Chunky and The Bod

Weighed in at just under 15% body fat this morning (14.9).

Did a little manscaping too. It's almost exactly like I do with my front yard; plug in the weedwhacker and give my front a buzz. It's not pretty, but it's good enough for me.

I have a comic strip, cartoon mind, and as a result I have given the fat on my belly an identity. I called him "Big Chunky" once upon a time, but now he's "Little Chunky" although he's still too big. He's hanging on for his very existence although his days are numbered and he knows it.

I refer to my body in the third person as The Bod, I'm sure it comes from television, specifically characters like Fonzi who referred to himself as The Fonz.

October 28, 2013, just slightly ahead of the war

In the nearly twenty years that I've been practicing exercise on a regular, consistent, some might say religious level I've had to resort to a number of mental strategies to keep myself both motivated and progressing. I've had to adopt the attitude that it's a life long process... a lifestyle. I've had to sacrifice food and drink that was a part of my social culture, but nutritionally no good for me. Logically this seems like the no-brainer, but food is an emotional circumstance and emotions aren't logical.

Interesting enough during the process of Body Conversion, I learned that fat stored in the body becomes its own endocrine system... in short, it becomes a living organism with all the characteristics for survival and procreation that any other living organism has. This realization, whether scientifically accurate or not inspired the visualization that Fat, aka Big Chunky was an enemy invader that needed to be eradicated... exterminated!

This became war! A typically American metaphor, I might add.

I don't know if I declared war aloud, but mentally, within my imagination I certainly did, and my weapons were knowledge of the enemy's weaknesses.

The enemy of fat is metabolism. Metabolism is the fat-eating monster. But how does one create such a beast? Activity and muscle growth... physical stress, fat eating hormones.

However, fat has many allies as well. Sugars... not meaning table sugar or raw sugar, but carbohydrates... those foods, specifically starchy foods that break down into fat and are stored in fat cells. Just as armies of antiquity would lay siege to a fortified city to starve and weaken the population into submission, I had to deny the enemy within The Bod the resources it needed to continue to grow and thrive at the expense of my health, not to mention my physique.

Fat has other very strong allies, such as emotions, cravings, habits and inactivity. In addition to the un-food many of us have grown up eating, we've anchored emotions to those un-foods. Often our parents reward us with sweets for our accomplishments and over time it becomes a conditional response. Habitually we may break from a task and take 15 or 20 minutes to grab some un-food which creates a metabolic cycle that leads to fat storage.

Comfort is another ally of fat. When we are relaxing our metabolism slows down, when it slows down it stops being that fat-eating monster. It may be more like a nibbling pussycat. When more fat is grown than destroyed it perpetuates a cycle that insures its continued success on the battle front.

1996, pre-war flab... never again

This is how I've come to see it. It may have started as a challenge, but I've elevated it to a war in my imagination and, if we can switch to a video game metaphor for a moment, I've collected more weapons and strategies over the last two decades that have aided me in my quest.

Another aspect of my personality is to be right - more often than not. This often means having to prove, at least to myself, that my beliefs are more correct than those of what's known as  conventional wisdom. I've been told several times, by experts (let's say seasoned professionals) that losing belly fat is very hard, after a certain age. It's like telling me I couldn't win an internal war on Fat... I have to (try, at least) to prove them wrong. And as I think of it; status quo, conventional wisdom and pessimism & doubt are also allies of the Fat. So it's important to find examples, no matter how difficult that may seem, of those who are beating the odds. People who've started their Wars on Fat in their late 30s, 40s 50s, or even further into their lives. They are out there and the webs makes them easier to find than ever.

Well... it's time to wrap this up. It turned into a diatribe, which I'm good for doing. But if you do read this and become inspired and want some direction in winning your War on Fat I can indeed guide you. Until then. Viva la Bod!!