Brett H Perkins – Murfreesboro, Tennessee

My thoughts… My experiences… My life.

Archive for the ‘Health’ Category

« Previous Entries

Just an Update :: Nothing Earth-Shattering :)

Posted by bretthperkins on March 17, 2010

So…  I thought I would write a little before getting back to work.  It’s been a bit since I last blogged.  Not much has really changed or happened, honestly…  which is not  a bad thing.  :)

I have been spending a considerable time with my friend Meadow. We went to grade school together.  I really enjoy talking to her.  I wish that we had taken the opportunities in school to get closer, but we didn’t, so it’s all good.  I am just really glad that we are now.  :)   She and I have a lot in common, and have a lot of similar issues, so it really comes as no surprise that the powers-that-be decided to bring her back into my life at this point, as I am actively changing and moving on from my demons… and she is too.  In talking to her about some things, it is like I am talking to myself.  I am telling her the same things that I should be telling myself…  and that is good.  It is also good to have someone in the same boat – someone that understands.  I am not alone in the feelings I have, and there is a tremendous amount of comfort in that, and it helps re-enforce the truth that I am not weird, subpar, or otherwise inferior to those around me simply because the circumstances and situations that make up my history have tainted my outlook for so long.  I just have dwelled on it and not moved passed it when others have.  Of course others’ lives have been different, too…  some are easier, some are harder, but they are all different and we all just have to “grow a pair,” deal with it, and move on.  :)

I have kinda taken a break from working out like I have.  I wasn’t going ALL that much, but some things have come up, some time has been taken away from when I would normally work-out, and a slight break never hurt anybody.  I am still losing weight, and I am still eating SO much better than I ever have…  so it is all good.  It is not the end of the world if I do not work out for a couple of weeks.  I plan on going back on next Monday.  We’ll see how it goes. :)   So far, though, according to my scales this morning, I have lost a total of 48 pounds so far.  I started at 274 lbs on Nov 1, 2009 and today, I weight 226.  I am SO proud of that progress and I know that I will continue that momentum.  I think that when I hit 50 lbs, I am going to have a party. :) and eat!  Heck… I will have earned it.

Nashville in Harmony is still going well.  We finished the promotional materials for the most part, and the poster is at the printer, so that is good.  Just a few more tweaks to work out, and we will be all done.

I have decided to stop sharp-blogger.  I came to this decision after realizing that I was just re-inventing the wheel.  I think that I am going to morph sharp-blogger from a blog system to a C# blogging programmer’s reference where I, and others, can collaborate on C# projects.  Heck, I may just make Sharp-Blogger my site for technology blogs.  IDK.  I know that I am going to split out bretthperkins.com and brett :: open source.  Maybe I will move brett :: open source to sharp-blogger?!  Anywho, I am going to use the ‘Blog Engine .NET’ framework as my primary content management system and build a custom site around that.  It will be significantly less work with an identical payoff, so it is a win-win.

With that, it’s now pretty much 1:00 so I should get back to work.  I’m playing in Info Path.  And it kinda sucks. :(   BUT… it is work… and I wanted work.

-=brett=-

Posted in Diet, Friends, Health, Technology, Thought, Work | Leave a Comment »

Moods. Moods. and More Moods. -!-

Posted by bretthperkins on March 8, 2010

So what gives?!  LOL.  The age old question, I suppose…  but why can’t I just be happy all the time?!?  Can I get a pill for that?  Kidding!  But seriously…  what is up with moods?

Like… I understand and accept that I will change moods.   That is fine, but I am having a really hard time accepting the severity and speed with which my moods change.  I can’t say with any certainty that there is anything new in these mood swings, or if they have always been there and I am just now paying them attention, but either way…  They need some work.  I noticed on Saturday, for example, that I was feeling great, went to get Kendra, spent time with her and most of my family, and was really happy.  Then, on the way home, I started to feel kinda down…  but nothing really major.

On Sunday, it was about the same, actually…  I woke pretty happy, had lunch with Kendra (Hey, this window is transparent!), and then went to Jozoara.  My mood changed between lunch and JoZoara, then got better again as I headed into Nashville for rehearsal.  I was pretty happy.  I was happy all the way until I got home…  Then I had dinner.  That’s it!!!

It is triggered by food.  Ah, I love blogging!!  For so long, I have been fat.  Yes, I know that there are fatter people out there, and yes, I know that being fat isn’t the worse thing in the world… anywho, moving on…  I have been fat.  And I have loathed myself for it.  I hated myself.  I feel like I should write in here that this is not about to be a “Woe is me – cry me a river – sad story.”  I am going somewhere with this. :)   Anywho…  because I hated myself, I continued to just be who I was because no matter what, I there was never anything I could do about it.  No matter what I would just be fat.  And I was internally so hard on myself.  I was so angry that I could not make the changes necessary to make a better me, and I was so mad at the world for placing so much emphasis on looks.  In the real world, or at least in my perception of the real world, fat people were not worthy of being loved, so I did not feel all the love that was around me every day.  Anywho, all that is to say that all of those feelings of neglect, abandonment, pity, anger, jealousy, and hate festered in me and grew so strong that I was no longer stable.  Anything would set me off.  Sure, I could control it for a while, but eventually, it all came up and came out.  Ask any of my friends… I can blow up like Mt. St. Helen’s.  (Btw, I still have all of these friends, so clearly the feelings of abandonment and neglect are irrational…  clearly I have never been alone, and I have always been loved!) Anyway, so how does all of that relate to how this bog started?!  Well…  it is a vivid truth that there is usually only one way to become fat (barring medical conditions) and that is to eat bad foods and stay sedentary.  So in my mind, those bad foods are a very real, tangible manifestation of those terrible emotions that have existed in me for SO long.  I have worked so hard to purge myself of all of this negativity that, emotionally, eating those bad foods is like I am eating neglect, abandonment, pity, anger, jealousy, and hate.  And when I eat them, I feel them…  and my mood changes!  Of course, what is wrong is my association of those foods to emotions, not the fact that I ate those foods.  There is ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong with having those foods as long as they are not your norm.  They have to be the exception.  (And they are so, so yummy!)

I have never really understood the importance of a “cheat” day until this moment.  It is not about the food!  It is about allowing me freedom.  Freedom to understand that I am not perfect, that I am going to do things that are not healthy.  And you know what?!  All of that is perfectly ok!!!  I am not going to magically gain back the 43 lbs that I have already lost because I had one bad day!  The important thing here is that I have committed to a lifestyle of health, and in that health is not only nutrition and exercise.  It is in the mind. I know that if I can lose 43 pounds in 18 weeks, and if I can maintain a 2-per-week gym routine, and now jog 2 miles when I could barely walk up more than 3 flights of stairs, then I can have one bad day a week without feeling bad about it.

I cannot continue eating yesterday’s hate, in doing so, I will never be able to enjoy today’s love.

-=brett=-

Posted in Diet, Health, Thought | 1 Comment »

Much more work to do indeed…

Posted by bretthperkins on February 17, 2010

Okay… this entry may be a lengthy one and a bit emo.  Consider yourself warned.

For those that may not have been reading, I decided that I was going to really take 6 months to a year to work on some things that I perceive to be areas in which I can improve.  This includes weight, attitude, patience, temper, fitness, and confidence.

Weight Loss and Fitness

So the weight is continuing to roll off at the same rate (about 2 lbs per week).  This makes me happy…  So I’m gonna keep that up.  Weight training starts next week, I think…  Just need to set up an appointment with a trainer to get me going.  I have not decided if I am going to get a personal trainer on a full-time basis or just use the 2 or 3 free visits I get with my gym membership.  My friend, and former co-worker, Heather has a trainer and she says it makes a huge difference, so we’ll see.

I had a personal milestone last Wednesday!!  For the first time EVER in my life, I was able to jog, comfortably, for 1.5 miles without slowing down or stopping.  No pain, no discomfort, and my heart rate stayed in the 160 area where it should be.  When I first started going to the gym in November, I jogged once for like a minute and my heart rate rocketed up to 180 and I was in pain.  I was like…  WTF?!  But now, 3 months later, and 38 pounds lighter, I can do it!  It is real, measurable progress.  I can’t wait to tonight.  I am going to push for 2 miles.

Attitude, Patience, and Temper

This one, I think, is making progress.  I just need help from friends on this because sometimes, I am not sure when I am giving attitude, so a few of them I have asked to kind of poke me or alert me when I am doing it so I can fix it.  Eventually, it will all go away, hopefully.  Of course, I have a strong and sarcastic personality, so sometimes that is mistaken with attitude…  and I have no plans of changing my personality, so anyone that can’t distinguish them will just have to learn me or get over it. :)

I know that there is a lot of pent up anger in my system, and so these three things are really hard to deal with until that anger is gone and I become comfortable expressing myself when things bother me…  and I am getting better at that.  Just gotta keep it going and make sure that when I express when things bother me, I do so in a way that is not off-putting.  :)

Where does the anger come from, though?  That one is a far more complicated.  I think that it stems from some childhood stuff (see confidence below for that) but I want to say that it goes beyond that.  Maybe it doesn’t… you know… I just don’t know.  I have not really been successful in the relationship department, so there is some frustration there.  I really don’t think that I am good enough for anyone, which is a symptom of my lack of confidence, but then, when people do come along that show interest, I become too picky.  Because I am not confident in myself, I clam up and get all nervous when talking to the person, then they don’t get to see the real me.  I also see how things work with friends of mine that seem to have this forward facing idea or relationships with this “double-standard” reality.  I don’t get it.  Don’t get me wrong, I have made my share of mistakes and bad decisions, but it’s so frustrating that I am trying to go slow when no one else expects it.  It is so confusing!  A friend will tell me that he has a crush and wants to just hang out, they make plans to hang out, cuddle, whatever, and they just rush right into sex.  I guess I am too honest?  If I say that I just want to hang out and get to know someone, that is what I do… and when I don’t take them to the bedroom, then they never call back!  Ah….  I am such a girl.

And why will people not text me back… or text me first?  I have to start everything!  I am worth the effort to text back and I am worth the effort to call.  But no one ever does.  :(   That’s okay, though.  It’s more efficient to find out now that they aren’t interested then 3 months from now.

Oooh!  I think that I found the anger.  I don’t feel like I am worth anything because people don’t really treat me like I am when it comes to dating.  When I start liking someone and they reciprocate the interest, I have this expectation that maybe they are thinking about me.  They will text me or call me.  But it is rare that the person actually does.  I have to push and push to get anything, and that is not right.  I should not have to push!  And I am not going to anymore.  If I have to put forth THAT much effort and the other person is not, then clearly, they are not interested, so why am I wasting my time and emotions?  It’s not worth it!  It should come naturally.

Confidence

What the hell is wrong with me!?  Why don’t I have confidence?!  Well, I actually know the answer to this one:  history.  Sometimes it takes a shrink to help you figure this one out, but I think that I got it.  It is something with which I have always struggled.  It stems from a life of being the fat kid, the nerdy kid with glasses, the kid people made fun of, and the kid people would befriend.  Only when they would befriend me, I would later, almost always, find out that they are all being nice only to my face.  Behind the scenes, they were saying really bad things about me.  That causes me to really lose trust.  So in new groups, it takes a minute to come out of my shell…  and it takes a really long time to really begin to trust someone.

Of course the confidence issue is not only present in interpersonal relationships with friends and boyfriend types…  it is everywhere.  I am a really good singer, and I am confident in front of my friends, but when I get in front of people that are new, like Nashville in Harmony, I lose all confidence and my voice suffers.  It’s because I don’t trust them, and I do not want them to talk about me behind my back, so I try to do only good enough to NOT get talked about…  the only problem is that this works…  too well.  Sure, they don’t talk about how bad I was, because I wasn’t bad. But because I held back, I did not make a positive impression either, so I sabotaged myself.  That stops right now.  I picked up on that last night at my audition.  I did well, but only because Don, the Director, told me I was being too plain and that I should style it up some.  After he said that, I got more comfortable, did my thing, and it was good.  At least they told me it was really good.  We’ll see when they post the results.  :)

This confidence thing happens at work too…  and now that I am typing this, I see that it is the same exact thing.  I don’t want people to talk about me… so I don’t give them any material.  Fuck it.  I am smart, I have great ideas, and I should be proud to express them.  So I shall.  I did at Deloitte and it got me far.  Of course, there is another angle to this one, which is do I want to be more vocal about things.  With speaking up comes more work, and I have to say that I am enjoying the peace and relaxation.  So maybe I will just keep my thoughts to myself a bit longer here… but just take pride knowing that I really am just as smart, if not smarter than them.

Ah… another thought….  I compare myself to others TOO DAMN MUCH!!!  Why do I do this?  Why, after I have been told MANY times my MANY people that I do it, do I continue!?  This makes no sense.  I am me, and that is it.  There is no one else that I can be, so why try?  I compare EVERYTHING!!  My mannerisms, my intelligence, my friend count on Facebook, my weight, my hair, my clothes, my apartment, my computer… everything.  And for what?  It is certainly not making me happier.  Well… some of it is.  I get happy when I perceive that my stuff is better.  But why does that matter?  It is just stuff!  Doing this makes me seem like an arrogant douche.  For so long, I have gone on with this idea that I am inferior and that everyone is better so I have to ALWAYS one-up someone.  I have to win.  And, while, a competitive nature is not always a bad thing, there is a time and a place.  So that has to stop now too.

Looks like I have a list of the next few things to improve upon.

  1. I should care what others think, yes… but I have to be myself while being myself.  That way, what others are thinking will be about the real me, and not some mask.  Those that don’t like me… don’t have to.  I’m still awesome.
  2. I just need to go with the flow, mostly.  Why do I have to stick to a plan for everything?
  3. I really need to let go of the past.  And maybe with this blog entry, I will have started that process.  *waves goodbye*
  4. I have to stop comparing me to everyone else.  I am going to be better at some things and worse at others.  Nothing wrong with that.
  5. I have to stop re-enforcing the idea that I am inferior by liking guys that believe that I am inferior.  Those people are in the wrong, and I am not subject to their prejudice or assumptions.
  6. I need to tear down my emotional wall.  The only emotions I convey are happy or angry.  With the occasional sadness/loneliness.  There are so many more.

Wow… I feel a TON better.  :)

I can’t wait to hit the gym this evening then finish watching American Idol.  Or… if something comes up, I can’t wait to do that either. :)

-=brett=-

Posted in Diet, Emo, Friends, Health, Rant, Thought, Work | 2 Comments »

« Previous Entries