Looking into the mirror without running away in terror

It was 5:30 this morning. As a culinary student, I am used to getting up early now, each and every day. My tasks are to shower, shave, brush my teeth, throw on my chef uniform, kiss the sleeping mrs. muse goodbye, grab my knife kit and head out the door as fast as possible.

Sounds like a relatively normal morning for most people, I guess, with the exception of the knife kit and the big floppy hat. Its a routine that, at some point, we all experience. But I went and have done something absolutely nutty. I added a little step to the routine. Before showering, I now step on the (drumroll please) scale. *Gulp.*

About a year ago, I was trying to find purpose and direction with what I wanted to do with my life. I’ve been lucky enough to have some interesting careers, but I had somehow found myself in cubicle hell. Unfortunately, (or perhaps fortunately, in the big picture) my evil cubicle farm decided to downsize. Long story short:

They downsized, I upsized. As my self esteem diminished, my weight went up. I put on enough weight that I could have played Buddha in a California Multi Cultural Holiday Season (But not Christmas) pageant. After some soul searching, I found myself in culinary school. Probably not the best place for a guy with a little weight problem. However, I found myself performing well, and suddenly I found myself doing so well in school that I was developing a new self esteem. And when that happened, I found myself finally able to look in the mirror, and realize that I had a problem to solve. I decided to use my newfound food knowledge, regarding everything from calories to portioning, to help me lose weight. I was probably about 236 at my heaviest. And just from changing my diet, I brought it back down to 200, just from sheer diet alone. It took me about six months to drop this much, and just one week ago, I weighed 200.

I then brought out my weights, started using my treadmill, and am struggling to do situps in the morning and evening.

Today, the scale read 192.

Okay, so yeah, I am getting into shape, physically. I have more energy, I am stronger, and I feel that I am making positive changes for my life and for my own self esteem. This is actually less than what I weighed when I met the lovely mrs. muse.

So, what is this post about? Looking for a pat on the back about losing the weight. No. Not really. Er, well, maybe just a little. (Hooray me!)

But as your situation improves, and you start putting positive values in place, you may start to recognize things about yourself that could use a little maintenance or changing. Its part of growing up, I think. Looking into the mirror and seeing the obvious Buddha belly was one thing… But what about the stuff that you can’t see?

As my self worth, self esteem, and self value increases, I find that I am able to look at myself more critically without feeling my pride has been injured or hurt. I am able to look at my shortcomings, not only in relation to my body, but in relation to my mind and my behaviors. Suddenly, I am recognizing behaviors that I don’t find desirable, and that I want to change. Of course, some of them are not earth shattering, and yet others are a really big challenge for me. Without going in to detail too much, its simple enough to say that we all, whether grown ups or adolescents, get comfortable with routines or desires that can be injurious to ourselves or others.But, just like you can lose the weight, you can change the behavior. The key, I think, is having the right knowledge and the right tools. For me, losing the weight was a matter of taking what I was learning about nutrition in the classroom and applying it to my everyday eating habits.

So how do you change behaviors? How do you even know if you have a behavior that needs changing? Again, it comes down to having the right tools and the right knowledge.

And sometimes the right knowledge and tools come from odd sources. Right now, journaling is suddenly becoming a very important part of my life. Its allowing me to see things from a different perspective. Writing something down, and then re-reading it even as soon as the next day can have an impact far beyond what I had imagined. I find myself already killing little bad habits, and slowly modifying the big nasty ones.

For some, the answer may be a therapist, a good friend to talk to, or a spiritual organization such as church or a spiritual group of some sort. You do, of course, have to be very careful in choosing your resources.

But throughout all of the changes I am going through, which I feel are positive, I am finding that the only way to truly deal with something is to be honest with yourself, and know that change is possible, and that if you truly want to change you have to get out there and do the work that makes it possible. You have to do your research, educate yourself about your situation, and then make things happen. No one else can do it for you. Its your body, and its your mind. Its your responsibility to make them both into what you want them to be.