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I want my own divine inspiration. Maybe it is all me. Maybe I just need to work it up. Raise my standards like Tony says.

Seems so hard. Is life supposed to be hard?

I find myself with more and more questions on the sense of what makes sense.

I am nervous because a lot of the christian paradigms are starting to not make since to me anymore. I love God. I want what is right and good. I want a higher purposes. But I am just trying to wade through all the noise that is thrown around and just find some truth. That seems the hardest thing to place sometimes.

Be who you are.

I have responsibilities…. There is a type of guy in my head I want to be. And I feel my apathy getting the better of me. I feel addicted to this apathy. This sluggishness is in my marrow. How do you fight something in your marrow? Condition yourself for easiest effort.

When did it change? When did it change from living life with some grit and focus…feeling it in your body…in your being…… changed to being something your saving yourself from the pain and inconvenience it now brings.

When did our inconveniences change? When did living life start to become inconvenient. Who sold us on this idea? No…. really? Who sold us on this idea that it is too hard to be in control. It is too hard to think for ourselves outside of the demands that are placed on us by responsibilities. You might as well be dead. You’re not living. You’re not breathing. You’re not thinking. You’re not fighting.

We all feel like sleeping beauty…victim of whatever that stops us in our tracks. But some of us get to comfortable. We enjoy sleeping and it is just to bright outside anyway.

You slow down. And you slow down…. and you slow down.

And you turn off the engine that drives you inside. You turn it off and you rust. Weeds start to grow around you. Things start getting into your life you never wanted to invite in. You have this taste and this desire inside of you still but it’s too hard to get this ol’ rusty soul cranked up. I have been sittin for a while and maybe next time. Maybe tomorrow.

Maybe sometime, maybe, maybe, sometime, sometime.

……..

………….

………………   Then you just stop talking about it all together.

You know when you scrape the hell out of the bowl/plate/whatever until you decide your done.

You ever do that to yourself? Where you just feel so addicted to food that you’re leaving no crumbs?

Savor life.

If only we can savor all of life like that! That is what I think. This craving, this desire to savor that is designed in us….. we need to not slap ourselves on the hand.

Life isn’t catholic school with Nun’s, ruler in hand, ready to attack any attempt of enjoyment. Reward yourself by expanding your palate of pleasures in life.

Oral pleasures don’t make a satisfied life. Remind yourself. What feels better than looking good in your bathing suit on a beautiful soon coming summer day? What feels better than being able to pick your kid up and put him on your shoulders in celebration of the big game win? What feels better than being able to walk down the aisle feeling comfortable in your skin? What feels better than……..? A satisfied life is an active one daring to live.

Savor Life.

Have you been living life lately? Come back to life. The invitation is there. It always has been.

Smile. Today is your day. Take ownership of it. Enjoy it with a newspaper and OJ  in the morning watching the sunrise crest the landscape. Do something today that you haven’t made time for. Get out of the house, turn up the music, drive somewhere till you find something worth discovering.

You remember all those desires you have in that heart of yours? Quit living solely off the pleasures of your diet. That isn’t living. Earn your obituary. Let something more be said of you. Have more to say for yourself. Respond to life instead of reacting with food.

Criminals and Fat People have something in common… you live long enough in your prison you become afraid to leave it’s safety. But you were never meant for a prison.  You’re better than this. Don’t lie to yourself, prisons aren’t safe there a death sentence. Get out before it takes the life you were meant to live away from you. Your youth had more ambitions! Challenge yourself. Choose to look at life with a more fulfilling lens. Capture your thoughts and choose life.

Put down the fatty scrape.

I know it may be scary, but find who you are again. You can do it. Your life is waiting on you. The skies the limits. That’s what makes humanity so special.

Download “Good Life” by One Republic and turn it up. Now smile and repeat after me.

“_(your full name)__  ………. Welcome Back!”

Savor Life.

you got this Chad… you can do this.

My feet are hurting.

God I am out of shape

Maybe I should stop for a second.

NO! This is part of it. It is hard….. I just need to keep pressing through.

I can go for 30 minutes.

It’s not going to kill me to keep going for 30 minutes straight… i am sitting down for crying out loud.

Perseverance. A word neglected by us fatty’s. I was talking to a friend of mine and he asked me how the gym was going. My response… “I hate cardio…….but I am trying to get over it.”

He responded, “Yeah, well anyone who say they like it is full of it.”

“Well that makes me feel better. So it’s not just a fatty thing.”

“Dude, It’s a human thing.”

It is part of the human condition to persevere…. I think we forget that our challenges have a breaking point and so we just quit too easily. We justify our quitting.

I was at my gym (Dekalb Medical Wellness Center) on the stair stepper and I was feeling the burn after 5 minutes much less 30. So I talk to myself. I tell myself, “No, you are not going to quit… you are going to keep going.” I want to quit. I want to make excuses. It is like I am in rehab going through the withdrawals of fattydom. But I have to press through the withdrawals. The only way to get healthy is to persevere through, not go back to the drug of apathy and uncontrolled appetite.

The bottom line is… we quit to soon. That is what keeps us where we are… miserable, fat and dying because we don’t fight for anything anymore. People don’t fight for their marriages daily. They don’t fight for their kids when it counts. They fall asleep and sign their life away in debt agreements and they cease to live. They breathe, breed, consume, make excuses, and live far lower than they are capable of and designed for. Wake up, you who sleep. Fight the mediocrity of the day that wants to enslave you. Fight for your marriage. Your family. Your identity. Your goals. Your health. Your convictions. Yourself.

Do whatever you got to do. What do you have to do? Do you have to write it out? Do you need to expose yourself and push yourself out there a bit to get back on track? Then get a blog. They are free. What do you have to do to motivate yourself. Not Motivated? Well check out my blog daily. Check Anthony Robbins blog, Check out fatladySingN’s blog. Check out Steve Pavlina’s  Blog. Don’t know what to eat? Sit with a Nutritionist. Can’t afford a nutritionist? Dekalb Medical Wellness Center has a service where a Nutritionist will go shopping with you called a Grocery Store Tour. It cost $40. Can’t afford that? Then go back and check where you are actually spending your money….. because your poor eating habits always found a way to get paid for. Resources abound. Make no mistake there will be an outcome… your choices lead to your outcome. So look around…. what choices got you there?

“But you don’t understand my story… you don’t understand my circumstances, you don’t understand I don’t have time. You don’t understand my limitations…they prevent me from…….  You don’t understand!”

Ok, get it all out. Write out all those arguments that hinder you from attaining the self progress you actually want deep inside of you. Write them out. Read them over a couple of times and make sure you get them all down on paper. Now hold them up and look at them. This is your legacy. This is how you are choosing to be remembered. Is it starting to bother you at all? Write a new legacy of things you can do versus what you can’t. Figure it out. You can do it. I believe in you. You are far more capable than anyone realizes. George Bernard Shaw says in the Maxims of Revolutionist, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

Quit finding reasons to stop. Be the unreasonable man.

Fatty Pumping Iron.

Find success stories in your local gym. Be the success story in your local gym. Quit making excuses and do whatever you have to do. Quit waiting for the right circumstance. The right circumstance is right now.

What ever the challenge is get some grit and push through. You have grit inside of you. There is no way you got where you are without some grit. It takes grit to earn money and pay bills. It takes grit to have kids. It takes grit to make your own way in the world. You know this. You have done this. Start applying you grit to all areas of your life that are important to you. Not just the ones with a bill.

Perseverance. It has a breaking point.

Breathe Chad. Breathe. Push. Breathe.

Keep Going.

You can do this.

I don’t care if you hack up a lung you keep going.

Don’t Stop. I make the decision to keep moving forward.

Press Harder Chad. Pedal harder. Harder. HARDER.

Turn up my music if I have to. Avoid looking at the clock. Focus on the pushing not the countdown Chad. Focus. Push. Press. Harder. Keep Going.

And you just keep going. You make your decisions. You set the bar of what you can and can’t do.

This morning I got on the step machine for my 30 minutes of cardio. I was tired and feeling the burn and wanting to stop within 30 seconds. Then I made it to 5 minutes. I pushed myself. I coached myself. I told myself…..I kept going and then I made it to 15 minutes. I felt a breakthrough and plowed through to 20 minutes. At 22 minutes the breakthrough was gone but my resolve was stronger. 25 minutes another break through after some tough few minutes. At the 27 minute mark I decided that I was going to not settle for 30 minutes today. I was going to apply my own extra grit. I was going to do 45 minutes. I committed. Pushed myself to 32 minutes. Tired. Sweating. Aching. 35 minutes. Turn up the techno music louder. Pumping as hard as I can. Pushing through the pain 40 minutes. And then the breakthrough at 41 minutes. I was flying for the last 4 minutes pushing myself as hard as I could. I got off the machine at a little over 45 minutes feeling good. Feeling pumped. Feeling fire in my body with adrenaline. I am alert. Clear minded. Breathing. Ready not for the locker room but my upper body workout followed by crunches until I can’t do crunches any more.

I earned these numbers.

You know what I realized? That 45 minutes I never had before during my day. 45 minutes I slept away. 45 minutes I didn’t make time for. Over 5700 steps under my belt that I start my day off with. What did you start you day off with?

You can do it.

Perseverance is like a seed. Add it to your vocabulary. Water it with your life. And watch you grow. Today is the day. Today is your day. What are your going to do?

We find excuses to not exercise.

Too cold.
Too early.
Too busy.
Too much money for a membership.
I can’t afford it.
I’m not comfortable.

And then this apathy toward not staying active spills into our everyday life habits. Steve Candler spoke of a study in his book 17 Lies That Hold You Back & The Truth That Will Set You Free, a book I highly recommend,”

… there was a study done of people’s differences in energy when making a bed. The heavier the person, the more economy of movement he or she would exhibit in the making of the bed. They captured it on videotape. The heavy person would make the fewest and shortest movements around the bed, as if subconsciously trying not to exercise.

“The lighter person would move around and around the bed in a whirlwind of motion and movement. Therefore, the lighter person would expend more calories and burn more fat doing the same task. The point of the study, and of the hidden video in the bedroom, was to find out if we subconsciously conspire to keep our weight from going down. It seemed to suggest we do.

“We secretly try to keep our body fat the same as it is and to keep our metabolic set point constant. Therefore, the trick to losing weight is to raise that set point by consciously overriding the subconscious system so that we burn more and more fat until our body assigns itself a new set point and a new weight.”

Fatty goes to the gym.

So I joined a gym. I am refocusing my life because the small habits in my life support my poor health. I realized, however, that I not only have to change my diet and my exercise, but I also have to change my day and how I use my time. I have done a lot of “wanting” in my life. I want to be healthy. I want to run. I want to be there for my life. I want to have financial success. Oh how I want hard…. I disguise it and call them longings of my heart.

I have been “doing” a lot as well. I have been parking close. I have been the lazy bed maker. I have been the guy that sneaks a bite. I have been avoiding the gym. I have been pacifying myself by not pushing myself.

What I have been “doing” does not support what I want. We don’t stop and evaluate our day to day life enough. Sometimes we just need to stop and say “Is the way that I am living my life going to get me what I want?” and if there answer is “no” then we need to reevaluate how we are doing things.

So who is the gym of choice you ask for a fatty? Well I knew it needed to be close by. I don’t feel like being with a bunch of Ken and Barbie dolls so I looked around and found the best gym possible for me and my goals.  I found The Wellness Center at DeKalb Medical. The Wellness Center is an 18,000-square-foot fully-equipped fitness facility complete with an indoor pool and indoor track.

They are connected with Dekalb Medical Hospital and have a variety of programs and services in the area of fitness, lifestyle education, and integrative medicine. Everything I need. I like Dekalb Medical Wellness Center because it is more than just a gym for it’s membership fee. They focus on having resources to help you reach your goal versus just having equipment, some jocks and a cleaning crew.

I noticed as soon as I walked in that it was a place for “the rest of us”. I walked in and felt normal…which is challenging to anyone walking through the door at 530 pounds.

I started my Membership on Monday, and by Tuesday evening I have already completed three workout sessions, worn “fatty boy shorts” and called them swimming trunks, had an aerobics bike tell me to “Pedal Faster”, worked out in my “Official Before Picture” outfit, and learned how water aerobics can be a fun, complete, and challenging workout.  Water Aerobics isn’t just for little old ladies.  It’s great for fatties, too.

Yes, I did wear my Timb's to the Gym

Right now I am doing what “I think” I should do. But within the week, I’ll be meeting a personal trainer and a nutritionist to help me along the way. In fact, I will be sitting down with Alice the Nutritionist on Thursday and I will tell you all about it.

I am changing my life, by changing my day-to-day.  You have goals. You have dreams. What can you change in your daily habits than can get you back on the path to the life you want?

PEDAL FASTER FATTY!!! Hey... I am trying here!

This is what FatManChronicles is going to be about. Taking you along for the journey back to health, back to life.  Let’s see what we can learn together.

I will be honest…. I will miss not sleeping in.

But, I will survive. Because our choices dictate where we end up in a lot of routine day-to-day life. So here I am at the butt crack of dawn with pouring rain outside my window trying to muster enough determination to roll out of bed and begin my day new and fresh and with purpose.

You know we all have excuses for what we don’t want to do. Whenever we encounter it we shield ourselves with our excuse. The only problem is we don’t realize that most people around us see right through our excuses and see it for what it is. People will come to accept the fact of how you make decisions for yourself. They will hear your excuses, watch you live out the excuse for your own reasons, and a lot of time set their value of you based on your personal standard with living with your excuses.

So many people just live out their excuses and settle with it. We tailor our lives around the excuses we make. I settled with it. I lived with excuses for myself and I found it led to areas of my life being unremarkable.

Excuses cost too much. We think we are giving an excuse for one item but we don’t realize that our decisions define our personal standard. Our choices throughout the day is a direct reflection of our personal standards. Tony Robbins says it well, “We get what we MUST have.” If you must have sleep you got to bed earlier. Some people’s “MUST” are out of wack, just look at their finances. We are not fooling anyone. We are not fooling our kids, our boss, our coworkers, etc. Most of them see right through our daily excuses and just accept us for who we choose to be or maybe don’t accept us. The only problem with that is “unremarkable” starts to creep into important relationships that we don’t want to be filled with “unremarkable”. It cost to much in the long run. Your excuses may get a free pass for the item they were intended for but don’t fool yourself, they are taking their payment in your life and most likely the areas affected most are your relationships and success towards your dreams.

It was easier for me to be ok with areas of unremarkable in my life because when I was single it was about me and no one else. I have always had big desires and dreams for myself but never seemed to fully connect the dots on why my life has added up to important areas remaining unremarkable due to my choices. I had dreams but no personal standard. You can’t get far with that combination. I was doomed to fail.

But this morning I get up and change my standard and this concept is here to greet me. Welcoming me to a new way of defining my future, by defining my personal standards by the habits, words, thoughts & actions I take on a daily basis. And I am up…… My excuse to stay in bed this morning doesn’t win today. My future wins. My health wins. My dreams win. I win.

A normal fat guy posing for a picture normally thinks of trying to get the most slimming, best looking picture of himself taken. But not so with this photo. On the contrary for an “OFFICIAL BEFORE PICTURE“ he trIes to brick it as hard as possible and be as fat and tacky as possible so when he does his reveal it can be the most dramatic difference possible. Purely for dramatic effect.

But how do you do that without getting depressed over how fat you are? You get a sense of humor and realize moving forward means as soon as you take that photo you are moving forward in health from it. You realize the only thing to be depressed over is if you stay there. You allow it to be motivation that you hang on the wall. A reminder of what you are running from and running towards. So you don’t forget.

I started searching through my own collection of photos to see if there was a photo worthy enough of the title ”The Official Before Picture“. I searched high and low and frustratingly couldn’t find a picture that would work. And then the girlfriend snapped it one day on the way out. I had decided to rock it as tacky as possible that day which explains the outfit…but what explains the tacky? I don’t know. I think I pulled it off…what do you think?

So without further ado I present to you my OFFICIAL BEFORE PICTURE.

The Official Before Picture of Chad Curtiss 02/2010

Reader:

So I just spent over an hour reading your blogs and watching your videos. And I want you to know that I also struggle with weight issues and I am on a journey myself. Ready for some complete honesty???

Here goes…

I have been thin all of my life until I got pregnant with my first child. I got very ill during pregnancy with Toxemia and was on strict bed-rest for about 5 months and gained over 60 lbs in less than 4 months. After an emergency c-section and a perfect little baby boy I was left very overweight and very out of shape. It took me over two years to recover and lose about 23 lbs only to end up unexpectedly pregnant and very sick again. Put back on all the weight and then some. Another emergency c-section later I am in the worst shape of my life.

I used to be a very confident, healthy, active woman. My husband married me as a thin, athletic, attractive girl and I have become an overweight out of shape unmotivated mother of two boys. I usually do not even get out of my pj’s. My poor husband! I just want him to be attracted to me again.

Another thing that I struggle with is the fact that people treat me different now that I am fat. Men used to talk to me different. Women honestly used to be mean to me simply because I was attractive. They would stare and whisper and talk behind my back. I used to get hit on just about every time I left the house! Man, I could tell you some stories! But now on the fat side of life, it’s like I am in another universe. I wish I could describe it. It’s like I am invisible! Men don’t even notice that I exist and women are friendly to me. I am kind of bitter about it actually because I see how the world really is. And it sucks!!!

So, I’ll make a deal with you….

You pray for my success and I’ll pray for yours. I know, I know! People say that crap all the time…”I’ll pray for you!” But I really mean it! So, what do ya say?

Anonymous

________________________________

Fat Man:

Hey Anonymous,

Thank you so much for your email!!! I was deeply humbled by your honesty and transparent struggle. I agree that it is a different quality to life on the fat side!

There is such a strong prejudgement associated with it that others just don’t understand. I personally tried to make up for my obesity with personality. But in the end I feel like “Who am I kidding….I am just the funny…thoughtful fat guy.”

I am blessed that I have a beautiful amazing girlfriend…… but it also affects that relationship.  Most of the time it is all great and happy and her love for me doesn’t see the fatness…. then it creeps up and complicates something and the lens gets pulled back and she sees it and it affects us. I see it in her eyes. It may take a day or may take a week to bring back the lens that looks past it.

I understand your frustration with my own struggle even though yours has it’s own form that it likes to taunt you with.

My girlfriend sent me a link to an open casting call for a weight loss reality show….. at first I was frustrated but I realized it was out of care for me and our future. So I applied and it went well. I now have two networks talking to me and a bunch of other items going on in the background. But at one point it didn’t look like anything was going to happen with the TV show and I was right back to dealing with this enormous struggle by myself again that I am “supposed” to deal with……… and felt like I was dealing with alone…..again.

That is why I decided to start my blog. I needed help to make it, where I could connect with others in my struggle and we could help one another. Not for fame or fortune but just for help. I needed help and so I went for it. I have come to a realization though through all this and it is……………. screw everybody else in their judgements……. Amazing stories always start with a great challenge. I decided instead of resenting people for their opinions and behavior I would use the opportunity to learn about myself and what the truth of who I am is. People will always have their opinions and see the way they see.

But in the end, I made the decision that my story…… my life….. was going to be a beautiful tale of challenge, redemption, recovery and hopefully making a difference. In the end it will just be me standing before the Lord to account for my life……. and I want him to be moved by more story…….my struggle……..my challenges……..my overcoming….. my ability to learn how his heart thinks and sees through the lens of my life.

Like a great movie you walk out of and can’t find words for because your moved by the epic tale of a man or woman overcoming against the odds of opinions and circumstances and coming out whole on the other side. I want Him to be moved by my life…… At the end of the day that is what helped me pick myself up and move forward. You’ve gotta have hope.  Without hope life is meaningless.  Without hope life is meaning less and less.

Don’t let people judging the cover art to the book of your story make you feel less than the amazing tale that you are. The greatest novels looks like any other book without the book cover sleeve….. It is the content inside that makes it so great. People will judge…. but some people will see…. and be inspired….. and your story is what people will remember. So focus on that. Let you define you again.

All that to say….. Thank you for your email. It moved me.

And I will definitely love to partner in prayer for each other’s success.

With love for your amazing story that is unfolding day by day,

Chad
The Fat Man of FatManChronicles

Enjoy.