Old friends

I love my friends. They are a great set of guys. We're just not in the same place anymore. My priorities have changed. My life has changed! I don't blame them, but it was the activities that I partook with them, that has gotten me to where I am. I would not be the person that I am today had I not experienced those times. As much as I want to reminisce about the old days and get lost in the wonderful memories. I'm not going to lie, I had some really great times. One of my favorite was a rave called Meltdown 2 where I saw Aphrodite and DJ Irene in the same show, back to back, with Carl Cox, Charles Feelgood. We all even got an extra hour at this thing because of the switching to daylight standard time. It the first time that I had the textbook experience on X. It was so awesome! I will never forget it. I also can't forget why I moved to Seattle in the first place, it was because I wasn't happy with where my life was headed. I was tired of going in circles. I honestly thought moving to Seattle was going to change that. Don't get me wrong it was a step in the right direction, I knew what I didn't want, I just didn't know exactly what I did want. Now I have a much better idea, but I would not be where I am had I stayed in Dallas.

So with that being said i truely believe that i will have to confornt this part of my past, because that was what i lacked by moving in the first place. i was trying to run from my problems instead of facing them. I have so far stemmed the bleeding, now i just have to help the wound heal. These friends where the type that i couldn't say no to. I'm afraid, without proof, that i won't be able to. They all do a lot of the same things. I've seen first hand what pot will do for you. Not a damn fucking thing! With it's help I have blown many opportunities. One of my biggest ones was joining the navy. That was by far one of my greatest personal disappointments. It was something that I truly wanted, something that i was prepared to give myself to fully. It was an opportunity to better myself, and i totally blew it by the fact that i couldn't stop smoking pot. That started a downward spiral for me that was pretty bad. It culminated with my first arrest in WA, then LA. It's sad. I guess in a sense i blame these friends for all of this. Which is something that i know is not fair. Because it's not they're fault, it is mine, and mine alone. I guess in a sense i blame them because after the whole navy thing and as things started to spiral downward, they're way of helping me forget, about it was to literally forget about it. This continued for many months it culminated into my falling out with Randy.

I am writing them all a personal letter. Some house cleaning on my part.

Myths about metabolism

Dr Toni Steer
Dr Susan Jebb

There's a common belief that people who are overweight have a slow metabolism (burn energy slowly), while thin people have a fast metabolism (burn energy quickly). This is a myth.

In this article

Can I speed up my metabolism?

How can I burn calories?

The term 'metabolic rate' refers to the energy (calories) you expend over a day just keeping your body functioning - your heart beating and your lungs breathing, for example. This is often called the basal or resting metabolic rate.

Scientists have measured the exact amount of calories overweight and healthy weight people burn while sitting or lying quietly. This was done by measuring the amount of oxygen breathed in and the amount of carbon dioxide breathed out.

Results from these studies have consistently shown that overweight people use more energy to keep their bodies working. This is because they have larger bodies with bigger muscles and internal organs.

However, after taking into account differences in body size, lean and obese people have been shown to have similar metabolic rates.

Basal metabolic rate can be influenced by body composition. Muscle requires more energy to function than fat. As we get older, we tend to gain fat and lose muscle. This explains why basal metabolic rate tends to decrease with age.

Similarly, two people of the same age and weight may have different metabolic rates if one is fitter (and has more muscle) than the other.

Of course, we also use energy to move around during the day. Basal metabolic rate and the energy required for physical activity make up our total energy expenditure, or total energy needs. Your total energy needs depend very much on how active you are.

But I eat very little

Often, overweight people believe they eat very little and still put on weight, hence the 'slow metabolism' theory, but research has shown people tend to eat more than they think.

When asked to write down everything they've consumed in a day, people tend to report eating far less than they actually do. This may be to impress the researcher or because they genuinely forget to include some items.

On the day they recorded their intake, they may even have chosen lower calorie foods than they'd normally eat.

The bottom line is you'll gain weight if you consume more calories than your body needs. This can be a difficult fact to face, but recognising the need for change is vital for successful weight loss.

The good news is people not only manage to lose weight but are able to keep control of it in the long term.

Can I speed up my metabolism?

There are many pills, supplements and foods that claim to speed up the metabolism and burn fat. Most of these claims are unproven.

Some chemicals, such as nicotine and caffeine, do have a small effect. However, any increase in the metabolism may be accompanied by an increase in the heart rate and other side-effects, and so aren't recommended as a treatment for obesity.

The fact is no single ingredient will melt body fat away without some effort on your part to reduce the amount of calories you eat.

How can I burn calories?

The best way to burn calories is to increase your levels of physical activity. The amount you'll burn depends on your body size, age and gender, but as a rough guide:

• 60 minutes of gardening burns 300 kcals
• 60 minutes of walking burns 200 kcals
• 90 minutes of football burns 600 kcals
• 45 minutes of dancing burns 450 kcals

In the long run, improving your body composition (increasing muscle and decreasing fat) by being more physically active will lead to small but important increases in your basal metabolic rate.

This article was published in June 2007.

5 Reasons You're Not Losing Weight

Adapted from The TNT Diet, the revolutionary guide to transforming your body — and your life.

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By Jeff Volek, PH.D., R.D., & Adam Campbell, M.S., C.S.C.S., Men's Health

Find More

• Transform Your Body
• 10 Ways to Stick To Your Workout
• 20 Reasons to Lose 20 Pounds

Still struggling to lose weight? Here are five mistakes that many people make — and advice to help you shed pounds.

1. You're Following Bad Advice

Sometimes the government goofs. In late 1970s, the United States began advocating a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet. In the early 1970s, the average daily energy intake was 2,450 calories. By the year 2000, that number had risen to 2,618. Almost all of those extra calories came from carbohydrates, according to the Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES).

Do this: Eat fewer carbs. People are overeating carbohydrates, not protein and fat. So if you want to lose fat, start by cutting back on carbs. Ask nutritionists what the main purpose of carbohydrates is and they'll say, "Energy." Trouble is, most people are consuming more energy than they can burn.

2. You Eat Fat-Free Foods

Warning: Low-fat foods may make you fat. Cornell University researchers reported that when overweight men and women were told they were eating low-fat M&Ms, they consumed 47 percent more calories than those who were given regular M&Ms (the M&Ms were actually all the same). On average, low-fat foods contain 59 percent less fat, but only 15 percent fewer calories than full-fat products.

Do this: Go ahead and eat full-fat foods — for instance, cheese, sour cream, and a nice, marbled steak. They have slightly more calories than their lower-fat counterparts, but they'll help you feel full longer after you eat. And that'll reduce the number of calories you eat at your meal. In our lab at the University of Connecticut, we've found that people who eat 60 percent of their calories from fat lose weight faster than those who eat just 20 percent of their calories from fat.

Moreover, many of your concerns about saturated fat may be overstated.

3. You (Still) Don't Eat Breakfast

Sure, you've heard this one before. But it's important: Researchers at the University of Massachusetts found that people who don't eat breakfast are nearly five times more likely to be obese than those who make it an everyday habit. That's because if you sleep for 6 to 8 hours, and then skip breakfast, your body is running on fumes by the time you get to work. And that sends you desperately seeking sugar, which happens to be easy to find.

Do this: Eat your first meal within 90 minutes of waking. The UMass scientists determined that people who waited longer increased the likelihood that they'd become heavyweights by 147 percent; those that didn't eat breakfast within 3 hours of waking elevated their risk by 173 percent.

4. You're Eating Too Much Sugar

You've stopped drinking regular soda? Great, but your diet is probably still filled with the sweet stuff. Check the label of your breakfast cereal. Some products marketed as healthy are packed with sugar. Case in point: Kellogg's Smart Start Health Heart cereal contains more sugar per serving — 17 grams — than a serving of Froot Loops. The problem: Sugar raises your blood levels of insulin, a hormone that signals your body to stop burning — and start storing fat.

Do this: Carefully read labels — especially when it comes to cereal. Or even better, trade your morning bowl for an omelet. Saint Louis University scientists found that people who have eggs as part of their breakfast eat fewer calories the rest of the day than those who ate bagels instead. Even though both breakfasts contained the same number of calories, the egg eaters consumed 264 fewer calories for the entire day.

5. You Don't Lift Weights

In a study at the University of Connecticut, we put overweight men on a 1,500-calorie-a-day diet, and divided them into three groups — one that didn't exercise, another that performed aerobic exercise 3 days a week, and a third that did both aerobic exercise and weight training. Each group lost almost the same amount of weight — about 21 pounds. But the lifters shed 5 more pounds of fat than those who didn't pump iron. Why? Their weight loss was almost pure fat, while the other two groups lost just 15 pounds of lard, along with several pounds of muscle.

Do this: Make three total-body weight training sessions a week a non-negotiable part of your weight loss plan. A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that lost muscle is replaced by fat over time. This not only makes you look flabby, but it also increases your pants size — even if you somehow manage to keep your scale-weight the same. The reason: Each pound of fat takes up 18 percent more space on your body than each pound of muscle.

Damn these feet!

God has given me flat feet, it is not a curse. It has it's uses. However it makes the line of work, waiting tables (food service/hospitality), that I am in very trying on my feet. Especially as I get older I start to notice that I don't bounce back from the soreness. I need to "pamper" if you will, my feet when I get home. An ice bath, and now I'm going to try a heat pack. if I don't have the right pair of shoes.

And damn it finding a good pair of shoes and/or inserts that can take the rigors of my line of work, is one of the toughest challenges. I've already blown around $150. I have to mention that I walk on concrete all day or the equivalent of it. Which is the worst part of the whole deal! Argh, damn these feet!

So I need cushioning with arch support. But right now I'll take something that will not aggravate my abnormally swollen right foot. It's disgusting! I am going to try and solve this the best that I can by going to my doctor and seeing what she may say. I think it's infected. My blister that is, and it's spreading which is starting to worry me a little. I may be overreacting. It's the butt that I am really starting to get a little worried about it.

On a much lighter note, I met someone that was really interesting tonight! This person spoke Hungarian! I couldn't believe my ears, really! I didn't even hear her when she did it. It was one of the absolute coolest things that's happened to me in a long time! I should really stop using the exclamation point before it loses it's meaning. However it's hard to contain my excitement, I haven't spoken Hungarian with a complete stranger since I was a wee lad! She's someone I work with, she just started like the last two weeks. It was a truly awesome experience. I was actually at a loss for words. No, really I was, I couldn't think of anything to say in Hungarian, the language is slowly draining out of me. Plus we both sounded like American kids speaking for the first time. It really was cool. If she is interested in practicing it, that would be so awesome. I'm keeping my reservations though.

Personal Growth

The last couple of months have been a pretty topsy turvy kind of ride for me. Emotionally, spiritually and physically; I have grown none the less. I have learned a lot about myself and the people close to me. I have been sorting through years and years of emotional turmoil. Years of self medicating seems not to have accomplished for me. Now I have to do the hard work and try and make right side up about this mess, that I call my life.

 

I went to my first meeting with my probation officer today. It went fairly well. It was more or less an interview, it caught me off guard, because the questions where very personal and things I had only recently been asking myself. It served to reminded again what has been happening for the last eight months or so. She asked me a question, that for the life of me right now I cannot remember for the life of me what she had asked me. But it was something that was about my childhood and it should’ve been an easy answer however I didn’t have one for it. It’s frustrating me right now why I didn’t try harder to commit the question to memory. Anyhow, she had asked me a lot of questions about my childhood. The questions that I’ve only started to face after having them gnaw at me for so many years. A lot of it was unsettled grief about my mother’s death. It has been quite a few years, however the self medicating route didn’t work out so well. It felt good to voice some of these things feelings out loud and get some reaffirmation that I’m not over reacting and doing this for the wrong reasons, or being too sensitive about it.

 

Since I’ve been free and getting back on my feet, I have been experiencing many new things for me. I feel like I’m seeing things fairly clearly now. There is no longer any kind of a chemical haze. It’s been kinda rough. I haven’t really had any urge to drink. I have had an urge to smoke. I did indulge that, when I did it was a huge mistake. Not only did it taste like utter shit, but it really made me want to drink. Since the two really go hand in hand. But I didn’t cave, I remind myself that I’m trying to run a marathon and if I do either one then it’s not going to happen if I do that. My family didn’t go out on a limb to help me up jus tto see me fall flat on my face again. That is a sure way to end up on skid row with very little to no self respect left. It is also a guaranteed way to have everyone that I care about and in turn cares about me to drop me out of their lives. I couldn’t handle that. I have more ambition and higher goals than that. I would rather walk out into traffic than have that happen again.

 

Seattle, you’ve been getting after to write in here and I thank you, because I have to keep doing. And that’s what it takes sometimes for me. A little nudge. I’m really happy about where things have been going with her. We do such a good job on teasing the crap out of each other that it really sucks. all the build up and no release. It is a little frustrating. I find myself longing to be with her more and more and the distance isn’t as bad as I thought it might be. Don’t get me wrong it is challenging. However it is making me pay attention to her words and not just her physically. The things I want to do to her physically are so numerous. I do just want to ravage and just completely and utterly submit and have her submit to the pleasure of the flesh. We have some cool things that we share. Like expensive phone bills.

 

The words sweet and cute are an issue with me because they are comfort words and tend to insinuate a sense of security that ultimately means ‘just friends’, it also tends to nonverbally convey the following sentiment as well, ‘that’s all that’s ever going to happen between us’. It has a way of taking any kind of a bite out of my masculinity.

 

My relationship with my family in the last couple of months has improved dramatically! This is something that I have longed for many years now. Back when I lived in grapevine. I tried to get into the navy to have a sense of belonging. While improving myself, when I failed at that, I really let the depression set in. I felt that I failed at anything I wanted to do, that I was an utter failure, I couldn’t do anything useful. So I resigned myself to smoking pot and drinking, quitting my job and pretty much embraced the fact that I was a loser that couldn’t succeed. Because I hated where my life was going, what I was doing, and I felt completely helpless in changing it. It was very frustrating! So soon after that I got my job at the hotel in grapevine and that’s when I had a manager kind of unofficially become my mentor. He rewarded me appropriately. I could’ve been a manager of the restaurant there had I been able to remove myself from my self-destructive environment. It was an eye opener for me because I wanted so to make something of myself. So I moved to Seattle, to remove myself from the environment that I was in, and couldn’t get out of without some help, I did start to finally make something of myself. Now, I’ve just got to get my act together again and hopefully next year I’ll be able to taste that success again. I’m not any of those things; I’m not a loser, deadbeat, junkie, or anything else like that. I’m also not an alcoholic, I just can’t handle drinking. It’s one of those things that triggers something in my head that I don’t understand nor want to deal with anymore. It is a part of me that just isn’t very good. It’s a part of me, that doesn’t need to come out. Nothing ever good happens with him. I can be around alcohol or drinks I just can’t drink. As long as I don’t drink anything I’m ok. This is has become something that I have grudgingly accepted. (Edesapa was right) But I always thought that if I dry out for a while then I’ll be ok, no. I don’t believe I will. I have to stay away from it altogether in a social environment. The Christmas party is going to be the big test for me.

 

I’m just a guy that’s gotten a taste of success and had it yanked away and now I want it again. Usually one comes with the other. Both personally and professionally! I just need to stay on top of my affairs.

 

Keeping a journal has helped me in ways I never thought possible with this. It’s helped me to work through my thoughts and put a lot of things into perspective. I wish I would’ve done this years ago. Then I don’t believe that all of this would’ve happened. That’s a little too simplistic. Yes, this meeting I had today, invoked most of these feeling in me today, cause most of them where questions that she asked, and ones I hadn’t thought about in a while. But is another facet of me that I need to explore, because I am not leaving anything out anymore. I am going to live life, I want that sweet taste of success again.

 

Baby, thank you, for pushing me on this one, I really do feel much better.

 

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