The F.A.T. Diaries

Week Twenty Three – Gay Chicago (293.6 lb)

2011-06-13T23:29:00.000-07:00

My new obsession... making playlists for my iPod for my workouts at the gym. First ten songs onthe mix I listen to for cardio. I title this mix, "Gay Chicago”.

(Ipromise I will write a proper entry soon and VERY SOON... my bad...)

1. “Rock With U” by Janet Jackson	2. “He Ain't Wit Me Now (Tho)” by Rich Girl
- .	. .
3. “Black Snake Moan” by Idle Warship	4. “Violet Stars Happy Hunting!” by Janelle Monae
- .	.-
5. “Many Moons” by Janelle Monae	6. “State of Shock” by Michael Jackson w/ Mick Jagger
- .	- .
7. “The Glamorous Life” by Sheila E.	8. “Love Like This” by Faith Evans
- .	- .
9. “All Night Long” by Faith Evans	10. “Rich Girl” by Gwen Stefani w/ Eve

Week Nine – The Bubble (288.2 lb)

2011-03-07T22:50:00.000-08:00

Not too long ago I had inadvertently insulted a friend of mine. I was regaling him with tales of my absolutely la vida loca lately which has included some absolutely awesome sex, mind blowing drunken stupors, roof raising karaoke renditions of old Tracy Bonham songs, a few actually sweet and endearing dates and a couple of inebriated make out sessions with some dudes whose status of being drag queens and/or porn stars wasn’t realized until much later after I sobered up. My friend sat and listened with a curious look of a dam waiting to burst. I told him to just let me have it, say what he needs to say, "LET THE RIVER RUN!" He basically said that I have so much talent and that I could better use my time than acting like a frat boy on Viagra and that quite frankly I am a bit too old to be acting like a frat boy on Viagra. My response was basically that everyone could technically better manage their time and work on their resume and that I felt that he was judging me by patronizing what I do on my free time. I went on to say that I don’t judge him on what he does on his free time and I don’t think it’s fair of him to judge me. The insult part, incidentally, was my raw and unedited description of his past time activities which I won’t repeat here but after repeating it in my head (and to my sister) it suddenly dawned on me… oh yeah, that was a little harsh. It didn’t help matters that later on in the evening when asked about my weight loss I confessed the truth and said I was starting to gain again and I was thinking of cutting back on some of my frat boy antics. He replied, “Oh no! You are not going to sit here and say that when you damn near cursed me out when I said the same exact thing earlier!” To my defense I’ll just say that I mentioned that I might be cutting back on some of my extracurricular activities to concentrate on other things. What my friend basically said was, “Breeze, it sounds like you are having just a ton of fun and having a really great time. Have you ever thought about… not doing that?” …which has a little different connotation.

Needless to say, I have been a tad bit out of control lately. I do have to say I get in these extended periods of bliss and I just grab them for all their worth. I have, however, been obsessed with… my life, the future, the reality of it. I don’t think anybody who has been around me lately would ever think that I have been in a perpetual state of existential thought (it’s hard to convey that while slovenly sucking some strange dude’s nipple in a bear bar during a beer bust) but the truth of the matter is that there is a palatable level of middle aged angst/desperation that by far fuels my “Animal House”-like actions. I recently went out on a date and this guy said, “You are most definitely single for a purpose. You are very sweet, you are very kind and you are very attractive. I can tell some of the people in this bar, the people here that you know, they like you. They like you like that. And you know it too. But you don’t want that do you?” I pled the 5th. I am consistently praying to couple up with somebody but, God also knows… me love me bachelordom. What I can tell you is that it is mucking up my weight loss process. I’m realizing that this is quite a solitary process. It’s great to have sponsors and buddies and the Weight Watchers meetings themselves are an invaluable tool to commonwealth and share your struggles but on a day to day basis… it’s just you and the refrigerator, you and the McDonald’s staring at you when you get off of work and are famished, you and the gym that you are making a million and one excuses to not go to… it’s just you. And I guess for me it’s a weird conundrum because… one of the main reasons why I am “acting out” lately is because I don’t want to be alone. I am doing these wild and crazy things to get more people in my world and this weight loss process almost demands that you have a pretty stable bubble that should only accommodate just one.

Well somehow, some way, I dropped 1.8 lbs of weight that I put on lately. I’ve been trying to stay focused get back on track and still incorporate a little fun in the process. I’ve slowed down, just a little bit, trying to get some more sleep in my life. I’ve been getting in that bubble all by myself. But damn… how great it would be if somebody was there with me…

Week Eight – Before and After (290.0 lb)

2011-02-26T22:41:00.000-08:00

So I’m writing this entry about two weeks after the actual Weight Watcher’s meeting. I don’t remember too much that happened outside of the fact that it was probably one of the worst meetings I’ve had. For starters, I gained an exhaustive 2.8 lbs bringing my total weight gain of late to be a mind boggling 5.4 lbs. So all that work I’ve done prior just went out the window. Well not all of if it but enough of it to piss me off. This was also the last day that my group leader would be teaching in that location. She lives out in the rural deserts of California some place and the commute has just gotten too much for her. She said that she and her husband have been trying to navigate their lives around what I imagine to be a four hour daily commute… but after a while something had to give… and so she will be facilitating a group closer to home. I was just unbelievably sad. She has been one of my main cheerleaders for the past year or so. I always said that those meetings are like church to me. I go in, I learn, I mediate, I leave feeling more complete, ready to take on the world and spread the word. I just don’t know how things are going to work out now. There have been so many monumental changes in my life where the passage of time was palatable, I could reach and physically feel that time had changed. Like when my mom got sick when I was younger and my brother couldn’t stop crying and I couldn’t bring myself to cry, or when the Twin Towers fell and all of Los Angeles was eerily quiet, or when my grandmother passed and I cried so much that my brother had to physically hold me up, or when I made love to last boyfriend, or when I got this transfer up at my job… this feels like one of those times where you were one thing before and something else afterward. I think it was definitely age induced bitterness that refused to make that meeting be more dramatic than it already was. She was crying several times during the meeting and there were a few tears from people in the group. When the meeting was over, everybody wanted to talk to her and hug her. I wanted to stick around and have my own little special little Breeze moment that would be sweet and enduring that we both could gently fold over like a soft satin handkerchief and slid into our pockets and use whenever we needed. But there were so many people around her who wanted to say so many things. It was more or less like… going to your best friend’s wedding, the best friend that you could have married yourself, and you’re just waiting and waiting for some alone time with her, for her to give you some one on one time so you can share some sort of special singular moment together, until you realize… this is her wedding, this is her moment, and as cruel of a reality as it is, this has nothing to with you, and if it does, it’s up to her discretion, not yours. Yeah, I guess I speak from personal experience on that one. So with that mind, with the image of my best friend in that dress and the glow that she still to this day with her husband on her arm, I let my group leader just have her moment, with her friends and her family and I quietly and discreetly ducked out the back door truly confident that one glorious day I will bump into her wearing size 36 jeans and the biggest smile on my face. I might cry then. And we’ll pick up our friendship, just like I eventually did with my best friend. And we’ll both be something much better afterward.

Week Seven – Trivial Pursuits (287.2 lb)

2011-02-19T22:23:00.000-08:00

So I started this whole brouhaha talking about what the truth is and trying to come to terms with it. I think it’s a fitting theme for this particular entry. The truth, I absolutely did NOT want to go to my weight watchers meeting today whatsoever, mainly because I knew that when I stepped on the scale that it was not going to be nice to me. My last entry I was trying explain that in order to successfully lose weight you have to successfully manage your time and in turn not let life’s pursuits hinder your life. Then I turn around, let time slip away and envelope myself in all life’s trivial pursuits without any consideration of the consequence. Well… I knew of the consequence, that’s why I didn’t want to fucking show up today. That has happened before in the past whereas I inhale an entire pizza, know that I have gained ten pounds in the process and am mortally ashamed to attend the meeting that Saturday. But today, mainly inspired by you guys who I hope are still with me and the obligation that I feel I have to be truthful about this journey… I went. Despite the fact I haven’t tracked a thing I have eaten all week… despite the fact I have been so overwhelmed at work that I skipped lunch and had bags of Doritos and/or Cheetos instead then inhaled several Lean Cuisines when I got home… despite the fact I didn’t go to the gym one time… despite the fact that just last night I went to three (yes THREE!) different bars and ingested about a gallon and a half of vodka (and some dude’s tongue) then a Subway Sandwich afterwards… despite the fact I woke up with the biggest hard-on that seemed to throb just as intently and in rhythm of my massive hangover… I got up, made some coffee, grabbed a bottle of water, went to the gym, did 15 minutes on the stationary bike and 30 minutes on the treadmill while listening to every Madonna live in concert song I could fit on my iPod, took a shower then headed toward the dreaded Weight Watchers meeting the face music. I gained 2.6 lbs. And yes… it sucks.

But I do have faith that it was just a flux. That if I would have just skipped the bar hopping alone I would have either gained under a pound or would have just stayed the same.

And to add insult to injury, today my group leader told us that the next meeting will be her last meeting at that location. She has this absolutely insane commute from her house to the meeting place.

Week Six - Time Is A Bitch (284.6 lb)

2011-02-16T00:26:00.000-08:00

I think certain people would claim that I have digressed from the “nutrition” aspects of this blog that I’m sure enticed them to be interested in the first place. Or maybe I’m feeling a little “Buyer’s Regret” for having spiritually purchased a buttload of alcoholic laced sexual depravity last week. In either case, it should be noted that if there is one thing that should be gained from this whole experience is that… time… can be a heartless bitch. No matter what you do, it doesn’t stop. Your parents can pass away, your child can go missing, you can test positive for something, you can lose a limb, you can kill yourself, if it happens at 12:00 p.m., 12:01 p.m. is going to happen anyway, with or without you.

Dean, the notaboyfriend who has been accompanying me on this journey is not doing that well on his weight loss process. I try to be encouraging because I know all too well the main antagonist of all weight loss intentions since the advent of exercise is… life. We all got shit we got to do. I remember when Susan Powter was at the height of her fame and being interviewed by Tom Joyner who was lobbing her real world questions in regards to weight loss advice a prevalent and slender White woman could give to a zaftig single mother of color with several children and the accompanying several jobs to support them. I remember her response was something on the level that those are the people who need to pay attention to their health the most because of their situation, which I always wanted to chide her for but quite honestly… is pretty true. I think a bit of scolding did happen, her 15 minutes of fame hit fast forward soon after, but I think it was more to do with the fact that she gave more of a “description” of the problem than a “prescription” to try and fix it. I think it’s easy and pretty understandable for a full- figured woman of color with several kids and not enough income to not put “counting calories” on her list of things to do. On that same token, I think it’s pretty easy and understandable for other walks life that are also going through arduous times to not put “exercise” and/or “health” on their list of things to do. I think of all the atrocities in the world, the wars, the violence, the floods… they all just seem so much more immediate and significant than losing weight. So you put those health concerns on the back burner and you just try to survive and pay your rent and take care of your babies and try not to snap on the Omorosa-like bitches up at your job. You disregard nutrition labels. You get that bag of Doritos from the vending machine. You’re tired. You don’t want to cook. You go to McDonalds.

But thing is… you can do all of that at 12:00 p.m. and you know what… 12:01 p.m. is going to happen anyway. You can rationalize your caloric intake all you want to, time isn’t going to stop and wait for you. It’s not going to show you any pity. It’s not going to care what your race, color, creed, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, financial status, height or gender are… if you eat five Big Macs in one sitting… somewhere down line… you’re getting a second chin. I was thinking about this with Dean. He’s going through some pretty arduous times right now and I do feel sorry for him. But the Big Macs… dude… 12:01 p.m. Just because you’re sad or upset or lonely doesn’t mean 12:01 p.m. isn’t going to happen. We weigh in every Saturday morning. Just because you’re going through some things doesn’t mean Saturday morning isn’t going to happen.

I don’t really have a “prescription” for that. I attribute it to me being a guy but the only thing that really helps me is just to tough it out. Every once in a while you’re going to get hungry. And if you’re living, people are going to piss you off. And you’re going to get angry. And you’re going to get horny. And you’re going to get sad. And you’re going to get mad. And there are going to be a million and one things to rationalize why you should down that entire pizza, smoke that blunt, sniff that line. And whether you do or not… 12:01 p.m. is going to happen anyway, with or without you.

So I guess that’s why I do digress and talk about my personal life, my sexual life, my work life. I am no robot. I’m trudging through this shit like everybody else. Step by step. Minute by minute. And while I do have friends and family who will take pity on me, I know time ain’t… nor will that goddamn scale. So I’ll go and have my good time, ginger infused vodka and all, but I always try get back. I lost 2 lbs this week. That’s has to count for something…

Week Five - The Drunken Entry (286.6 lb)

2011-02-06T19:50:00.000-08:00

So for clarification, my Weight Watchers meetings are on Saturday. Today is Sunday. And I am drunk. Drunkedy, drunk, drunk, drunk. But I figured, a drunk mind speaks the truth, and I don’t have any other “sassy” little entry to write this week. Needless to say… I lost 1.6 pounds this week so… ~~fuck~~ yeah!

Ok… not drunkedy drunk drunk… maybe just drunk. Eight beers. I’m hiccupping. That ~~fucking~~ counts. I’m gonna have to add pictures and check for punctuation lata… I am kinda ~~fucked~~ up right now.

So these are some of the truths running through my drunk mind. It should noted before hand that 1: I FINALLY got laid earlier today and 2: I very much unregrettably had a“Beef Beer Porn” Sunday today. As I looked out on this sea of burly men and chomped down on my favorite beef sandwich and watch snippets of porn interspersed with key moments of Super Bowl XLV I realized… I do not want to be skinny. I want to be beefy/muscular. I want to take off my shirt without any fear of repercussion from someone noticing my blatant “side titties”… slabs of fat that roll from chest to under my arms. I could damn near wear a bra now a days. But I digress… I would rather look like a cast of “The Expendables” that “Beverly Hills 90210” or “All McBeal”. I like being beefy. I just want firmer beef.

I hate being one of those people that blog about something before actually explaining it in real life… like blogging that you’re pregnant before you tell your boyfriend… it’s pretty stupid. But alas… I’m drunk so…

I went out with this really great guy that resembles Fred Flinstone and though I very much like him and I think he is an awesome guy, I think he might be too “sane” for me… or I’m a little too much for him. He seems extremely nice and… “pedestrian”. I’m the type of guy that, let’s say… picks up a bottle of ginger infused Skyy vodka, goes to a bathhouse, ~~fucks~~ everybody under 5’7”, comes home, gets ~~fucked~~ by the single most reliable ~~fuck~~ buddy he has ever known, goes to a Bear bar, watches porn, eats beef sandwiches, drinks $2 beers… and tells everybody about it.

There’s a little bit of back story with the ~~fuck~~ buddy but I’ll just say that today he mentioned for the umpteenth time that he has a steady boyfriend to wit I finally replied, “Why do you keep mentioning that… like I give ~~fuck~~?” I don’t know what’s going on with that dude. I’m thinking either he has no boyfriend at all and is just playing some weirdo game; he’s trying to remind himself that he has a boyfriend or… he’s trying to transfer some of the guilt and responsibility onto me. He asked me why am I single and I sort of told the truth, “Because I want to be, I like being able to ~~fuck~~ around and go get $2 beers on a Sunday afterwards and maybe ~~fuck~~ around some more with somebody else. That is until somebody convinces me otherwise.” Nah… that’s the full truth. I do feel very blessed with my life, but I do have to say I would give it all up for some honest to God, earth shattering, breath stopping, blush inducing LOVE. "Fred" could be that one… but he’s just so bashful and quiet! I really dig the dude but… and God forbid if he is actually reading my drunken ramblings before we had a conversation about this but… well… he knows… he just doesn’t talk. He’s not a big conversationalist. Actually he hasn’t even called me one time since we went out last week.. . which definitely inspired my ginger infused vodka weekend.

I’m digressing again. Ok. Weight / Health / Fitness. I think I should have anal sex at least one time every day. Seriously. It has to help. I used to be so guilty when I was younger. I remember an episode of Queer as Folk when the little twink blonde guy proudly proclaimed in front of some political people, “I love butt ~~fucking~~!” which I thought was just an odd proclamation. But now I get it. Anal sex is actually the “homo” in homosexuality. It’s the gas that makes that car go. Without it, you’re just some weird dude kissing on your buddy. I’m thinking, as far as health goes, and happiness and keeping your eyes on the prize, there needs to be a lot more in house proctorial exams in my life.

Ok let’s wrap this drunken stupor up.

I’m going to go the gym a lot more this week.

This, I see, is going to be a slow process, but I’m willing to go though it as long as the end game has me under 200 pounds.

Dean has been MIA as far as showing up to his meetings which is slightly pissing me off.

I want to fall in love. And even if I fell in love, I would continue with my program. This is for me. No one else but me… I would hope they would understand.

Black Eyed Peas ~~fucking~~ killed it tonight at the Superbowl Half time show!

“Black dudes got big wood” from “We Run This” by Missy Elliot

I am totally losing my gag reflex as I get older.

So happy that Elliot’s mom’s birthday party didn’t mess me up too much.

I miss my mom.

Good night.

Week Four - Ex v. Ex (288.2 lb)

2011-01-31T01:47:00.000-08:00

So this is going to be a short one… I just finished writing about ten(!) pages in my other journal, none of which has anything to do with weight loss, but I’m a little exhausted from going over the extended reality show that is my life lately so we’ll just see what I can come up with for the “post-show” wrap up right here.

The gym is coming along slowly but surely. My arms are starting to get a little muscular bumpy like they used to back in the day which just makes me smile. I’m going to try and go three times this week and hopefully four the next and keep that schedule. This… is going to be hard. I’ve just got so many things on my plate nowadays, and so much other… bullshit drama running through my head. Dale, one of my BFF’s is always trying to instruct me to not give in to negative thoughts or the negativity that people give off. I try to stay true to that but the truth of the matter is, I’m not some Alien Robot Diva that can just deflect negativity away with a single fierce swipe of my metallic hand, I’m human, I’m messy, I’m emotional, I’m fucked up. I get jealous, I get mad. When I found out my ex-boyfriend has a new boyfriend, what was my first question? “Is he cuter than me?”

Speaking of ex’s, I took my over emotional ass over to Elliot’s moms’ birthday party. The party, which I thought was on Sunday was actually on Saturday, the same day as my Weight Watchers meeting, which I attended with my other ex… Dean.

The morning of the meeting I went to the gym and neglected to eat anything outside of a White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Clif Bar and about a gallon of water, so by the time the meeting was over I was starving. Dean was too. We decided to go to Sizzler. The plan was to fill up with as much salad and vegetables as humanly possible before heading to the birthday party in which I was sure Elliot double deep fried everything from the chicken to the macaroni and cheese to the Kool-Aid… and slathered it all in butter.

It should be noted that, while I adore Elliot and simply love his mom, and God forgive me of they ever read this blog… but they live on the corner of Crack and Weed… it’s a pretty bad neighborhood, one of the worse in Los Angeles. But I trek over there when I can, preferably in the daytime. Though I was running late after Sizzler so… yeah… I asked my ex-boyfriend to drop me off at my other ex-boyfriend’s house, to wit he replied, “You’re going to owe me so big!” I can responded the only way I could, “Don’t hate the playa, hate the game!”

No I didn’t. What I really said was, “Sure, ok, whatever… I got the next salad bar, you're the best...”

The party was great. Tons of family, tons of food. Little known fact however… macaroni and cheese can slide into places in your gullet that vegetables and salad can’t reach. We’ll see how I do next week…

Week Three - All The Lovely Attractive Negroes Touch Amicably (289.6 lb)

2011-01-22T18:00:00.000-08:00

289.6 pounds. That’s a weight gain of 0.4 lbs.… which Ithink is just awesome considering the amount of crap that I have eaten thisweek. I don’t know if I mentioned this or not but Weight Watchers changed uptheir program. Not too much… but just enough for it to just make it across theline of disconcertment. When I first joined, there were two programs, one inwhich you could essentially eat as much as you wanted as long as it was withinthis extensive list of healthy foods, the other was more regimented were everyfood had a point value and you were to track all the food that you consumed. Youwere assigned a “Daily Points” total (based on your weight, height andage) and you were not to go over those points in a day. A year or so laterand they combined the two programs into one whereas everyonehad to begin tracking and begin to include as many healthy foods as possibleinto your diet. The program now is essentially the same; they just altered thepoints of all food and altered everyone’s Daily Points Total. It’s a simplechange really but it does take a minute to get used to. Basically all food has a point value, they just amped up the points of somefoods and reduced the points for others. The thing is… my Daily Points Totalis now astronomically high so it’s been an adjustment to accommodate the massvolume of healthy foods I need to ingest to reach that target. This week inparticular was a true exercise in testing Weight Watcher’s science. It was anarduous week to say the least and my main drug for attacking arduousness…food; glorious, glorious food… sometimes sex, but mostly food. Maybe somequiet time with my Tori Amos CD’s but for the most part… F-O-O-D.

As I mentioned in my last post, my current position at workis amazingly fun but also requires an amazingly amount of dexterity, creativityand efficiency… I can maybe claim one of the three. But I’ve been workingthrough it. There are enough horror stories out there of people being fired forpublicly indulging their employment woes for me not to swim too deep into thosewaters but I’ll just say, I’ve been plugging away at my job duties as fastas I can, trying to be as calm, rational and professional as possible… despitethe fact that all three attributes have at one point or another been interpretedas condescending, derogatory and/or offensive. Mae West once famously said,“"If I asked for a cup of coffee, someone would search for the doublemeaning." This has never been as true at this juncture in my life whenjust about everything I say is interpreted as a double entendre. But I can’tplay victim, I put myself in that position. I suppose someone could interpret my“Thank You” as “Fuck You” when I claim my profession to bea Fluffer for the Los Angeles Zoo on my Facebook profile.

And if you have been keeping up with me on my Facebookprofile you would have discovered that I received two, count them, TWO(!) redlight camera violations while driving around Chicago in the Mustang I rentedduring the holiday season. The city sent the violations to the rental carcompany then the rental car company sent them to me with their additional fees.After the predictable onslaught of phone calls to get the whole thing clearedup, I was given a web link that supposedly had video footage as well hasphotographs of me running through two red lights on two separate occasions. Iwas hoping that either the footage was missing or just dense enough to warrant arepeal. Steven Spielberg should be so lucky to capture such crystal clear filmwith the perfect angles of a chubby Black man singing along to “CornflakeGirl” as he speeds right through the intersection of 79^th andJeffrey. I was thinking of a million different ways to get out of paying thedamn thing but after showing the footage to a friend who could not stop laughingat the fact that I did not even slow down even a little bit when I got to theintersection, I figured that even a blind man could see that I was clearly inthe wrong, both times, and there is no way around it... and I’m just going tohave to pay Richard M. Daley his fucking extortion money.

Enter Elliot. Elliot is an ex-boyfriend who is quite a bitolder than me. How old. Well… technically he could be my father, or… reallycute older boyfriend. Anywho… it didn’t really work out but we remainedreally good friends and the only thing greater than the affection I have towardshis family is the affection they have towards me, particularly his mom who hasunintentionally become my surrogate mother of sorts since my actual mom is 2,000miles away in Chicago. What I have become to his family is sort of like… theex-wife who still comes around and checks up on everybody and to see howeverybody’s doing. One glorious day when Elliot finally meets somebody or Ifinally meet somebody it’s all going to have to come to a screeching halt butuntil then, there is no way in the world I’m going to turn away a home cookedmeal or that woman’s hugs. So amidst work woes, blowing all the monkeys in themonkey cage and reaping the full repercussions of being behind the wheel of aspeeding Mustang in the ghetto… I decided to go “home” and get some goodole fashion lovin’… food and hugs; and I indulged in both to soothe my poorlittle heart.

I didn’t go to the gym as much as I wanted to but I didget there twice which, I’m sorry, I think is just fucking good! As well as Ido the 0.4 lbs weight gain. Considering this week, the stress, and the way Iusually handle it, going to the gym twice and only gaining 0.4 lbs is fuckingawesome! Usually with a week like this… the gym wouldn’t have even been anoption… and the extra 0.4 lbs. of food I piled on my plate would have been40.0 lbs. So all in all, I’m in pretty good spirits. What I do have to watchout for is Elliot’s mom’s birthday which is January 29^th. It’sgoing to be a full tilt boogie spread. Collard greens, sweet potatoes, yams,friend chicken, ham, potato salad, macaroni and cheese, peach cobbler, chili,spaghetti… are you hungry yet? Yeah…I was already there when I found out about it. I’m already planning on shovingpiles and piles of vegetables and water down my gullet beforeI get there so I don’t do would I usually do which is change into my“Eatin’ Clothes”, fill my feed bag with as much food as it can carry,strap it to my chin and eat until I pass out.

Some other dates of note are coming up in May, June andJuly. There are some pretty big black tie events happening up at my job in Mayand June that I very much want to attend in the most dramatic and stunning wayspossible. I want to buy a suit. I think the last time I wore a suit I graduatedfrom Kindergarten. July is Black Gay Pride here in Los Angeles which… is awhole other blog onto itself… but I’ll just say I have had a checkered pastwith the whole affair. But I could be convinced to partake in some of thefestivities now that some of my closest friends are going to be in attendance.And I would love to be there minus a chin or two.

I do want toget back down to Atlanta for Labor Day. Aaaah… Atlanta… where All TheLovely Attractive Negroes Touch Amicably…Atlanta!

… but I want to see my penis without holding in mystomach before I go back… so I’mgoing to the gym…

Week Two - Baby Monkey Riding Backwards On A Pig (289.2 lb)

2011-01-17T01:25:00.000-08:00

It seems like a million years since the last F.A.T. diary entry. I have lived this entire year out in my head, the laps at the gym, the heartbreak at the weigh ins, the relationships, the tribulations I’m having up at my job, the whole kitten caboodle. I have gone through the entire dramatic arc of life only to wake up and realize… holy shit, it’s only been seven days! Thingshave sort of been on fast forward this week. I was listening to “Don’t Give up” by John Legend and P!nkwhile walking up here to my favorite coffeshop in a very calm and picturesque Los Angeles sunset and realized that it was probably the most tranquil I have been all week. I’ve been meaning to write just about every day but I have just been bombarded with somuch other "extracurricular" stuff that I really haven’t had the chance.But today, thankfully, I got a little time for some peace.

So first off… yup… 289.2 lbs... Fuck yeah! Curiously enough however, that’s a weight loss of 5.4 lbs… the exact same amount that I lost the very first week back in 2008… creepy! Regardless… I was just ecstatic to have lostanything. Awhile back I bought a scale and I used to weigh myself religiously back in the day. I have since sort of trained myself to step on itnot more than two times a week. Mainly because I just didn’t want to be surprised at the weigh-in at the actual meeting. However,when I stepped on it this week I was horribly shocked to find that my scale was broken. (Eitherthat or I actually do weigh 62.E pounds). So when I stepped on the scale this timeat the meeting, it was with total blinders on, I had no idea what was going to pop up.

During the million years that went past this week, not only was I not able to squeeze in some much needed writing time, neither was I able to squeeze in some much needed gym time. I didn’t make it in there one single time this week. For those not in the know, I have recently changed positions in my company whereas for the past eight years I have been the IT guy and as of date I am more the PR/Graphic Design guy. It was a move that I welcomed with open arms and I feel could be very beneficial to the company as well as my own professional growth… however, as Damon Wayans once quoted in amovie, “a job ain’t nothing butwork.” A point that became evident my first week back from Christmas vacation as my immediate supervisor had the gall to expect that I… show up on time, finish my tasks, not show up in pajama pants with night club stamps all over my wrists. Sometime last week itsuddenly occurred to me, “Oh shit… I have a job.” So I constructed this plan whereas I would workout in the morning then write when I get home… but neither ever really happened. I was, however, virulent about writing down every single solitary thing that went down my gullet… and I meaneverything. It’s one of the main edicts of Weight Watchers, they call in “journaling”; keeping a record of everything you eat. I have always hated it and I don’t think I have grown a fondness to the task but I decided to just look at it as homework and just do it with hopes that it would help in the end. I realize that the main purpose of this is to just be aware of everything you eat. It kind of goes in congruence with that Maya Angelou quote, “When you know better, you do better…” Like, when you’re eating five Big Macs a day, there’s a certain delusion that you build whereas, you kinda know that it’s not completely right, but you don’t really know how wrong you’reactually being. Well… if you flat out know that a Big Mac is 540 calories… and five of them is 2,700 calories… and you need to keep under 1,200 calories… a day… it’s hard eat them. It’s hard to consciously do something that you know is wrong (for the most part at least. I recently lost a really good friend of mine who consistently did just that and who’s pathology of purposeful evil doing was starting to creep me out to the point of imaging that she was going to wind up making a “woman suit” one day, but I digress…)

Even though I never did make it to the gym, I tracked every chicken breast, Lean Cuisine, Baked Lays BBQ Chips, even Hershey’s kisses that I engulfed this past week. I do have to say that as tiring as it is, it is extremely helpful in coming to some sort of realization of exactly how much food you consume in a day. That was one of the main reasons why I never wanted to do it; I figured my hand would just be so tired from all that scribbling. I mean, seriously, can you imagine the reams of paper Marlon Brando would have gone through writing down everything he ate? I really do think that if your typical overweight person would write down everything they ate and realized that they have exhausted a ream of paper and/or pack of pens… and it’s only been two days since you began writing… you would alter your food consumption just a bit. I, for sure, certainly did.

I can tell you pre-Weight Watchers a typical day for me would be to have a Popeye’s 2 piece fried chicken meal with macaroni and cheese and mashed potatoes with gravy, a biscuit and large Coke for breakfast. During the course ofthe morning I would have approximately three or four Cokes from the vending machine. Lunch would be a Chicken Whopper, Whooper Jr., Onion Rings and a Strawberry pop. About three or four more Cokes from the vending machine. On the way home I would want a little something to nosh on so I would hit Burger King one last time for a cheeseburger and another Coke. I would get home and order… a large Meat Lovers pizza from Pizza Hut, and an order of Spicy Honey BBQ Wings… and a two liter Coke. This was a typical day, every day, foryears. Did I mention I’m 5’6” (5’7” in heels) and used to weigh 382 lbs.? Now you know why. And if Iwould have sat down and wrote all that stuff down with its total nutritional value it would have blown my fat little mind away! I haven’t actually done it, actually figured out how much all that adds up, but I’m pretty sure it’s comparable to the amount of shit they shove down an elephant’s throat at the zoo.

So a typical day for me now:

Breakfast: McDonalds’ Egg McMuffin (which is surprisingly enough, one of the healthier breakfast foods you can have. Seriously… look it up...) or if I have time, multigrain blueberry waffles, two eggs and two Morning Star Vegetarian sausage patties.

Lunch: Usually some sort of Lean Cuisine frozen dinner. Sometimes I get a bag of Baked Lays Potato Chips.

Snacks, etc: I keep apples, bananas and/or carrot sticks on hand. Sometimes I’ll get a salad and use Fat Free Dressing. I don’t do pop anymore… but I do coffee. I don’t know if it’s better, but it works for me.

Dinner: Usually some sort of Healthy Choice, Lean Cuisine frozen dinner whatever, with a skinless, boneless chicken breast and some vegetables. I’m partial to using low sodiumLiquid Aminos.

One glorious day I’m going to learn how to cook or get married to somebody who knows how to cook so I can eliminate all the processed frozen foods out of my diet but until then, quite honestly… popping low calorie, high protein, high fiber Roasted Chicken Tenderloins in a balsamic glaze with orzo pasta and vegetable medley with green bean amandine in the microwave works just fine for me. Now Weight Watchers actually doesn’t want you to be dependent on prepackaged frozen foods and would rather you learn how to cook healthy foods yourself and make healthier choices. It’s definitely the endgame for me, I definitely don’t want to be fifty and having a diet filled with frozen dinners but… what can I say… I’m a dude… I fucking hate cooking. I’m going to have to take baby steps on that one. (And even when/if I decide to learn how to cook, do not expect me to take pictures of it and paste it up everywhere… I just think it’s a goofy thing to do… ILOVE you Jen but it's justfucking GOOFY! LOL!)

There are going to be a few people in my life that are going to wind up being featured prominently in this blog, mainly because they are featured prominently in my life. Let’s start with Harold. Now Harold, quite honestly, is not a terribly close friend, but he is a very dear “associate” that I befriended online a couple of years ago. Actually if I remember right it might have been on one of those man-on-man sex hook up sites (we never did have sex by the way). He lives in Atlanta and whenever he visits Los Angeles, which is often, he hits me up and we go have Thai food and catch with each other’s lives. We have both gained a substantial amount of weight since the last time we saw each other. While I think I gained more than he has, he claimed that his present weight is the highest he has ever been in his life. He plans to eventually monitor his eating habits but he is determined to begin the monitoring by first “fasting” and cutting back his caloric intake dramatically… which I can’t stand in judgment of. I didn’t even want to advise him of anything different, “Shit, if it works for you… fuck it…” He asked me what the worst experiences of being 382 lbs. were… what the worst aspectsof it were. Losing my boyfriend because I couldn’t get it up tops the list. A bacterial infection similar to a diaper rash on the back on my neck is another one. Hemorrhoids. Never being able to buckle up on a plane. Taking up two seats on the city bus. Not being able to walk half a block without taking a break. That one time when they had to call on the assistance of four maintenance workers to try and snap the safety bar down on my pudgy body when I was trying to get onto a roller coaster at Six Flags... I think I stopped there. I don’t think I mentioned that my laundry bill went up because a normal sized washing machine can only hold a single pair of 62” waist jeans or that whenever Pizza Hut came to my apartment or office building they automatically placed my name on the order thinking there was at least an 85% chance that I was the one who had placed the order. Or the time when I and my 72 year old father were caught in the rain and he beatme by a good ten minutes fast walking to the car. None of which convinced him to thwart his plan of fasting the fat away. If anything it convinced me to drop the whole Weight Watcher’s shtick and just start vomiting right then and there...

Another is a really good friend of mine named Elroy whom, unfortunately, I have not seen physically seen in approximately three years. When I first met Elroy years ago, he was morbidly obese. At 5’7” (5’8” in heels) he well toppled the scales at over 500 pounds. He had since elected to get some gastric bypass surgical procedures and dropped well over 200 pounds in the process. However, in a completely unrelated issue, his doctors found cancerous cells and proceeded to attack them with various forms of chemotherapy. In the process, he dropped well over another 100 pounds. For the life of me I could not imagine what this man could possibly look like considering the fact I have known him to be theMichelinMan's doppelgänger since the day I met him. But there he was, on the front porch of my apartment building, looking every bit of the 150 pounds he had pre-warned me that he was. It was shocking to say the least. He had previously told me that when he went to the club recently,his old associates took one look at him, a gay man who has been out of commission for a long time and returning noticeably skeletal, and made the most obviously heterosexual assumption of his physical status. Some looked at him and began crying instantaneously. Others greeted him with curt graciousness then quickly ran back to their gaggle of friends who began to point, giggle andpontificate. Being the kind hearted, decent, child of God that I am the first thing that came to mind was, “Bitch you do look like you’re on your death bed!” His response, “The last time I saw you, you were looking buff and muscular. You look like you’ve been eating balloons ever since!” Needless to say, time didn’t change a thing between us. We went to get some beers and shoot the shit and we had a really good time. He’s in good spirits and despite his gaunt appearance, he’s in good health. No more cancer cells were present and he’s just taking everything one day at a time. He joked that he was pissed that he got the gastric bypass surgery… that if hehad known that he was going have to one day get chemotherapy that he would havejust ate his ass off until it happened. He was really thin. Amazingly thin. I don’t want to be that thin. I wondered; if I had to choose, 382 or 150… I’m thinking I would choose 382. I think the whole thing just kind of creeped us both out and we were just trying to deal with it the best way we could. I got us both some Bud Lights. He said, “Do you really think a light beer is gonna make a difference ‘Precious’?”I said, “Well I was trying to be nice. I was thinking anything over 16 oz. ofliquid and you would fucking collapse. “ No, time has not changed us at all.

And the last, but certainly not least [insert long dramatic drum roll here]… Dean. Yup, the ever (in)famousDean. The Ballad of Dean andBreeze: We were intense lovers. We were intense enemies. We became half way decent friends. Then I hated him again. Then I loved him again. Rinse. Wash. Repeat. For almost a decade now that I think about it! He’s married now to some philandering asshole that totally deserves him and I don’t regret a thing about not being in that cycle again. However, as demented as it seems, and even Elroy who absolutely hates Dean understands the logic of this… Dean and I are pretty good friends. At this point it feels like we are old army buddies, having gone through the war… with no intention of enlisting ever again… at least on my part. Sometimes I think Dean is a little shell shocked and as Alanis Morrissette once intoned he wants to “go to the dungeon to make peace with his days in thedungeon.” But all in all, I don’t think he’s ever going to leave his husband. Harold asked why do I think that. I responded with one of the more profound things I’ve said in a while, “Because he doesn’t know any better.” But he does have a weight problem. In fact he pretty much has the same weight problem that I have. He “gets” it. That diet of Popeye’s and Pizza and Burger King… he gets it. It was definitely one of the few things that we had in common when we were together. And while I might still harbor some childish animosity about our breakup… I can’t turn my back a chubby guy needing some help, especially when I am well aware of the intimacies of the pain he’s going through (it took five maintenance workers to try and snap the safety bar down on him when he was trying to get onto the roller coaster at SixFlags). So… [start your eyes rolling now] he tagged along with me to my Weight Watcher’s meeting last Saturday. Hewent with me once before when I was going with the Church Ladies. He was not impressed (I assume the chanting got to him). But this time around, my group leader is like the best in the city. I really love this woman! It’s really like going to church for me sometimes. I go in, I say my peace, I get some solace, I give my offerings, and leave a completely stronger and happier person. I think Dean felt the same way. I told him to just come and if he was impressed that he could go ahead and sign up. Midway through it I could see that twinkle in his eye. He was hooked. When I showed him I had lost 5.4 pounds that first week he signed his name on the dotted line. He said, “I guess we’re going to be Weight Watcher’s buddies!” I felt like it was the debut episode of some obviously doomed Fox sitcom. “I guess so.” I grimly said through a false smile.

[insert hilariously cheery song to be used as sitcom theme music here]

Week One - Kaleidoscope Pebble Intro (294.6 lb)

2011-01-09T00:27:00.000-08:00

So this is the deal. My name is Breeze. Right about now there are a few people who know my “government” name and are rolling their eyes and going, “That’s not his real name!”, which of course brings up the question “what is real?” The name the government gave my ancestors for commercial purposes? The name I gave myself for spiritual purposes? The name my mom gave me after she got over the shock of passing something the size of a watermelon through a hole the size of a grape? The name my father wanted to give me but forgot due to the concussion he suffered at the hands of my mom during my birth as she screamed at him that something the size of a watermelon was passing through a hole the size of a grape and to never touch her again? It’s probably all of that.

Real is also that I have been overweight my entire life. Well, I actually did just find a picture of myself when I was in kindergarten and was in shock to realize that there was a time in my life in which my width was smaller than my height.

Fast forward a couple of decades later, past my smelly, chubby teen years and my adorably overweight twenties and you would find yourself smack dab in my obliviously obese thirties. Oblivious because I wasn’t REALLY aware of exactly how big I was. My doctor at one point suggested that I consider surgical options to control my weight. My response, “But doctor, that’s for fat people?”

Fast forward a couple of years later and you’ll catch me shopping around for different weight loss diet plans, much to the dismay of my brother who honestly with the best of intentions decried, “Fuck that man! You don’t need to go to no Jenny Craig man! Just eat rice and vegetables man!” When I asked how long should I eat rice and vegetables to lose in excess of 100 pounds his reply was, “About a month.”

When I explained my dilemma to another friend adding that I do not know how to cook his reply was, “Do you have an oven? Can you get an onion? Get a huge onion, season it, then put it in the oven and bake it for 30 minutes.”

This is when I realized that though I love my friends and family and I honestly feel that they have nothing but the best intentions for my welfare but quite frankly they are all… full of shit. I have come to realize that unless you have been overweight for an extended period of time, grown up with it, been the fattest one in every situation, every party, every gathering, every family reunion, wedding, funeral… orgy, you’ll just never understand. And every time friends and family try to convince me that they know my pain, I liken it to a White person trying to convince a Black person that they truly understand their pain. “I get that you have the best intentions for me and you want to relate to me on a certain level, but, seriously… you’re full of shit.”

Fast forward a couple of years later and you’ll find me at my first Weight Watchers® meeting. One thing that has always turned me off from joining any weight loss program was that they all seem to be geared towards women. And not necessarily just women, but housewives in particular, and my lifestyle couldn’t be the furthest away from that. But I showed up anyway. It was pretty much my worst fears materialized. I was the youngest person in there and most notably, the only guy. In fact, I was in this room full of Church Women and I just couldn’t get that scene in Beloved out of my head where all of the town’s women came upon Sethe’s to pray the spirit out of her house. I looked at all of these women and I kept thinking they were going to turn around and start chanting for the evil fat spirit in me to leave then start screaming to rebuke the evils of the fat devil.

Then I weighed in. 383.2 pounds.

It was like somebody had punched me in the face. I couldn’t believe it. I was just stunned. I was shocked beyond belief. While this was happening, the group leader had already begun the session and I felt as if I had slipped into this worm hole where everything around me was just slipping away, lifting above me, leaving me alone in the dark with fat, shadowy dead things. It took the woman who had weighed me in to snap her fingers for me to come back to reality.

383.2 pounds. Three hundred and eighty three fucking pounds! I honestly think that if I had known that I was this big, I probably would have begun searching for surgical solutions. I never ever wanted to get any of that done, the intestinal bypass whatever, but at three hundred and eighty three fucking pounds… I would have picked up a brochure or two…or three… or three hundred and eighty fucking three!

I sat down amongst those church ladies and the thought of them trying to excorcize the “fat demon” out of me and it suddenly became sobering and terrifying. That first night was not good. I was trying so hard to pay attention to the leader but there was just too many things going on in my head at the time, exorcisms and worm holes and such.

The way Weight Watchers® works is that only people who have been through the program and have lost weight for a “substantial” amount of time are allowed to be leaders… which I think is just awesome. The group leaders “get it”. They are not full of shit. The group leader of my initial meetings was an absolute lovely woman who gave me nothing but kind words and support… but I do have to mention that when we inquired about how much she had lost considering the fact that she appeared so slim and trim and her response was 30 pounds 10 years ago I began screaming in my head, “BEE-YATCH! I’M THREE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY THREE MOTHER FUCKING POUNDS!! SIT YO SKINNY AS DOWN SOMEPLACE!!”

But I didn’t, and I think that was a step in the right direction. And that incidentally became my excuse for everything from that moment on. After finding out how big I was, the thought consumed me. I didn’t feel as if I should have been doing anything else but concentrating on my weight.

Hey Breeze you going to go to the bar next Wednesday for Big Boy night?

“Bitch! I’m three hundred and eighty three motherfucking pounds!”

Hey Breeze, I was just thinking about you and wondering if you wanted to talk and maybe rekindle our relationship.

“Bitch! I’m three hundred and eighty three motherfucking pounds!”

Mr. Vincinz, your student loan is past due. When can we expect a payment?

“Bitch! I’m three hundred and eighty three motherfucking pounds!”

That first week I lost 5.4 pounds.

Hey Breeze, you finally want to tell me what your real name is?

“Bitch! I’m three hundred and seventy seven motherfucking pounds!”

Fast forward another year and a half filled with intense workouts, disciplined eating habits and regular sleeping patterns and you would have found me in Atlanta, GA.

Hey Breeze, you want to have anonymous sex with that group of people over there?”

“Bitch! I’m two hundred and thirty seven motherfucking pounds… of course I do…”

237. Yeah… I had dropped 146 pounds. [insert audible gasps and applause here]

But (and unfortunately there is always a ‘but’) like Icarus, I flew too close to the sun with my beautiful wings… and plummeted like a rock back to reality. I stopped going to my Weight Watchers® meetings, it really got in the way of my drunken stupors at my local bars and picking up more groups of random people for more anonymous sex. That is until I began to realize that the stylish size 36 inch jeans that I used to wear to the bar, were fitting more and more like bicycle shorts and all of my T-shirts were unintentionally beginning to look like belly shirts.

Fast forward a couple more years and you’ll be here with me right now. Yesterday was the first day that I have been back to Weight Watchers since last July and the first time I have weighed myself in quite some time.

Bitch… two hundred and ninety four motherfucking pounds!”

Yeah… I have gained close 60 pounds since my heyday in Atlanta, GA. [insert audible gasps and heckling here]

So what is real? The overweight teen? The morbidly obese man? The middle aged sexually active pseudo-athlete? It’s probably all of that.

I’m starting to realize that life can sometimes just be one big ass kaleidoscope and it can be incredibly hard to truly see what exactly is going on without the reflection of your own insecurities, history and cynicism mucking everything up.

So with all that said what I can tell you is that at the end of this tube there is a guy named Breeze who weighs 294.6 lbs. There are other factors out there that might reflect that my name is something else or that my appearance is something else or even that my sexuality is something else but as far as what is real… that’s what it is.

And I welcome you to come along with me as I re-enter my weight loss journey. My Weight Watcher’s® meetings happen every Saturday. The plan is to journal about my thoughts on the meeting and to discuss happenings that occurred during the previous week in regards to weight management as well as chart my progress.

I have been journaling for quite some time now and have been remarkably candid about some of the more intimate exploits in my life but I can tell you that THIS is probably going to be the most intimate undertaking I have ever done in a public arena. Telling the public my actual weight and the progress to lose it is really on the same level as doing porn for me. I imagine that the panic attack I would have while spreading myself open for some pornographer’s camera would be the exact same as the panic attack I’m having right now spreading myself open by posting my actual weight of 294.6 lbs., the journey how I got here, and the processes I have to go through to leave. This is going to be more intimate than any romp in the hay that I’ve written about (except for Atlanta… my God… the dudes down there!) And oh yeah, a few housekeeping things of note to keep in mind while keeping up with this journal…

While the main focus will be my experiences with weight management, that will be the colored stones at the bottom of this kaleidoscope, those will be a reflection of a 5'7", 39 year old African American male who grew up in the projects of Chicago, IL who now resides in Hollywood, CA… and is gay. Gay, gay, gay, gay, gay… oh my God he’s really gay. Or as Karen Walker so eloquently noted, “Honey, you’re so gay when you fell outta the gay tree, you hit every gay branch on the way down, then you landed on a gay guy. Then you did him.”

So there you have it, an extended introduction but… I figured it was really necessary to lay down some road map as to how this journey is going to begin. I'm nervous as all hell but really excited as well. There are some other aspects that probably need to be introduced but you know… we’ll just play the rest by ear and see where it goes.

See you next week!