"It's time to wake up and turn this around"

At my heaviest I weighed around 330 lbs. On my 5' 11" frame this definitely made me look fat but friends and family are still shocked when they hear that number, I was shocked when I heard that number at a doctor's appointment two and half or so years ago. People always say "you didn't look that fat" and while I'm inclined to agree to some extent, I never would have guessed I was over the 300 lb mark based on my appearance, I look at pictures now from back then and I'm shocked, saddened and ashamed at what I'd done to myself.

Yesterday morning I stepped on a scale and saw that my weight was in the 240's for the first time in at least 10 years and while I was definitely excited and very happy to see those results, my initial reaction was to break down and start crying. Part of this was tears of happiness but lately I've been experiencing a tremendous amount of regret, not just about what I've done to myself physically by being overweight for so long but at how much time I spent giving in to the depression, how much time I spent literally hating myself - when the solution to all of these things was in my hands and in my control all along. I spent a majority of my life convinced I was powerless, broken and weak and I'm starting to realize that none of it was true. I feel like I'm in the process of waking up from an über-realistic nightmare or being deprogrammed after spending a lifetime in an End of the World cult.

But as the weight pours off, I find myself inundated with over a decade's worth of negative emotions. All of my fears and anxieties, all of the sadness and depression, all of the anger and jealousy that I'd used drugs and food to try and cover up is now leaving my body but the downside to this is having to re experience all of these feelings. In the past I would have gone out and gotten fucked up at the first sight of stressful emotions and now the only tool I have for helping me deal is exercise. And when you're alternating between weepy, ecstatic, morbidly depressed and everything in between, it's hard to feel motivated all of the time. But then I look in the mirror and see my progress and take note of my burgeoning muscles, and I feel sense of virile, masculine, power that is beyond anything I've ever previously known. It's bizarre to say something like this but after spending so many years floundering in uncertainty, I know in my heart that I am truly, finally, on the right path.

Inauguration

My name is Arthur and I am an addict.

I always was, am and always will be - I've come to terms with this fact. The only real choices I have in this inevitability are: to what things am I going to be addicted.

Right now I'm mainly hooked on exercise but I also have a lifelong unhealthy relationship with food that regularly rears it's ugly head. I'm also a recovering drug and prescription pill addict, I self medicated my problems with depression and anxiety for years and years - to what I thought was the 'point of no return' but from which I am somehow in the process of miraculously returning.

I've been sober a little less than two and a half years now, also cigarette free for a year and a half and have now been exercising regularly for eight months. I made some huge changes to my diet about two months ago and am beginning to lose weight and put on muscle at a rate that sometimes scares me. I am not only becoming a different person mentally, thanks to the clear headedness that accompanies sobriety, but am now also becoming an entirely different person physically as well.

My intention with this blog is to document this journey that I'm on and, while it will mainly serve as a personal journal of my thoughts and experiences, my hope is that if someone somewhere comes across it and needs help with starting or continuing their own journey towards a healthier lifestyle, maybe something I'll write can help to inspire them