Whoooooa Trigger!

Over the last couple of weeks (before started getting serious about losing weight) I started doing what I will refer to as "Research". By research I mean continuing to live my unhealthy life while being conscious of what is happening when I start to feed my face. What I am eating. Where I am at physically. What time of day it is. Where my head is mentally. Am I under stress? How long it has been since the last time I ate. What other choices I had at the time. Tons of things to observe, but all very important things in trying to figure out what makes me tick gastronomically. I came up with several observations to share. This first one is a doozie!
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Of all the things I observed, the most profound observation really gets at the core of why I am fat. I found out that there are some other things that relate to my food addiction beyond foods sheer yumminess in general. My OTHER addiction.

Now I'm not talking a Raging-Can't Function-After School Special kind of addiction. I am not even talking about an addiction to the substances I refer to below. I am talking about an addiction to simply feeling good. Feeling like my blood is flowing and the Endorphins are pumping. All feelings I don't experience often due to my current state of being.

Addicts substitute one thing for another. Heroine for a Father figure. Alcohol for therapy. Cigarettes for stress relief and food for comfort. I am not an expert on it by any means, but I am familiar with the affects drugs and alcohol can have on the body. I have seen it in my friends and family as well as experienced it first hand. No matter what the poison is, addicts chase a certain feeling. Happiness, freedom from pain, peace of mind, stress relief and in my case just simply feeling good.

Here are a few things I have observed about myself when using the following: Smoking relieves my stress. Vicodin makes me comfortably numb. Pot makes me creative funny and sleep like a baby. Alcohol allows me to be confident around others and lowers my inhibitions. Mushrooms make me laugh and Acid freaks me out. Never tried Cocaine, Speed, Meth or Heroine (they scare the crap out of me). The best though, is a couple shots of Whisky, a joint and some good quality Ecstasy. That is the greatest synthetic feeling I have ever had.

Ok. Before you start lecturing me on the dangers of drugs and calling an online intervention for me, it is important to know this about me. I don't use them to make up for a lack of happiness in my life or for my Mommy and Daddy issues. No somebody done somebody wrong song. They don't control my life. On the contrary, I am happy with my life and the things I have accomplished. A beautiful wife. Brilliantly talented kids. A great career. Lots of friends and family that love and support me. All-in-all a great life. Sure I have stress like everyone. Sure I have moments of feeling down and unhappy. But most of that is connected with how unhealthy and morbidly overweight I have become. So why do I do it?

Bottom line is, drugs and alcohol give me a physical rush of adrenaline and a feeling of just...good. The same way I felt when I was 18. When I was healthy and in my prime. Back when a stiff wind gave me a hard on and I was ready an willing to have hump-like-monkeys-sex at a moments notice. Admittedly the same feeling I could have if I was 140 pounds lighter and fit as a fiddle.

My steady diet of junk food, sitting in front of a computer screen for 8-10 hours a day (I am a graphic designer, not a gamer) and my sheer lack of desire to exercise, have eaten away at my zest for life. Turned me into a big fat blob that just didn't care anymore. It has even contributed to lowering my testosterone levels so much that getting in the mood to masturbate is a chore. All these factors contribute to my use of these vices to feel the physical sensation I am missing. The crappy part about it is, doing all these things makes me eat and in some cases saps me of any kind of motivation to move! Of course the drugs I refuse to do would solve that problem, but I digress.

You can kinda start seeing a pattern here. I lost site of my health and started to let myself go. I didn't make staying active and eating right a priority. This caused my weight to balloon up to unhealthy levels. Combine that with the fact that I just turned 38 and have the metabolism of a turtle, no wonder I feel like crap! No wonder I look to my vices to make me feel alive. But that good feeling is all in the moment and very temporary. After the high wears off I just feel like crap again and have managed to gain weight. It's a vicious cycle.

So there you have it. Observation number one made! Now on to the others. The next thing I need to figure out is why, when I was healthy and feeling frisky, why on earth I let it all go.