December 5, 2012 – Week 1

I have been living in Los Angeles for over 8 years now and I’ve learned many things; I have unveiled some of the many shades of myth and have discovered the truth like “You can’t get ahead in Hollywood by just being talented!”  I have also come to major self realizations like “It doesn’t matter how nice a guy you are, but in this place when it comes to dating it’s all about your looks and your car!”  If you don’t have one, you need the other and if you have both it’s golden.  I have come to terms with all this and at the same time there are some things that just won’t change like, I still don’t understand, “Why the largest metropolis in the Southwest can’t master Mass Transit?” but there is one thing I came to understand quickly and early in my time living here… “Los Angeles is a place for the young and skinny!”

I’ve been trying to lose weight for ninety percent of my natural life.  I have been on and off of diets since the 3^rd Grade and was always told, “You really should lose some weight, you could be a very handsome boy!” or worse… well… “The worse” statements, I could come up with a long list, but you’ve heard them all on Oprah, but then again, maybe not?  See, I thought I had heard them all and had a tough, thick skin that would keep me impervious to the pain of these verbal “slings and arrows,” but alas… THAT SHIT AIN’T TRUE!

 

Having moved to L.A.  I’ve had some of the weirdest and rudest things happen to me on the streets here, stuff that never happened to me during the 12 years that I pounded the pavement in New York City. 

 

In L.A., I’ve had people come up to me, total strangers, who have told me, “You know you’re really fat!” or “I’d like to invite you to our class for overeaters!” or “You know you’d be really successful as a writer in Hollywood, if you lost weight!” 

 

I can honestly say that I have never experienced anything like this in New York or New Jersey, but as was explained to me by a dear, sweet friend who also happens to be a size zero, “Los Angeles is a body type driven city.” In other words, they “Don’t take kindly to fat people!”  I would’ve like to believe that wasn’t true, but some really weird shit has happened to me!  Many times these weird and strange confrontations took place in the middle of my work out routine!  I’d literally be on the treadmill, sweating when these strangers would approach me and they’d say some of the nastiest, rudest things to me, I had ever heard.  These mid-workout moments really had me convinced that… I am a marked man!

 

One of my faves is when the laundry machines broke in my apartment building and I had to go around the corner to the laundry mat.  Something, for some strange reason I have always liked to do!  I don’t know why, but I love industrial sized washing machines and all the counter top space you need to fold your clothes on!  So, I’m folding my clothes in this laundry mat when I notice a very slim guy, wearing a “PILATES POWER” T-shirt staring at me from the other side of the fluff and fold counters. 

I normally don’t notice stuff like this because I learned back in New York that when a man is staring at another man it usually only means one of two things… 1.  You’re standing next to a hot woman or 2.  He’s gay and you’re about to get hit on!  So when I feel the eyes of a “distant shore” fixated upon me of the same sex, I usually ignore it!  It is something I’ve had to get use to.  I don’t know why, but there’s a brand of gay men out there that digs me.  I did one time make the mistake and asked a very close gay friend, “Why do men mine find me attractive?” and he smirked and said two words, “Fleshy spots.”  I stopped asking questions at that point!

 

So this guy is staring at me in the laundry mat and now he is crossing over to me… I’m ready, I’ll give him the nicely, but masculine, “No, thanks.  I’m straight” answer, and will continue to fold my mismatched, very un-gay towels.  The guy steps up to me and extends his arm with a white, paper pamphlet in his hand and announces, “Hi, I’d like to invite you to attend our special classes for over-eaters!”

 

My first response is to take the pamphlet and beat the shit out of him with it!  My typical response is to just smile, take the pamphlet and say “Thank you!” and then wish I could beat the shit out of the guy.  This time, for some reason, my brain is on high alert before he drops the bomb, so I’m thinking of ways to answer before he asks and I decide inside my miraculous mind where I am the ultimate ruler, I decide that I will just say a one good, one word answer… “No.”

 

He doesn’t know what to do.  This is not the response he had desired, so he continues on with, “But you don’t understand!  I am offering…”

I cut him off on the “g” in offering and I say once again, “No.” 

 

This gets him more flustered when he fires back, “Yeah, but I just want to…”

 

I cut him off again and while still looking him in the eye, I tell him, “Just walk away,” He tries to explain again and in a very monotone voice, I answer, “Just walk away.”

 

This time he does and this time he walks all the way out of the laundry mat and stands outside the window just staring at me, “Mad dogging” me through the glass!  The guy now looks like he wants to karate chop my chubby cheeks and send me to the hospital without any “overeating counseling” and I continue folding my size 52’, colored briefs, holding my “big boy underwear” to the window like a flag unfurling over the field of battle.

 

That was the first time I’ve ever experienced anything like this.  Back in New York, if anyone came up to you there they were either homeless and asking for change or hookers asking if you wanted a…well… you know what they were asking for!  This new L.A. experience left me mind boggled and this was not the last time someone approached me and wanted to sell me classes. 

 

I have been approached by every self-proclaimed, “fitness guru” from Glendale to Malibu.  All of them starting the conversation as if they want to become friends and eventually sliding into some pseudo insulting or unpolished way of saying “Hey, you’re a fat target of opportunity and I want to sell you some over priced exercise scheme or gimmick that really isn’t going to help you, but I have to make rent money some how!”

 

I have this exercise routine and one of my favorite exercises I learned in a morning boot camp on Lankershim Blvd. that was run by a retied L.A.P.D. Police Captain and a Hollywood Actor / Karate Master.  This was one of my favorite experiences in L.A. fitness world, but I’ll come back to that in another segment, but they taught me this simple exercise where I take a yardstick and just do lunges while lifting the yardstick over my head.  In the Dojo Boot Camp, we use to do the lunges across the room, but now I do the lunges outside as part of my legwork.  I usually go to a track set up and do one lap of just lunges while lifting the yardstick over my head.

 

My fave place to do laps is this park right across the street from Pepperdine University in Malibu.  It’s a round walking path that overlooks the Pacific Ocean and is one of the most beautiful spots in the world.  The park sits on top of Malibu Bluffs and I have spied many a dolphin and whale as I attempt to complete my ten lap / five mile course.

 

I had just started my first lap of lunges when halfway through I noticed a large school of some kind of aquatic wild animal moving north up the coastline at a high rate of speed.  It was a huge school of dolphins and they were moving fast and north past the bluff like nothing I had ever seen before.  I stopped and went to the rail of the overlook site where I just watched in awe.  The sun was shining through the white clouds in the way that it looks like an open doorway to heaven.  The sunlight was reflecting off the bluest of oceans and there must’ve been thirty to forty dolphins swimming their way up the shoreline.  I stopped and held my yardstick in one hand and the lookout railing in the other, just to take it all in.  Then from behind me I hear someone clearing his throat and the question; “Can I ask you something?”

 

I was really in the middle of a mythical moment and didn’t want to be disturbed when this guy interrupted, but I slowly turn around and say “Sure, what?”

 

“Just what are your intentions with that stick?” he asks from behind mirrored aviator cop like sunglasses.

 

I really thought I was busted for holding a stick above the head in a threatening manor or some other kind of Malibu Most Wanted law breaking, but all I was doing was my workout.  So I explain my exercise to this sunglass-wearing stranger and even extend the stick and ask nicely, “Would you like to give it a try?”

 

The moustache wearing, set of mirror aviators goes on to explain, “I train Navy Seals and Special Ops.  I have a top secret, military style way of training that will accomplish maximum weight loss in a matter of a few weeks.  I start you off with a knapsack with some weights in it and we walk, hike and run to burn calories.  I also have a system of pulleys and fulcrums that is only patented to me, that will work every muscle in your body to maximum ability levels.”

 

I’m really in shock and really want to go back to watching Flipper and his friends, but I just play it nice, after all we are “in Malibu” and can’t say what I really want to say which is “My intention with this stick is to beat you over the head because you have to be kidding me with this Navy Seals bullshit!” but I don’t say it!  I keep my cool and respond with “That’s nice, but no thanks.”

 

He then goes on and explains, “It’s a free trial.  What have you got to lose?  I mean the military just doesn’t let anyone have these methods.”

 

I look the guy up and down and nothing about him says military except for his sunglasses.  I tell him again, “No thanks, I’ll stick with this,” and I walk away.  I start finishing my laps after being disturbed and have given up on my dolphin watching. 

 

I walk around the next curved corner and up a hill past the Little League field, I come down past the parking lot and back to the point of where I started and now when I turn that corner, there’s Mister Navy Seal.  He has some kind of pulley and weight system hanging from the kid’s jungle gym.  He’s got ropes, pulleys and weighted bags and he’s pulling on them the system which is pulling his arms straight out in front of him and despite hanging from this torture device, he starts waving me to come over and yells, “I’ll give you a free trial!”

 

I turned around and got in my car.  I finished my legwork down on the beach.

 

These random foolish approaches aren’t restricted to trainers and dieticians.  In the same park a woman stopped me and asked me about the exercise I was doing when an older man in his seventies approaches this woman and I.  The old man says to her, “So I assume you’re married?”  She answers, “No divorced.”  The old man then places his hand on my stomach and says, “I assume these are three ex-husbands?”

 

Normally that would get a punch in his mouth or a wisecrack out of my mouth, but he’s still an old man and not that he deserves respect based on his actions, but it really wouldn’t look good when we go to the hospital and they have to remove my fist from his seventy year old, rude, big mouth!

 

The story that makes me laugh most is when I’m walking around the track at this park in Studio City.  I’m trying to do five miles with walking, lunges and some running when there are two young boys playing on the swings next to the track.  The boys couldn’t be anymore than eight or nine years old when the one boy yells to his friend, “Hey!  Look at the fat guy!”

 

I stop walking and approach the little boys, which in a park and in this day and age isn’t really a good idea, but I looked at the boy and said, “Now that’s not nice!  Did I look at you, point and say HEY, LOOK AT THE UGLY KID!”

 

So for the longest time, I really thought that these approaches meant my weight was making me a target.  I thought that these trainers and other types who were selling programs just went out searching for overweight people as a target of opportunity.  It was this great nutritionist that I was working with who explained (Just before she abandoned Cali and went back to living in NYC… a whole other story.) that it’s not the weight at all!  She explained, “ They do it to everyone because most of them are out of work actors or people that look good from working out and they decided to try and make money on workouts.”  She said, “Tom, they do it to me as I’m working out and I’m 105 pounds in my running suit.”   She went on to explain that all they have to do is print up business cards and work the parks where people are exercising.  She taught me that they approach everyone!

 

Now the other stories, well, they really are just mean responses to my body type.  Rude people with no manners you will never get away from that!  The real problem is and no one really talks about it… my end of it, my sensitivity to it, whatever you want to call it, my end of it boils down to the fact that it’s all about self-esteem and knowing who you are.  It’s very hard to be walking around in this body in a place where “Thin is always in and thinner is always better!”  It takes a lot to keep your confidence, keep trying and never giving up. 

 

I can tell you I want to quit, move back to New jersey, live by the beach and sell ice cream to tourists, but you can’t hide from the problem and you have to deal with it all while still trying to lose weight and trying to look better.

 

I met a friend while working out on that same track in Studio City who said, “Just stop eating.”

 

My response was one that took me a long time to understand and come to terms with and with pride I said back, “That’s not as easy as you think!”  There really is more to it all and I’ll talk about that in future Blogs, but if not eating was an option that worked or just eating less really was the key to ingredient to making this work…

 

Don’t you think we’d all be doing it?

 

Yeah, a lot of this has really bummed me out and of course Doctors visits and scales don’t help, but I still try to workout and eat right despite the fact that the weight isn’t “Just falling off” like someone else said it should be doing at this point.  I was depressed, but still hitting the gym and trying to increase my workouts and make them harder with a lot more cardio.

 

And then while on the treadmill… I was approached again.

 

This time I had my earplugs in and music blasting.  I was working on completing a ninety-minute workout of Speed Intervals.  My goal was 2 sets of walking to 1 set of running over a ninety minute time period when I get a tap on my shoulder.  I turn to my right and there’s a guy, toned up in biker pants and a black elastic like shirt with a black blue tooth in his ear and a yellow colored sports drink in his hand.

 

I’m thinking, “Oh hell!  Here it comes, another “self proclaimed fitness guru” gonna try and sell my fat ass some program, workout and bullshit like in this past!”

 

“Hey, I just wanted to tell you to keep up the good work.  You’re way ahead of me when I started.  I couldn’t do half of what you’re doing and I lost 80 pounds just by diet and exercise,” he tells me.

 

I didn’t know what to say… I was shocked! 

 

We shook hands and I said “Thanks, really thank you, I appreciate this.  I thought you were gonna try and sell me something!” 

 

He said “No, just wanted to tell you to keep it going!” and we talked more. 

 

I explained, “Everyone tries to sell me programs, my doctor keeps insisting I need a stomach bypass or a lap band and wants to write me a referral.”

 

He said, “No, they don’t always work.  Don’t let them talk you into that,” and then we shook hands and talked a little more.  It was a relief and an eye opener at the same time.  A real epiphany!

 

People don’t realize that I’ve been on everything from Jenny Craig to “The Cookie Diet.”  Yeah, I had a doctor sell me cookies and drinking water for weight loss… what a bunch of bullshit that one was!!!  I don’t want gimmicks!  I don’t want the easy way!  I don’t want an overnight operation!  I just want results and in a healthy way.

 

SO… THE CHALLENGE!!!

I decided to document and blog about my weight loss journey for one year straight.  I will add pictures and scale updates weekly.  I will post what I ate and what exercise I did.

 

Armed with only the LOSE IT! APP on my cell phone, I am focusing on healthy eating and trying to cook more at home, while trying to exercise daily and the mantra of “NO GIMMICKS!”

 

The pitfalls… I’m a bachelor and it’s easier to eat out than cook home, but even meals out can be done sensibly as long as the calories are counted.  The other pitfall is I am a shift worker under great amounts of stress at times.  Working as a 9-1-1 Operator and Emergency Dispatcher can mean working 16 hours straight and no assigned time for breaks, so I can be eating dinner at 3pm or 8pm or Midnight depending on the circumstances.  It also means sleep at home (not work) is a priority over working out.  There will be some days I can’t work out, like the next 2 days I will be working from 2pm in the afternoon till 6:30 am the next morning.  That means when I get home… I SLEEP!!!

 

This will not be easy and a dear friend has warned me that people can be cruel and will say worse things online then they will in person.  “Just be ready for this!” is what she said.

 

 I am, but I look at it this way.  Maybe this will help me hit my goal by making it public, instead of hiding it.  Hopefully, I will show people that each one of us are different and what works for one doesn’t always work for others and in the end hopefully enlighten and help other people that are battling, low self esteem, insecurity, food addiction, weight problems and at the same time trying to live a dream that only seems to be for a selected, thin, beautiful full in the Los Angeles basin, also known as Hollywood.

 

So here it is…

 

DAY 1 staring December 5, 2012

 

Weigh in:     269lbs

 

Weekly Report for week of December 3, 2012

Daily Summary
	Budget	Food	Exer.	Net	+/-	Weight
Dec-3-12	-	-	-	-	-	-
Dec-4-12	-	-	-	-	-	-
Dec-5-12	1,936	836	724	111	-1,824	269
Dec-6-12	1,936	1,482	-	1,482	-453	-
Dec-7-12	1,936	989	-	989	-947	-
Dec-8-12	1,936	612	-	612	-1,323	-
Dec-9-12	1,936	1,533	-	1,533	-403	-
4,950 calories under for the week
724 exercise calories burned this week
Lost 0 pounds this week