The first step

How original! But I'm not trying to be original, just honest to myself and being stupid enough to share this honesty with people. I'm not sure I will really want to do this. I weighed 292 pounds on Tuesday when I went to the doctor. I'm a 5'7" 57 year-old male. I'm writing on this pink background because I know that pink is the color of health, and I am going to work myself toward health during the next year. In 2008 I am going to be enrolled in a "comprehensive weight control" program with a medical clinic in my town. So these weeks before I become involved in that I will write about some of my issues and what is bothering me at the specific time. You know I had always thought about writing and publishing. I have several short stories that I wrote in the last 2 or 3 years for a university class in writing and had thought of publishing them. So it feels weird to be writing something that may bring me ridicule or at least a certain amount of embarrassment. Recently as I was thinking about blogging, my journey and struggles with weight and becoming thinner were the most important thing on my mind, and so here I am--far from my dreams of becoming a short story writer. I'm hungry right now. In my closet is a bag of potato chips. In my car are two candy bars and another bag of potato chips. I have let myself eat as much as I have wanted recently because I knew I would get into this program for weight loss. But I have gained 30 pounds since September. One of my "problems" is doing nice things for people. My ex-foster son has no bank acccount because he has overdrawn too much. He gives me his paychecks then I dole out his money so he doesn't spend it too fast. He was going to come over to get money for cigarettes. He only has a couple of dollars in quarters. But as he was on the phone his "baby's mama" left their house, so now he has to stay home to be with the children. I told him I might drive over and bring him some cigarettes. I don't want to and yet I feel like it would be a GOOD thing to do. There he is trapped at home and being a good dad but he will get the cigarette jones at some point. So I guess I am going to phone him now and see about getting him some cigarettes. God knows I have done innumerable things for him. He owes me thousands of dollars. It has been pretty much of me taking care of him situation. Can I do it without feeling resentful? Boundary issues. I can feel other people's pain more than I feel my own. If it were me, I would just suffer through it and would try to ignore myself. But it will be hard not to help him. I just called to tell him that I was coming over with cigarettes for him, but Tionna had come back home and had brought him cigarettes. I was happy that I didn't have to go out in the cold. I did eat. I had some tuna casserole--maybe a cup and a half--about 8 ounces of soda pop about 4 ounces of cheese and several handfuls of potato chips. I have given up so much that I don't even feel bad about doing that kind of eating at 11:30 pm. About 20 years ago, I was obsessed with my weight. I weighed about 150ish. I was running every day, and felt horrible when I ate one bad thing. I was near suicidal. I had terrible remorse every morning if I would wake up during the night and eat. If it hadn't been for my daughter, I would have killed myself. I knew I could not have left her fatherless. So I had what they call cognitive dissonance. What I wanted to do and what I did were at opposite extremes and it created horrible guilt feelings. So in the last ten years I have relaxed my feelings of what I want to do and made it match more closely with what I did. In other words, I gave up on the idea of dieting or of controlling my eating. So now as I said here I am at 292 pounds and having a hard time putting on my clothes in the morning. More later.