grandmothers house is having some kind of subconscious effect on me, but even that doesn't make sense. Maybe I feel guilty for not visiting dad in over a year, but I've been facing my own demons, the fact is it's probably for the best that I'm just now getting around to making this happen. So what is it? My dad actually called me yesterday via my aunt Carolines phone, I was surprised to see her calling so soon after I had just talked to her the day before, but it all made sense once I answered. My dad wanted to talk to me, I guess she went to see him. We talked for a bit, " hey son " and it went from there. To b...

Yesterday I finally made my way to see my father at my late grandmothers house. When I arrived there was some kind of bookcase on the front porch which immediately struck me as odd. I knocked on the door for a bit and then someone shouted to me from the street, what do you need, who are you? It was my great-aunt Caroline who apparently could not recognize me at all since the last time I seen her, last year. Once I told her I was looking for my I dad everything came back to her and she told me to come over to her, she just happened to be driving by as I was knocking. Seems my dad is now living in an assisted-living home, and the past year stay at grandmothers house he wasn't doing very well, even believed to have been on drugs up until he decided he no longer wanted to stay in the house. This change happened just a few months ago, apparently it was the best thing for him because she says before he wasn't taking his medications  properly, skipping dosages or days completely, h...

Today is a new day, a lot of sudden curve balls were thrown at me yesterday evening that typically would have me feeling like my rare moment of optimism was for nothing, but I've decided not to take it that way, and continue on the steady path, the very long sometimes depressing steady path. Not let these other obstacles derail me or send me into and emotional state  that leads to setbacks. My mom was recently diagnosed with a kidney stone, due to its size and location it will have to be removed via surgery. The operation has been scheduled for October 5th, the whole thing makes me rather nervous but she seems rather fine about it so I'm not going to over think it. She'll be out of the hospital the very next day. I've decided to finally go see my dad today and see how he's doing, I reckon it's going to be a rather awkward experience but I'll at least feel a bit better knowing I checked up on him. Stay tuned.

I had therapy today, and that went really well, I'm in a pretty good place right now about a lot of things. I feel like for the first time things could start working in harmony. I'm still in an unfortunate place with my image, and sometimes on Instagram seeing really successful weight loss  transformation before-and-afters really sends me into a self-loathing spiral, but I feel like that should become less and less of an occasion. I have to start taking back control, or really for the first time get control. I feel like there is a lot of instability around me which is rather ironic considering I come so undone so often, but these situations around me aren't helping. Stay tuned.

First things first, it's Monday, which means it's weigh-in day. If you kept up with last week you know that there wasn't any exercise, and unfortunately I took what felt like leaps backwards in my mental and emotional state of being. My eating stayed solid for the most part, I didn't binge, I did  skip some meals do to the intensity of therapy one day, and even after that day I found that eating enough was rather iffy, but I was certainly staying hydrated because  I've learned when I skimp on both areas (eating and drinking) I typically gain weight because my body desperately holds on to what water it has (it doesn't help that I retain water rather easily to begin with). So last week I weighed 368.6, this week I weigh 365.2. I lost 3.2lbs. I didn't know what to expect this week, but three is a bit surprising, I wonder if this has something todo with the potential  new muscle. I seen my aunt over the the week for the first time since her procedure, ...