What Giving Up Looks Like

   I stood there in the dim light, unable to stop what was to come. I didn't know it then, but this was going to be a moment that would fundamentally change me as a human being, a father, a partner, and a believer in God/Jesus. As anger poured from her lips, the panic was not for myself but for the two innocent children upstairs. This was not where this began though. Follow me back three years previous. 

    I sat at my work desk one day and, as I leaned into the work, my cell phone begins to ring. It was generally understood by my family that I wasn't able to answer many calls during work hours, so this must have been something rather important. I picked up the phone and saw that it was my wife at the time so, with a flick of a finger, I answered the call and asked, "what's up?"

    "I want a divorce," came across the line coldly. Stiff. Rigid. Blank and emotionless.

    The relationship was constantly fueled with cutting humor and jabs, her jabbing at me and I enjoying cutting and dark humor, so I assumed this was just another joking stab and replied, "Okay but what's up?"

    "I'm not joking. I want a divorce and I'm leaving town with the kids tonight. When you get home we will not be there."

    I'll spare you the full conversation but it was full of all of the ups and downs that you can expect. There was a point of me believing she was just taking herself and my kids and going somewhere else without bothering to tell me anything about my own children or their safety. There was a point where she called out some things that I had done and given them as the reason for the divorce. I raced home. 

    The struggle with being in an abusive relationship is that a lot of times it is incredibly difficult to know that is is abusive from the inside perspective. Things that should have been huge red flags for me got justified by my emotional need to keep the relationship held highly in my mind. Her calling me "socially retarded" and insulting me in front of our friends and family was both social and emotional abuse. I shouldn't have stood for it. Receiving texts like, "you haven't put out in a week so you need to take care of that" is pressured intimacy and is sexually abusive. I shouldn't have stood for it. Likewise, in this scenario, being placed on the hook to do all of the things she wanted while ignoring my own needs just so that she could leave the relationship on better footing for herself was mentally and emotionally abusive and verging on the point of true narcissism - and not the vain usage of that word that has become trite and overused in social media. I shouldn't have stood for it. Nevertheless, I did. 

    Over the next coming months I asked for her to try and work through the struggles in the relationship. I was dishonest about things and she rightfully had all the reason in the world to be as upset as she was. Justifying the actions isn't something I do for other people and try not to do for myself, but her feelings were valid in what they were and I asked her to try and work on those pieces with me. 

    What I was given back was an ultimatum. Either I leave my entire support network and go with her back to her hometown where she had a complete support structure spiritually, financially, emotionally, and mentally - or it was over then and there. It's hard to explain how emotionally manipulative this was at the moment to someone who hasn't been in that position. At this time, in my mind, the most important thing was to try and keep the relationship together. It's what was best for the children. It's what spiritually was "supposed" to be done. It was best for the healing of everyone involved in my mind at the time. 

    She knew that I thought and felt that way. She knew the brokenness of my own blood family in my youth and how highly I valued the idea of that not carrying into the next generation. She knew that there were decades long hurts and scars of being divided from my own family in childhood that held me to this idea. The ultimatum wasn't just unfair because the concept of all or nothing is. It was unfair because she intentionally was levying all of that emotional baggage against me. I didn't see it then because I was too hopelessly devoted to this idea. 

    So we moved. We moved 6 hours away to a place where she had already, over the previous years, convinced me that my actual friends were not good for me and supplanted them with the husbands of her true friends. We moved to a place where I had no family, no friends, was subject to going to the same church she had attended her whole life, and where my one and only goal would be to pursue the relationship - or so she said. 

    Over the next year or so I did literally everything I could in order to make the relationship work, much of which I should have seen as a red flag up front. I was supposed to get a job paying X amount in order to keep the relationship. I did. I was supposed to purchase a home for us to keep the relationship. I did. I was supposed to make sure she had a comfortable vehicle separate from mine to keep the relationship. I did. In fact, any time she found something not going her way it became a conversation of whether I wanted to make it work or if I didn't. This was certainly applicable to big decisions like where the kids were going to go to school but also petty daily things like when she wanted to buy something for herself. If I at all objected then it was suggested that I didn't want to make things work.

    Once all of that was set up though, the tune suddenly changed. Now, all of a sudden, I wasn't doing enough to try and fix things. I suggested we see a therapist and she agreed but then demanded that I find the therapist. I suggested some people we knew in the church. That would have been too personal. I suggested we go to our doctor and see if he knows someone. That was "letting people know our business." I suggested someone that I found that specialized in this particular area and that neither of us knew and then it was that she wasn't comfortable speaking with a stranger about it. I should have known that she didn't want to fix it, but I didn't see it. I couldn't see the setup. 

    Then, one day, we go to the hospital because she is having some excruciating pain. This is almost a criminally glib overview of that event, but it happened to be an ectopic pregnancy. The doctors did what needed to be done and informed my then wife that it was dangerous to both a baby and to her for that to have happened and that it is potentially fatal. Now, the fatality rate for ectopic pregnancy averages around 3.8% nationally. Nevertheless, this experience for my ex was foundational for her. She was convinced that this was a baby that was sacrificed and enabled her to live.

    There sort of needed to be some reckoning for this there for both of us. Prior to our first child, there was a miscarriage that went about as horribly as you can imagine. We were at the hospital with spotting and were sent home to let it happen on its own despite them knowing it would happen and then I was told we needed to bring "it" in. So I fished the forming baby out of the toilet with my hands after she was done passing it. I stared into the black and dark holes where the eyes would form as a piece of my innocence and my soul was ripped from me. There is a uniquely depraved and dark experience of staring into the lifeless empty eye sockets of what should be forming into your own child. I will never forget that. It will never leave me. I can never undo that and yet in that moment I felt this burden on me to make sure that she was able to cope and to help her emotionally through it. For her, she cannot undo that either and there needed to be some way to resolve the absurd cold we both felt in this new and somewhat familiar situation. This was the second child to not survive until birth for us. For her, the justification was that it needed to happen for her to live. For me, there was no resolution. The world is full of dark bullshit like this for no good reason. 

    From that foundational thought, she moved on to making sure she "didn't waste" this "second chance" that she had. She spent obscene amounts of money on makeup to make sure she could do a full set of makeup on her face every day. This was a baby step to boosting self esteem and taking intentional steps to feel good regardless of what you want in the moment and steps like that are fundamentally healthy steps, so I supported it. 

    She hadn't worked for years yet I never saw the money as "mine" but as "ours." It seems though that she was viewing it all as "hers." While she was spending hundreds of dollars on makeup pallets, I was nervous to spend the money on a cup of coffee at Starbucks because I didn't know if it would break the bank or not. I never saw this flag because at the time I viewed this through a lens of thinking, "she needs to do what will make her feel better as a person so that she can be a better mother to our children and she needs this to cope with the event of the miscarried ectopic pregnancy." It was a start to her trying to feel better for herself and I endorsed that. There is nothing wrong with self maintenance but there was a negligence of my own needs that was demanded which was abusive here. 

    That need to validate herself progressed on and on into making sure she lost weight. She was determined to do so and she did lose a good amount of weight. She insisted that she be able to pursue being an "influencer" and that if I didn't support that then the relationship was over. So I helped her pursue those ends while they were in their infant stages. I genuinely wanted to see her feel better about herself but also wanted my girls to have a healthy mother. I joined in the diet changes. I joined in the time at the gym. I helped supply ideas for filming and helped furnish better gear to make those things happen. I truly believed that, despite seeing some negative aspects for the children, it was a better route for her and would ultimately be better for the family. 

    I had done what she wanted. I moved away from friends, family, and my home community. I bought a home. I had the cars. I supported the "influencer" dream financially and emotionally. I tried to get us into some therapy while even going to therapy for myself. Instead of looking at any of that as she had portrayed it to be foundational to keeping the relationship working, she instead fixated on those things I had done and said in the past. She didn't want to make it better. She never did. She had threatened divorce at me only two years into marriage and this was just the clumsy excuse that she was using to justify it spiritually and emotionally for herself.

    At some point in this situation she decided that she would only stay in the home and continue to work on things if I moved out of the bedroom. She insisted that I move all of my things into the unfinished 1920's basement which had no heat or proper lighting/electricity or she was not going to work on things anymore. I did it. I distinctly remember laying on a mattress that was directly on the hard concrete floor in a completely unfurnished basement with painted gray foundation. She sat upstairs in the living room with her friends pretending that I wasn't downstairs and threatening that if I came up during that time that it was over. I listened to her chat it up with friends as if nothing was wrong while I dug as deep and hard as I could into my faith and tried to make amends for things that I had done.  

    Then, one day at my new job she called me and repeated the same thing. She was for sure getting a divorce this time. She decided that where we had been was more important than where we were or where we were going. She had decided she was done this day. This was the beginning point of where I began to come out from under the proverbial "ether."

     I went home after work and here is where I originally began this story. I finished my shift at work because I wasn't allowed to leave early. Her mother, this time, did not allow her to simply go over to her house and so there she was, in the living room when I arrived home. It was late in the evening - close to 10pm - and the children were asleep. 

    She began to yell at me about how she was done. I told her that the children were sleeping so we can't be so loud. She kept on yelling about how bad of a person I am and how manipulative I am. 

    "I know you're mad. I don't care if you yell at me. I don't care if you hit me but can we do this in the car then so we don't wake the kids up? We can't wake the kids up with this. They can't find out this way." I pleaded with her. 

    She couldn't be bothered to think of the kids at that moment. She needed to yell at me more than she needed to protect them. As she continued bellowing at me I hear it. I hear what I was dreading this whole time. My sweet and innocent little girl, only five years old at the time, on the stairs says, "I don't want daddy to move away!!!" and she starts crying. I felt like someone had cut my chest open and let everything fall out, and then I looked up the stairs. 

    There she stood, my oldest, her face sad in a way I can never describe. I watched the vibrant, exploratory, innocent, curious, light-hearted child die right in front of me and saw it change into a child that now knew too much. She was exposed to it. The darkness that isn't supposed to reach you until you are in your teenage years had touched her heart at the age of five and I watched it drain the childhood from her in that moment. 

    I ran up the stairs, scooped her up and hugged her as tightly as I could. I made mistakes here and kept repeating to her that she doesn't need to worry about this, none of this is her fault, and that we always need to be honest. I HATE myself for repeating those things to her. In my panicked mind I was doing my best to contain the emotional bleeding there. I was trying to help comfort and also not lie to her. I was trying to help her process something a child that age should never have to process and I completely hate myself for it. 

    As I came back down the stairs, I saw my wife, still ready to yell at me some more. She wanted to know if our oldest was okay and I told her that I had helped her back to sleep. She then started to begin the process again. A flip switched for me. A fundamental flip switched for me at that moment that WILL NOT ever switch back. 

    "Go file. I'll sign the paperwork." I said to her. 

    I refused for the rest of that evening to even speak with her and the more I have thought of that evening, which now was six years ago, the more I hate myself for how I reacted. Even in that fucking moment I protected my ex from seeing the look on our daughter's face intentionally. I knew that, given all the things that she was going through at the moment, she couldn't have handled it. It would have broken her. I should have just gone out to the car myself so she couldn't have yelled at me inside. I should have shut it down. She should have felt and known every ounce of pain that her wild and reckless actions caused. She should be the one carrying that scar. 

    I could not love her after that. I had, up until that moment, insisted that there wasn't really anything that someone could do to stop me from trying to make things work. I was wrong. Watching her care more about her need to yell than about permanently scarring our children and robbing them of that childlike wonder is something I cannot love and cannot defend.

    Over the process of the divorce there was a host of ugliness and there continues to be afterward. My grandmother (the only person to regularly be involved with me when I was left in foster care) had died. She insisted I bring my five and three year old to the funeral without her. My therapist suggested that I look into Asperger's in a session so I went through the long process of getting diagnosed and when I informed my ex she commented, "oh good - so I married a retard." When I reconnected with a very old friend I went to another state to meet up. She told the entire church that I went up there for a gay orgy, which is very stigmatizing in that circle of people. Then, while I was up there, she had the kids taken back to her parents without my consent and tons of drama ensued. She, in the process of the divorce negotiations, tried to use the same old methods to get even more from me. She insisted that I give her the house that was in my name and that I support her financially for five years while she goes to college. I was no longer under that ether. I declined and informed her that the fault in that plan is that this is the real world where things like that don't happen. She refused to finalize the divorce until after the medical insurance I carried paid for her to get a surgery she wanted and then, when I was making sure she was okay on the day out of surgery, the first words she said was that she is going to file the papers. 

    When I decided to date that person I went to go meet she placed impossible barriers for that person to have to cross. That person wasn't allowed to walk into certain rooms in the house because my ex hadn't moved out yet. When she moved down here with me she wasn't allowed to pick the kids up from school, etc. After we were married my ex still wouldn't let her sign off on medical emergencies for the kids. She decided to have the police come to the house with her on new years eve to collect things because we were headed out of town and she hadn't gotten those things with the three months she was given and this was the last day - so we had to return to the home and the kids wanted to know why there were police at the house and why we weren't going to go see family for our late Christmas. Even the police wondered why they needed to be there. She had a table but also took the dinner table from this house and left nothing for the children to eat dinner at - knowing that it would do so. She insisted that we meet up in the strangest places to switch time with the children because she didn't want to come to the house anymore. My youngest broke her arm at her house and they didn't even notice. We had her come to our house three days later and my current wife (the same lady she didn't want in the house) took her to the E.R. where my ex refused to allow anyone to help without her or my consent and we got it fixed but rest assured my ex got some Instagram photos taken with her in the cast and some campy garbage text that failed to mention that she neglected the broken arm for 3 days or the massive bruise that clearly indicated a problem. My oldest at a point started self harming and informed us that she was going to tell her mom so that she would be proud that she was able to punish herself. When we suggested therapy for her to fix that kind of thinking my ex wouldn't even help get that going and asked if she really needed it so we set it up ourselves. Our oldest came over from their house with lice and we had to take care of that only for my ex to threaten going back to court over me not catering to her fears. She wanted me to dump olive oil all over her head, wrap it in plastic wrap, then a towel, and let it sit and then take them to a lice clinic. We did the Nix kit into the wee hours, sanitized EVERYTHING in our house and it fixed the problem. She still did all the stuff she wanted me to do only to text me later that they found no lice - so her threatening court was pointless. The school emailed me that on their days with their mother they are dressed in clothes that are not appropriately sized or are wearing out so we have constantly had to keep on top of that too. I've had my children's heads filled with political ideas at the age of seven and ten. I've had my children told that vaccines don't help with COVID. 

    So life moved on a bit from there. My ex capitalized on her perceived atrocities and utilized the damage to write articles about her overcoming. She posted on media about her overcoming the things that happened to her when the largest bulk of those things she was doing to herself and her children (while blaming everyone but herself). I was the bad guy for "letting" her get to the unhealthy size she was. I was the bad guy for "letting" her ignore her own needs. I was the bad guy for not "letting" her keep a house that she had no job to take the loan over for. I was the bad guy for not completely financially supporting her for five years (no joke - she actually was mad that I wouldn't do that). I was the bad guy for not continuing to pine over her after watching her crush the spirit of our children. I was the bad guy for "making" her overreactions take her to get medical procedures done. I was the bad guy because she took a lease from the divorce that was in my name but she didn't make the payments to the lease that was awarded to her. I was the bad guy because the income changed and she wasn't afforded a ton of support. She even made it a point to blog about specifically how she felt that the money she "got" from it was measly for the time invested in the relationship - because that's what matters, the money. That's all that ever mattered. I was the bad guy because she decided she wanted her own place and things and needed to get a job for herself to support that - despite it being mostly supplemented by her parents and support network. So she blogged about how terrible a person I am while casually leaving out the details about the significant damage that was happening to our children and the wild amount of abuse she was dealing out. That's not as instagram worthy as a picture where you've cropped out your ex and are showing off how much weight you lost after surgery while using your children's cuteness for "likes."

    I, however, feel like garbage because every day I see my kids wounded from this and I feel at fault because my mistakes ignited this whole thing and yet there is also this very distinct part of me that also gets frustrated at that sense of guilt because, even now, several years later, I cannot believe I let so much happen to me and my kids. I cannot believe that I would focus so much on how to improve and move forward only to be falling for a game so that someone else could get what they want out of a relationship before abandoning it. I get mad that I was stupid enough to believe that, if I worked on myself and was willing to work on the relationship, she would be willing to do the same. I get mad that I feel guilty because I DID all the things I was told and could think to fix it. I think there will always be a part of me that hates me in all of that. 

And so this is a messy messy process. It has caused me to change my thoughts and feelings about many many things, some of them spiritual, some relational, and some just about life. Here are some of those things:

1. Unconditional love doesn't exist - people love you until you cross whatever their line is. For some, that line is getting bored. For others, it will take something extreme like murder but, rest assured, everyone does have that line. If you cross the line, you're out. People say, "I'll always love you no matter what" but that's a lie. People I knew for over ten years and had said those things to me abandoned me at the drop of a hat due to a single phone call during the divorce process. People will tell you that it's no matter what. It isn't. 

2. The "God" that most of my upbringing talked about is garbage. People spoke about how everything was about this "relationship" with this "God" but then the relationship was always "his will only" and never really anything but that. Relationships where only one side gets what it wants or needs are abusive. Relationships where the other side isn't allowed to speak for what it wants or is conditioned to always be subservient without questioning things is abusive. If the God out there is the one that hates on LGBT people, only wants everyone to do his will and isn't willing to change that will, and doesn't have enough compassion to help people understand why He would stay a hand at the atrocities we see - then that God is a jerk and I am uninterested in that God. When I read my bible I read stories of a God that listens to people and changes his mind sometimes when they talk to him. I read stories of the Jesus guy having compassion on people. I read authors warning people away from judgement and more into helping the poor and needy. I can get behind those concepts. Screw that other one that people insist they speak for without any validation. That God didn't care to reach into this process to help with any of it. That God didn't care enough to let me know I have Asperger's until I was in my thirties. That God is an asshole. 

3. There isn't any such thing as "the one." There isn't one magical person out there that is going to magically click for you when you meet them. I made a mistake in thinking with my ex that we were "meant" for one another. We weren't. Nobody is. You're not going to find some person where everything just goes smoothly because they are the "one for you." It's not a fairytale dream. We are all basically like some Legos. Some pieces fit together well. Others will fall apart easily and still others just don't work together. Find a piece that works for you. After that you have to WORK. You have to work at it daily. My wife, my lovely, adorable, caring, empathetic, and exuberant wife, is something that I need to PUT IN THE WORK for every day. The love I have for her is found in that work that I do daily. She isn't "the magic one." She is the one I am willing to put that level of effort in for on a daily basis regardless of how I feel at the moment because she is WORTH it. She is always worth it no matter how I feel in a moment so she will always get the best I am able to produce.

4. Love is something you do. I don't always like the people I love. I'm not always happy about them or their choices. Love is the choice to treat them as you would want to be treated and give them the very best you are capable of in that moment anyway. Love is trying to speak THEIR love language to THEM rather than demanding they speak yours. Love is something you do. It's something you give. It's a gift you give to another person. It's not a feeling. It's not that warmness you feel for someone, as nice as that can be. 

How I Stopped Being Tubby

You're just husky. You're big boned. It's your genetics. You're not overweight.

These were the lies that people told me and lies that I told myself. It's important to know the truth in order to be able to act on something, because acting on false information produces corrupt results.

When I graduated high school and went to college, I was 315lbs. I wasn't husky. It wasn't 315lbs of muscle and bones. I wasn't genetically forced into it. I was overweight. I was obese. I was unhealthy.

On the other side of that problem, people use words like chunky, fatty, tubby, lard, huge, humongous, enormous, and otherwise derogatory terms to speak about and define a group of people that in our modern world is one of the fastest growing demographics of people. 

https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/overweight-obesity

There is a middle zone that people are forgetting but before I get into my process, let's get a few things straight first:

1. If you notice someone else who is overweight it is NOT your job to point that out if you are not their family or friends. 

If you don't know this person, you are completely wrong to speak to that portion of their life. You don't know them, you don't have any influence in their life, and as a consequence your words not only mean nothing to them but you are likely making things worse.

2. Fat shaming is just as bad as fat encouraging. The truth is somewhere in between. 

When you talk trash about someone who has weight to lose - let me tell you something. You aren't helping them. They aren't going to suddenly have motivation to change from your insults. For most of them you are provoking the actual issue and they will likely go eat more to cover up the feelings that you are causing them to feel - this is the kind of thing I did. At the same time, by making excuses and saying that they don't have a problem you are helping them do anything better for themselves either. So what is the solution? Don't give your opinion unless asked about it or if you are their family/friends - and then be honest without being cruel. It would have been helpful back then for someone to have told me that the volume I was consuming was terrible - but nobody did. That's a sad fact for most of us who were overweight. People aren't willing to give you the actual advice that you should hear. They either enable or shame you. Don't do that.

3. Just because you are "skinny" that doesn't automatically make you healthy either

As I will discuss later, you may have a fast metabolism that causes your body not to store a lot of fat, however that doesn't make your body altogether healthy alone. There is a very real thing called "skinny fat"

http://www.mensfitness.com/training/pro-tips/skinny-fat-epidemic
https://legionathletics.com/skinny-fat/

http://www.shape.com/lifestyle/mind-and-body/are-you-skinny-fat

Before you run off talking smack about that person who has a few extra pounds or maybe someone who has had kids or so on - how about you just worry about your own situation first? Your slender figure diesn't automatically mean that you are healthy either. 

________________________________________________________________________

Alright, so on to the meat. How did I go from 315lbs to 190lbs as of this morning? How did I lose 90lbs of that in the last 10 1/2 months?

I'm going to break this down into sections because this was a very concentrated and concerted effort to me that I laid out in a process. I tried losing the weight a few years back and I went hard at it, but ultimately I was doing it in a way that wasn't healthy and I was doing it for the wrong reasons. Because of that I shot back up to 280 as of last late June/early July.

So let's start with some of the basics.

BASIC IDEA #1: LOSING WEIGHT IS ABOUT CONSUMPTION VS. PRODUCTION

So to start here I needed to understand what the idea behind losing weight really meant. The logical ends of that become incredibly simple. Food is meant as an energy source for your body. What happens with food is that your body takes it to your stomach, where the starches and other components are turned into a sugar called "glucose" which is then sent to your blood to get energy to your other body parts. This glucose in regular amounts keeps your body functioning, but when it gets high your body will begin to store the extra sugars as fat on your body. At the same time, your body produces insulin to fight the higher blood sugar, but as a consequence of constantly barraging that system, your body also can come to a point where the insulin production is not happening sufficiently. This is called diabetes and sometimes it's genetic but more and more commonly it is not. 

https://www.ghc.org/healthAndWellness/?item=/common/healthAndWellness/conditions/diabetes/foodProcess.html

So we know that if we eat too much that our body will store it as fat and it will mess with our insulin production - which is meant to get rid of the sugar in our blood and balance the system. Additionally you can use the sugar from those areas via doing work - working out, walking, using the energy that is stored in the blood sugar that you have from consuming. Let's get a little more tactile here and evaluate what units of food we are looking at then. 

BASIC IDEA #2: FOR WEIGHT LOSS, THE QUANTITY OF FOOD > QUALITY OF FOOD

One of the basic concepts that you will need to understand is that this doesn't mean a count of ITEMS of your food - it's referring to the QUANTITY of your food. Quantity food is typically measured in calories. In science, a calorie is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius. It's important to know this because it doesn't change as it relates to food and your body. It's a direct measurement of how much energy it is going to give your body as it relates to the blood sugar that we mentioned.

http://kidshealth.org/en/kids/calorie.html

For this reason, it's important to note that your quantity of food is measured in calories and that the measure of calories that you consume will determine how much energy you have. Absolutely it will matter the content of what you eat for practical purposes and for the overall health of your body - you should not discount that, but at the same time as it strictly relates to losing weight the calories are the real factor.

BASIC IDEA #3: WEIGHT LOSS IS A MATH PROPOSITION MOST OF THE TIME

Just like we know how much energy a given volume of food is going to give you, we also know that that energy will convert into a given amount of fat/weight if you do not use it. This is where some of the ideas get a little more complicated because it's a constantly evolving equation in your body. 

Your body has a metabolism, but it's not a static volume of consumption. There are many ways to calculate this, but what I prefer is the resting metabolic rate (RMR) versus active metabolic rate (AMR) method. I like this because even though it changes over time it gives a general idea of how many calories your body can burn naturally without doing any work and, let's be honest, we all want to do this with the least amount of work as possible. Here is a link with some more information about RMR and a calculator.

https://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/calrmr.htm (My number is currently about 1875 calories)

I generally don't worry as much about my AMR, because if I keep my consumption under what I burn naturally then I will by default be losing for any workout the calories burned by that. Coincidentally, it takes 3500 calories to gain or lose a pound. 

http://www.runnersworld.com/weight-loss/biggest-weight-loss-myth-revealed

This is where it becomes a little easier to understand. Mathematically speaking I have just configured 2 numbers - how many calories it takes to lose a pound (3500) and how many I burn at rest on a daily basis (1875). From there it's a simple measure. If I divide that 3500 calories I need to lose 1 pound into 7 days that makes 500 calories a day deficit to lose a pound a week. Since I burn that 1875 naturally, then I would have to eat 1375 calories per day in order to lose that pound. Now when I started losing weight, this number was damn near 4500 calories that I was eating and my RMR was a lot closer to 3700 to maintain that weight - so naturally I lost weight faster when I decided to cut that down to 1500 calories per day. The deficit then was closer to 2k per day which means about a pound every two days but that result will eventually wean down because your RMR will be changing as you lose pounds.

BASIC IDEA #4: INCREASING MUSCLE WILL HELP YOU LOSE FAT

This seems like something that you hear people say all the time, but sometimes you need a little bit more actual information as to what this means. The problem is that everyone assumes that all types of working out will automatically make you lose fat faster. That's generically true, but only if your consumption doesn't increase with it. 

There are those that dote on doing cardiovascular workouts to lose weight. I personally do a good amount of cardio and I will delineate more on that below, but really for me it came back to the basic idea that muscle helps you lose more fat. To be truthful, I'm not sure that I really believed all of this up front even though it seems rational, however objectively when studies were done it showed that 10lbs of muscle can burn about 50 calories in an hour whereas 10lbs in fat can only burn about 20 calories. Objectively building more muscle on to your body make that deficit bigger - and the bigger the deficit the more weight you lose. 

BASIC IDEA #5: YOUR BODY CHANGES IN MANY WAYS WITH WEIGHTLOSS

This idea is one that a ton of people have a really big struggle with also. A lot of times people get really stuck at a certain weight and assume that nothing is happening so they give up. What they don't realize in most of those cases is that something IS changing, just not what they are looking at. 

Your body will be adding muscle at the same time that you lose fat. Muscle objectively also weights more than fat, so even though you may be losing more fat, there's a chance that the two of those nearly offset and then you are in a situation where the number on the scale isn't really changing. To make things worse, because of digestive fluids, metabolism, and other factors your actual body weight can change anywhere around three pounds over the span of the day. Then there is also water weight that you carry at varying percentages at any given time. 

http://www.webmd.com/diet/obesity/features/8-ways-to-burn-calories-and-fight-fat#1
http://thefitnessfocus.com/health-nutrition/normal-body-weight-fluctuations-explained

For this reason, I usually suggest to look at all of the elements at the same time - weight lost, inches of notable areas, body fat percentages, and water weight. I don't like medications as it only seems that they either wean off and you go back or you need more of them to maintain. You should be weighing yourself twice a day - once in the morning before you eat (fasting weight) and one before bed which will likely be a non-fasting weight but also will be closer to static. 

BASIC IDEA #6: WORKING OUT SMARTER IS BETTER THAN WORKING OUT LONGER

A lot of people think that working out for a longer period of time will cause your body to build more muscle. A lot of people also have this idea that lifting bigger amounts of weight will cause more fat loss. Even more people believe that if you weight train a certain area of your body that you will lose more fat from that part of your body. All of those statements are categorically false. It's better to work out with a period of time you can maximize. Bigger amounts of weight lead to more and bigger muscle but not direct fat loss. There is no such thing as "spot training" - you lose fat in reverse order that you put it on. 

The suggested amount of time for resistance training/weight training is about 45 minutes.

https://zenhabits.net/16-tips-to-triple-your-workout-effectiveness/
https://greatist.com/fitness/whats-best-time-work-out

http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/how-long-should-my-workout-be/

After a longer period of time the peak results for your body building muscle have declined to the point that you are better served with cardiovascular exercise or you could be more effective for your muscles tomorrow. If you want to build bulk muscle then you lift more weight. If you want lean muscle you go medium weight for higher reps.

https://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/5-steps-to-gain-mass-lose-fat.htm

As far as spot training - just remember that you are doing cardio also. The cardio will cut the fat from your body more than the weight lifting for the direct exercise and the muscle gain will help you burn more fat at rest. The trick is just to stick with it and measure and watch the results. Don't work out harder for longer times. Work out smarter and manage your time. 

WHAT I DID AND MY SUGGESTIONS

So I'll break this down into a few segments of what to do: Measurement, Diet, Workout, Tips

MEASUREMENT

1. Measure Body Fat, Weight, and Inches bare minimum - you can get a scale that does the first two for about $50-60. 

2. Weigh and measure yourself first thing in the morning and last thing before bed

3. Make sure that you give honest measurements for progress - even if you think they are negative

4. If you miss a morning or already ate - better something than nothing

5. Record all of your stats and numbers in a journal so you can chart progress

DIET

1. Figure out what your RMR is and subtract based on what you want to lose (check with your doctor also)

2. If you are usually hungry, focus on protein as it will help you feel full longer

3. You should eat about 6 meals a day, but they should all be about the size of the palm of your hand

4. ALWAYS stay hydrated. Drink water. Keep drinking water. 

5. I drink coffee as a hunger suppressant and I drink Tea as an antioxidant. 

6. When you plateau - change up the content of the calories that you are eating vs. changing the calorie number

WORKOUT

1. You should be going to the gym or doing some kind of work out a minimum of 3x a week

2. When you workout - do your cardio first. The blood to your muscles increases their effectiveness when you are doing your weight lifting.

3. When you weight lift, decide if you want to bulk or build lean and stick with those workouts.
4. Super stack. Weight lift groups of muscles that do the same work. (Biceps/Back/Shoulders, Triceps/Chest/Shoulders, Abs/Legs/Glutes) Get your bang for your buck. 

TIPS:

If you're having trouble getting the workout part started - just start with measuring what you eat now and get control of that. Find your RMR and work that. If you try to force a lifestyle that you can't adhere to you will end up burning out anyway. Don't force something that you can't make happen. Also, if you struggle a lot with the idea of diet - don't allow things in the house that will wreck you. I don't keep sweets in my house because I'm a sweet tooth. I will derail my progress by keeping sweets and the root of that is HAVING them to eat to start with. 

Lastly, don't be hard on yourself. Take pictures, appreciate where you kill it, and don't make this about anybody but yourself. People will always like/love you for who you are anyway. This needs to be something that you do for yourself. Thanks for reading!

My 5 Tips to Keep Relationships

What is it that causes relationships to flourish and for others to die off? What is the magic recipe that people have to make it last for long periods of time? What is the reason that some people really know how to do that others do not?

Relationships are a fickle thing. There is a unique and delicate balance between two personalities that holds into account all of the life experience of two people and coming under one heading to share the culmination of those thoughts, beliefs, and dreams.

Among all of the things I have experienced in life and the places and people that I have met, one of them was the greatest adventure of my life to have walked for 12 years and been married for 10 of them to the person that I loved deeper than anything. Now that I have managed to come to a place where my own actions and mistakes have torn that asunder, I think back and I am able to assess where the damage has happened and become a better person. While it may seem perfectly backward that someone who is amid a divorce give relationship advice, I can assure you that this is written from the same place that anyone learns - mistakes. I've made about every mistake and screwed up in almost every way. The benefit to you, reader, is that you can read the words here and take to heart that I have personally experienced the devastation of learning these lessons - whether self inflicted or otherwise.

So without any further adieu, here is my take on what I know about successful relationships and what I believe is the intrinsic qualities that are required to sustain them for longer periods of time - take it or leave it.

HAVE CLEAR EXPECTATIONS AND CHOOSE GOOD

Once you tie the knot if you are the husband you are coming home to a well cooked meal, a woman who wants to take care of your every need, a nice home that is warm and cozy, and the 2.5 kids and perfect dog that never pees on the carpet. If you're the wife it was likely sold to you that you will have this guy that wants to come home with flowers for you every day at about 5pm, sweep you off of your feet, dance with you every day, take over all of the responsibilities with the kids and the chores, and completely rescue you from all of the toils of your day. 

Those ideals that you were sold when you were a kid aren't what reality looks like. Sure there are days like that, and they are fantastic. Additionally there are women who want to be in the work place, who value their career, don't want kids, or maybe have other value systems than being a man's servant. Additionally there are men who want to do nothing more than take care of a home and make sure that everything on that front is taken care of. More often than not, both sides are somewhere between these two lands where one person wants a little of both and so does the other. 

Be realistic. A lot of life is going to be you expecting to get one thing and getting another. One of the most valuable skills as a couple is the ability to see life for what it is. There is a verse in the bible that I really enjoy. It says, "He can turn all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose."  Additionally there is a less religious text from Alan Watts where he is recounting an old Chinese story of the farmer and the horse. Instead of me putting that all in writing, I'll give you a link here . When I was a kid in a boys home a counselor named Cory told me a story and it stuck with me. There is a shortened version of the story I was told HERE. 

Ultimately the idea behind all of these texts is this: No event that happens in life is either good or bad on its own. You decide whether it is good or bad based on your own interaction with the event. If you choose for it to be good it will be. If you choose for it to be bad it will be. Nobody can say for certain at a given moment that something is good or bad because you never know the consequences. Be clear of your expectations and when life comes up short of the expectations - consider the good that can come from it. Consider all of the great outcomes that have potential for being and choose to walk along that road. Choose to do the things that build life - the power is in your hands. When they go awry - choose good anyway. Uncomfortable is not bad - it's uncomfortable. 

REMAIN UNITED

When people first embark in a relationship there is this sense of unity. The two of you are hopelessly intertwined and you simply cannot imagine disagreeing on anything. Then it happens. You fight. Whether you fight fair or take cheap shots - you fight. There is all kinds of study into the way that couples fight and what is considered a healthy and unhealthy way of going about those things.

Over the last ten years I can say that I have had my share of the very tense fights and the very lazy fights. One of the greatest things that I have learned in this process is really simple. Love is knowing how to win a fight but choosing peace instead. Having the right answer at the wrong moment is still the wrong answer. Having the answer to the problem between the two of you when what it needs is time is still the wrong answer. You may have the right answer. You may even think that you know exactly what he or she needs to do and it will frustrate the life out of you to not be charging them to complete those things.

Love isn't exerting your own authority to make sure they do what you think is best. Love isn't even making sure that they are as comfortable as possible. Love is knowing how to win a fight but choosing peace. Love is seeing the potential someone has and inspiring them - INSPIRING NOT DEMANDING OR CONVINCING THEM - to do those things. When that fails, usually a fight ensues and even in those moments it is important to remember this one basic idea.

At the end of the day, you are still one unit. You agreed that you are team "you and them" and that's what you still are. They aren't the enemy. They aren't the opposite side of the fence telling you something opposite of what you want to hear just to see you burn with anger. You are still united. You are still team "Us" and that means more than whatever the argument at hand is. Sometimes having the right answer at the wrong time is wrong, and the better answer is to remember that you are united and that you are still on the same team. Never lose sight of whose team you are on. I lost sight of that several times and I can assure you that the only thing that results is anger and a wedge being driven into the chasm that you allow between you. Do not let ANYONE or ANYTHING steal your unity. It was afforded and gifted to you - guard and protect it.

TAKE TIME FOR YOURSELF AND REFUEL

A glass can only spill what it contains. The beginnings of relationships always start off enigmatic and exciting for this reason. You are both coming in with glasses full and you are emptying the contents to the other person and there is a thrill when you have things in your glasses that match and when you can celebrate the differences. You are enthralled with their unique flavors in their glass and they are consumed by the sheer volume of contents in yours. 

The part that people forget about is this - as you empty your own glass you have less and less to offer into the relationship. You are depleting your own resources and the ability to be able to inject life into the relationship. You are instead spending every waking moment with this person and ultimately even if both of you are pouring all your contents into this new glass called the "relationship" - once the both of you are empty you have nothing to pour back into that relationship cup and now both of you (if not those 2.5 kids also) are now consuming from that cup and it drains very very quickly.

The colloquialism is "absence makes the heart grow fonder" and it's true. Take some time for yourself to get away from this person. The world isn't collapsing around you when they aren't there. You aren't going around to find someone else to pour your glass contents into. You are going to the things that had once filled your glass and going to the resources that fill you back up. This is NECESSARY for the health of the relationship. If you aren't filling yourself you eventually become an empty vessel and despite your every effort your actions will not serve to fill the relationship. 

For the last several years of my marriage this was my case. I had isolated myself from my friends (even to her protest). I stopped doing many of the things that I liked to do and was no longer doing things that edified and filled my own glass. I often wondered to myself if I was merely living to be a financial means for my family and a stopgap between them and unfortunate circumstances. I love my children to death and would stand in front of a train or bullets to shield them. Ultimately that isn't enough though and it's not really what they need anyway. What I needed to do was to recharge my own batteries, do the things that built me up as a person and made me shine and become interesting. I let myself become dull and I lost that shine that I once had to the person who chose life with me - and despite all of any overt actions that I took this alone would have been enough for her to not want to invest into me any longer and had begun to pursue life on her own, even if still married - though divorce is the ultimate road chosen.

A glass can only spill what it contains. If you fill yourself with poor things you will pour poor things on others. If you fill yourself with good tings you will pour good things on others. If you never fill yourself with anything you will never have anything to give to someone else. Fill yourself with the best of what makes you the best. Your relationship and your family not only deserve it, but you do. 

LEARN TO COMMUNICATE UNSELFISHLY

There are many books that talk about communicating with one another. It's no secret that communication with someone in a relationship is paramount to the level of success that it will have. There cannot be lines of division between you (see my point on unity) and poor communication will drive that wedge between the two of you. This doesn't just mean the type of communication that works best for that person, but it means a deeper level of communication. 

On the one hand you have the style of communication that your partner prefers. There is a test called the 5 LOVE LANGUAGES test. This test isn't of course definitive, but it does give a great deal of insight as to the way that your partner in unity communicates love. Additionally, I am a very big fan of the Meyers-Briggs testing. Keep in mind that these both are simply tools with helping you understand the motivations of yourself and of your significant other. In order to be able to communicate effectively you need to understand how you communicate and how that is represented. 

The trick here is NOT to get the other person to cater to your style of communicating. It's actually the opposite. Love is not self seeking. Instead your pursuit then should be to understand your partner's way of communicating and exercise to your best ability the way that they prefer to receive love and the way that they prefer to communicate. If both of you pursue this end and put your partner's needs in front of your own - if BOTH OF YOU do this - there is an equilibrium that is reached because both of you become selfless and you will feel that love that the other person has for you. That is not to say that it is easy - it is not. It's uncomfortable at times and very challenging at others. Love pursues those ends anyway. 

To the other degree of communication, it has to do with the depth of it. Your partner should be someone that you can share your grittiest and darkest secrets with. Your embarrassingly gross fantasies and your most vulnerable insecurities are not off the table. One of the things I learned with my marriage is that I did not share my deepest insecurities and they came around to haunt me at every chance they could. I didn't share the deepest darkest grittiest parts of my heart and I should have before I allowed them to eat me alive. The only thing that not communicating that depth of trust does is leave room for insecurity and division - and again unity is a cornerstone to the relationship. 

ROMANCE THEM TO DEATH

As much as I can hear every woman screaming "YES!" to this - hear me. This is not just the man's job. Romance is an exchange between two people that shows the deep passion and value that you have for that person. It is predicated in that love language that you traditionally prefer and is reciprocal. 

When you romance someone you are stoking the flame that exists between the two of you. Life has this natural way of making people feel like they are only mediocre or less than that. People are constantly in this competition to be the best and resort to a default of pushing others lower to try and get to that place, but ultimately "an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind."

That person that you cherish and love so deeply in your relationship, whether they mention it or not, is being persecuted and told they are less than enough from just about every avenue in their life. We are all in a constant barrage of people showing off only their best moments and condescending those who do not meet a prescribed "level" of greatness. Your person NEEDS to be lifted up. They NEED to be romanced. 

Everyone needs to feel special. Not everyone feels special from the same things, but everyone has that need. If you aren't spending time to do the things that build up your other person there are only two results. Either they are not ever being built up and you are driving them and your relationship into the ground or someone else is building them up and it is driving a wedge between the two of you. 

Romance doesn't always mean dressing to the nines. It can be a flower that made you think of her. It can be helping him tie his tie in the morning and giving him a kiss. It can be doing the dishes when she didn't expect it. It can be taking her out to dinner and surprising her with an evening out. It can be him coming home to that surprise situation that I mentioned was rare at the top of this blog. Romance is whatever your partner makes of it and that's why that communication is key - but you can't stop there. You NEED to value them and show them in ways that they understand that you do. Everyone needs romance. 

____________________________________________________

Those are my top ideas on what make relationships function. Again, as a disclaimer, my ten-year marriage is coming to an end and I am not speaking these things as a purveyor of perfection. Rather, quite the opposite. I've fallen short on every single point you can imagine in this post and I am telling you from the rough and raw experience that these are all key mistakes.

Many people in my life have told me that I am very talented or very intelligent. I beg to differ, however I will say one thing. If I have ANY talent in life, it is to observe my mistakes, learn from them, and become better from them. You don't have to believe these things and many of you may not know me enough to know I'm speaking honestly in that respect, but I'd argue I only know more because I make more mistakes. 

One of the things I can say regarding these categories is that they will not automatically happen for you. Even if you commit these to memory they will not happen. Knowing something and doing something are not the same. You should be taking out a pen and paper and writing out your plan to accomplish these things. If not then you should be putting these things into your calendar on your phone or planner and ensuring that it's not up to chance that you remember to do them. You should be actively making a plan to make things happen in your life the way that you want them to. 

If the person you are in unity with is worth it then you will have an agenda. You will have a list of the oddities that nobody can remember they are interested in. You will have a revolving list of things they have offhandedly mentioned they would like as a gift. You will have an agenda for how to take care of them. Repetition is the mother of success and if you aren't planning these things in repetition and presenting them into your scheduled routine they WILL fall by the wayside. I know because I didn't. I am actively learning from my mistakes and doing the things that make things fruitful. Be better too.