Brandon, Who Lives At Home

Yesterday and today I started doing the Biggest Loser Boot Camp Workout, for the first week you do this strength training cardio combo that's 25 minutes. Honestly it's been obliterating me, I use my 10lb dumbbells for most of the workout, there are squats and lunges and all kinds of things and that first day I wasn't sure I would get through it to be quite honest, but I did. Today I decided one day was enough of hearing Bob Harpers voice instruct and command, I needed music to give me that power I needed, and I preformed much better today than yesterday but still was a sizzling  hot mess, I don't see myself adding on the next part of the workout after the first week, I'll just stay at my own pace, and move on when I've mastered this first part. This workout is really going to develop muscle so, the gears in my head already want me to stop this and go back to doing my full body cardio via Leslie Sansone because muscle weighs more than fat and I could get...

I got everything set back up with Planet Fitness, so I can start going again which is pretty cool, it will be interesting to see how this effects the journey moving forward. Currently I am not sure when I will go or what my routine will be. I got a Simply Fit Board last week, its a workout balance board you simply twist on ( supports up to 400lbs) . I gave it a quick try last night, it will take some getting used to before I can really take advantage of it, but it will be really nice to use this as part of my home routines now.  I wont have a full opinion on this until later in the month after Ive used it for a while. The Simply Fit Board (mine is blue) Now that I'm home eating is back to normal, I'm ready to kick things in gear.

I spent a few days with friends over the weekend. I had plans to do things different, they knew of my weight gain and how it affected me and even apologized for their contribution and claimed that they were starting to eat healthier themselves. The reality of things was the contrary however, someone decided to order two large pizzas Sunday,  I had several slices. Today I decided to leave. I had to get out of that environment. It really forced me to look at things deeper, its early in the month and Ive already given in to poor eating habits.  I think I'm just going to have to go on hiatus from visiting those friends indefinitely, maybe Ill figure out another solution out down the line but for now this is what I have to do. Peoples actions often contradict the things they say which is why I faced such hard battles with distorted thinking last year. I'm not in any type of bad place about this at the moment, but this is just some clarity that in terms of going backwards, there...

Well I'm up from my down, mentally anyways, I'm ready to take the month by storm and get back to doing what I do best, losing weight. This month I'm plotting a return to the gym, getting things situated with my bank and checking account and getting back to it (wasn't until writing this that I thought it was  odd that I wasn't even slightly bit nervous at the prospects of going back after such a long hiatus, then I asked myself if I should be, and now I slightly am) . I'm no longer going to buy food I know will be harmful for my goals, like those cookies. I plan to be active even when I go over to my friends, Ill take a dog for a walk or something I'm also going to start taking my food scale and stop eating fast food when I'm over there also, or if I do make it something sensible, if guilt comes into the equations I shouldn't have it. No slacking on my water, I did that plenty of times last month.Watch more movies because that's been fun. Get ba...

Ive gained weight, an even 2lbs. I weighed in a 344.8 up from 342.8.  I'll never adjust to a gain,  I immediately went right back to bed and began the process of psychological torment that I typically  do in these cases, beating myself down, thinking about how I'm now down an entire month of progress, then to the regret  and soon I started to wonder if I had been noticing those 2lbs somewhere, maybe in my face, maybe in my gut, or arms, maybe something wasn't fitting right. Literally every time I gain any amount of weight I get convinced (a lot of the time before the result) that I can see or feel the gain somewhere. The bad thing about my weigh-ins before was that they could set the mood for an entire week, well this year now that Ive switched to monthly they can set the mood for an entire month, I have to wait an entire month to rectify the situation and this dark cloud will be hovering over me the entire time. I feel like every time I gain weight I have to ...

can barely tell but, Ive got mini man bun going on here Well I'm slightly more prepared for tomorrows weigh-in than I was yesterday, I certainly took a lot of short cuts this month eating-wise and took way too many breaks from exercising. This next month I'm really going back to basics, back to cutting things out I know I shouldn't have around. This is really whats hindering me. I don't know what to expect, I don't know if Ill be out of the 340s, or if Ill possibly gain, I just don't know. Tomorrow we see.

I always like when people refer to movies as "picture films." I actually watched some movies over the weekend several days in a row. I even watched one this morning called The Loft , yesterday I watched The Account with Ben Affleck (so good). Its been really nice getting caught up in movie worlds for a little bit of time again, especially the horror ones, I really love a good spooky film. I watched one called From The Dark that was really good and I actually have a few to watch tonight so that should be scary fun. I got some Canadian bacon because I was told this was better for me than regular bacon because its considered lean or whatever, I also got some peanut butter 2 that I'm planning on making on an Instagram story video thing maybe today, its basically this powdery peanut butter you add water to that turns into normal peanut butter that has less fat and calories than regular peanut butter, so if you're following me on Instagram be looking out for that. How ...

Therapy Wednesday went pretty well, I realize its now Friday and I'm just now mentioning therapy. I mostly just vented about things, which I really needed to do to be honest. I haven't been doing my homework assignments for therapy and I keep thinking about how I keep coming back to this image thing, and how I just binge ate the other day subconscious self-sabotaging myself. Ive been thinking about how hard it is to change this part of my thinking, this area of my mind. This is destroying my chance of happiness in the here and now, and I'm going to wind up having major depressive events at this rate like last year. I was thinking, about when I was younger, in fact, no, when I was at my peak weight, so not that long ago. Back when I used to think I could never seriously lose weight, never thought I could have a lifestyle change, could never radically overhaul my life and cut back in food. When I thought I would be 600+ Lbs forever, that there was no way I was ever going to...

Ive been in sinking state, my mood is questionable, I'm feeling super unmotivated I haven't been exercising regularly I haven't been sharp with my eating, I certainly haven't been disciplined. Im a mess. today I ate 12 cookies, worth about 600 calories total and  never mind the rest of the nutrition facts! I don't bother to investigate. I knew what I was doing, I binged, I just decided oh well , fully knowing after the last cookie I would regret it. Ive gotten weaker, and now and I'm most certainly going to end up paying the price for this on the scale come weigh-in on the 1st. I don't know whats going on, Im just not motivated. I keep pushing my exercises back later and later in the day until I decided meh, no exercises that day, and my eating has been... not great .I'm unmotivated and uninspired and this is just bad. Typically I would have gotten myself out of this by now, blindly, automatically almost, but I have gotten worse, I binged! Its onl...

Okay. Maybe I'm a little worse than I realized, I'm following a guy on Instagram who's peak weight is   What mine was, over 600. He has been losing weight all naturally and quite rapidly and often posts his MyFitnessPal food and exercise calories-in and burned-out intakes and well .... He has clearly developed an eating disorder, he eats about 300-500 calories in food tops and then burns several times that in exercise. Will he be able to sustain this long term after weight loss ? Probably not. However, his results are very clear, he just recently had his first skin removal procedure. He weighs less than me (he is in the 200s) and I believe he started in less time. He also has the exact same goal weight as I do, which I only recently discovered because I'm positive it wasn't the same before (so naturally I'm in my head as to why it is now). Earlier I had the luxury of having to stare at myself in a giant glass reflection of a window and I was just not pleased....

<___> So here I am again,  in a funk about my appearance, I've been hear  for a little bit but I guess now I'm at my simmering point.  I was at a pretty okay state, I mean I was never happy or satisfied by any means, but I was okay. Then I take a picture and and every time I'm a little less okay, and now I'm feeling a certain depression monster hovering over my shoulders waiting to unleash the haze. I felt like this was the year that I would eventually stop having these image  issues but, the truth is that it  really heavily relies just how much  weight  I lose, because it seems I'm pretty hard wired to not be okay with the sight of me. I'm just waiting for the slightest sign of "thinness" where I'm starting to not look overweight, where I'm clearly in the final stages of obesity and I don't believe that is something that can be seen now, I certainly can't see it. Also, for goodness sake I look awful in bright clothing...

So there it is for all to see the loose, hanging skin on my arms that was once filled with nothing but fat. I didn't really pay too much attention to this growing phenomenon  until last year when a certain incident occurred that I deliberately decided not to write about because  I would not only discard the good things that happened that day, but turn this into an actual bigger issue. The incident occurred one of the first times I went to the gym solo and was coming back, it was one of the better days if I recall. I had my arm out the window (or on the window seal) enjoying the breeze and we were stopped at a red light. I noticed in my rear-view mirror that in one of the cars in the next lane was a guy talking to some woman, and he looked over at my arm and said "that guys got a really big arm." Then the light went green, it didn't really click to me at first, but when I was bigger I used to try to avoid hanging my arm on or out the window because I was emba...