I was reflecting on what it was like to be morbidly obese. I was trying to get a feel for what it felt like to be nearly 400 pounds.  I was surprised to realize that the more I thought about how my body felt back then, the less I could recall.  It was very difficult to bring up any body-sensations from that point in my life.

Thinking more abut my routines from those days it hit me.  I pretty much lived my life from the jaw up, and disregarded the rest of my body.  My life was a routing of TV watching, eating, sleeping, eating, day dreaming, eating, being shuttled to the game store for role-playing game playing, and more eating.  I was fundamentally only aware of the sensations that occurred in my brain and on the front of my face.  My body had essentially been forgotten.  The only things that got through were aches and pains, and even those were mostly suppressed.

Even hunger was a stranger as I had become habituated to eating whenever I was bored or idle.  When friends would ask if I was hungry, I really didn’t know based on how my body felt.  I had to calculate in my mind vaguely how much time had passed since my last feeding, and pretty much always gave up in favor for saying, “Yes.”

Over the years as I exercised I became more aware of my body, again mostly as a consequence of aches and pains, but this time from strain due to exercise rather than couch sores.  Through the practice of T’ai Chi I was required to become more mindful of my body.  The whole process was fairly sub-conscious.  Being mindful of my body kind of snuck up on me as a result of moving it more.

Today I make a mindful body-scan a regular habit.  When the question come up of whether I am hungry (from an external source or internal) I actually take a moment to check in.  I also have a routine of 10 minutes of stretching exercises every morning to warm up before I meditate and this allows me to take stock of my physical condition and anything I need to look out for for the day.

Slowly I have grown from being a feeding tube which spoke to a whole body which speaks. 

I cannot tell how much a conscious practice of body mindfulness would have benefited me from the get go in my battle with morbid obesity, but I have a strong suspicion that it would have proven very useful, even while being emotionally challenging. (After all, there were deep core emotional reasons for why I denied the existence of my body in the first place.)  It’s somewhat poetic that the very thing that drove me to ignore my own body made it large enough that other people would have a hard time ignoring it.  In retrospect I can see that I was calling for attention to my body from the outside while denying myself that luxury.

Looking back at where I was, where I am now, and what it took in between I would not hesitate a second to recommend a simple mindfulness practice to anyone dealing with a physical ailment.

Peace!

It’s pretty common knowledge that women, and girls, in the Western world have long had their self esteem and body-image confidence assaulted by depictions of idealized female bodies far out of tune with reality.  What is slightly less well known is that obese, and morbidly obese people on both sides of the gender line (and the breadth of possibilities between the two poles) have had their self esteem and body-image confidence eroded in the same way.

Check out the covers of most any fitness magazine and you’ll see what I mean.  If you look at the bodybuilding magazines specifically, things get way out of hand.

Frank Zane

Basically I wanted to look something like Frank Zane.  Talk about going from o to 60!!  No way.  Not that it’s impossible, it’s just that it’s incredibly unlikely and far to afield to serve as a useful spur to action.  I would have to work for years doing nothing else, and as I later learned do some things along the way which would make the whole thing less than authentic and in no way sustainable. I am fairly positive that Frank Zane never used steroids, but the majority of the hulking figures grinning at me from the magazine stands, encouraging me to work hard and with dedication almost certainly did.

I also, in my naivety thought that these guys just looked like that hanging out for coffee and going shopping.  I thought that, that was just how you looked if you worked out hard enough, smart enough, and for long enough.  Boy, was I way off base!

Enter the Body for Life contest.  Let me say right off the bat that I did the BfL 12 week challenge twice.  The first time I had results that made me excited and were, in my opinion, extremely good.  The second round began to lose its charm, and I realized that (as a compulsive overeater) the eating style recommended by the program was not a good match for me.  Still, I would not hesitate to recommend the program to anyone as something to look at, and try out.

That being said, it was in the Body for Life materials that I began to realize how unrealistic my projected (and hoped for) results were.

To put it bluntly, the after pics in Body for Life, and in every muscle mag cover photo shoot ever, are highly askew from walk-a-day reality.  The Body for Life material has a specific plan for getting those hot shots.  Basically you starve yourself for a couple of days before the shoot to shave off some extra fat, while doing extra rounds of aerobics.  Then, on the day of the shoot you eat a bowl (or 4) of high sugar cereal to pump your blood sugar up (the recommendation used to be Fruit Loops) and drink copious amounts of water while going through a high-intensity weight lifting routine.  The lifting pumps your muscles up and sucks the sugar into them, which then binds with the excess water inflating the muscle tissue even more.  Basically you pre-starve the muscles and then target a water bloat into the parts that look best when flexed.  End result, you look awesome for about an hour.

Not a picture of reality.  Once I learned that I went through a bout of mild depression wondering if my years of work were all for nothing.  Then I began to seek out alternate sources of healthy inspiration and images of healthy bodies.  I also smartened up and started looking for people who were working in my personal area of fitness passion, (martial arts), and who had my basic body structure.  I looked for people who looked kind of like me, just with less excess fat.

James Tiberius Kirk!

It was a long slow battle, but now I’ve arrived at an attainable goal.  One which (as a completely irrepressible Sci-fi/TV/Gamer geek) is just up my alley.  The Mighty (pre-TJ Hooker) Kirk!

Having a realistic, and human, goal in mind has done wonders for my self esteem and results.  Now my goal is actually attainable without chemical assistance or momentary (shocking) changes to my body.

In my particular case attaining the body I have today did require some surgical intervention, but that’s another post.

Having an image to shoot for is a great idea, and can be a really dynamic source of inspiration.  Just make it a realistic one and your results will vastly improve.

I would love to hear your thoughts in the comment section.  Cheers!

PS – Oh, and I do admit it, the martial arts geek in me would not mind ending up looking like ths:

Bruce Lee