Tell It to Me Tuesday- Chris's Journey #6

It's amazing what holds us back, Joel Brown said it best -If we doubted our Fears instead of doubting our dreams, Imagine how much in life we’d accomplish”. Read on for Chris's number 6...

Entry 6: Letting the World Pass You By

The past two weekends I have gone out and done some fun things. Two weekends ago, I went with my dear friend Amanda to help sell merchandise at a tobyMac concert. The biggest perk of selling merchandise was also being able to watch most of the concert. Then this past weekend, I renewed a tradition of going to St. Augustine to attend Night of Lights with some of my Flagler College alumni and friends. It was amazing to be back on campus even for just a little while and more amazing to spend time with these people that I adore. This brings me to this week’s journey note.

Over the course of the last 5 years or so, I have noticed that it became harder and harder for me to go out with people. Constantly feeling in the way at a restaurant (having to always ask for a table when a booth is available), or sitting on a person’s couch and only enough room for me, or trying to find a chair strong enough to hold me. These are all things I have run through my head when I agree to hang out with someone. Then there is the worst thought. Will I have enough energy to do that activity? Now for the size that I am, I have a good amount of energy. I play with my Godsons, and nephews. They climb Uncle Chris all the time and I lift and carry them as best as I can. But it is usually the moving and walking activities that scare me the most. So the walking around St. Augustine or the mall or anything active makes me scared half to deaf. Showing I am weak. Showing that the weight has completely overtaken me.

So the past few years, I have been making up excuses not to go places. Genuine headaches that I made sound bigger to my friends, to say that I am unable to go. I would have an actual anxiety attacks that would come over me because I was afraid to show my face and body. Calling friends at the last minute to say I could not go, because I was too scared, too frightened that I would not be able to do whatever the activity was. I basically decided by my weight that I would let the world pass me by. Everyone else should have fun, but not me. I am too fat.

I am ashamed to admit that many of you reading this have been turned down by me because I felt my weight would get in the way of what we were going to do. If you are one of those people, please, please accept my humblest apologies. You did not deserve that treatment, but I gave it to you anyway. I am very sorry.

My weight has even gotten in the way of my love for working with youths in a church (or just in general). I do not have the stamina right now to keep up with all the activities that you have to do in an active youth group. My last trip I made with kids was 2005 in New York City. This was going to be my last trip with St. George’s Episcopal because after 4 years I was burned out. To be honest I had also been working as a volunteer youth leader straight since 1993. I needed a time out. The New York trip ended up becoming my biggest accomplishment and failure as a youth minister all at the same time. During the trip I was SO PROUD of how each kid on the trip as they all stepped up as a leader and planned activities lead the group on a chosen day or even plan a whole day of activities. I can still close my eyes and see moments on that trip. It was special.

The failure came with all the activity. In New York you walk. Sure the subways are great, but they cannot get you everywhere. So you walk and walk and walk. I also made the mistake of buying new shoes and not breaking them in for the trip. My feet hurt constantly and I was tired all the time. I was probably even 60 pounds lighter than I am now. But every day was a struggle.

On the second to the last day of the trip, the kids wanted to go to Central Park and see Strawberry Fields and the hotel where John Lennon was shot. The Beatles were an important band to my kids and I agreed to it because they planned it out. So the 7 youths, 2 leaders and I went walking through Central Park. I had been in Central Park before and it was beautiful as ever. Well, this day was similar to the other ones. We walked and we walked and we walked. I guess my stamina was super low at this time. The kids noticed how tired I was. They kept checking on me. Instead of me checking in on them, they were checking on me. It was losing focus of why we were in New York at all. The next part is hard for me to talk about. It was humiliating and beautiful all at the same time.

About 4 hours in to the constant walking, I guess the agony was enough for my kids. They talked to the other leaders on the trip and the leaders decided that I needed to go back to our hotel (well it was a dorm room…but that is a longer story). So one of the leaders, Kammy (also the rector of the church) hailed me a cab and handed me money and told me to take it back to the dorm. I was mortified. I was shocked. I looked at all those faces and saw concern for me. Love for sure, but concern was the biggest part. I felt so embarrassed. I said no. I told Kammy to send the cab away. Thankful she did. I told the group that I was tired, but I am here for them and not the other way around. I would not leave them. Then I fought to tough it out the rest of the way. Finally when I got to bed that night, with swollen feet and defeated spirit that I let every kid on that trip down, I slowly promised myself not to work with kids again until I could keep up with them. With tears in my eyes I finally fell asleep. Sad part of all of this here it is 2013; 8 years later and I have not gotten healthier. Some of my kids have gotten married. Some have had a child or will have a child. All of them are successful in the way their life is now. I am very proud of each of them. But for me it is 8 years later and I am still not healthy. For 8 years I began to let the world simply pass me by without being a big part of it.

As of the day I am writing this, I am up to day 18 of walking. Today was the hardest day yet. The wind was harsh, I was tired from Night of Joy the night before and I wanted to just relax. But about 3:00, I told myself that today was Day 18 and it was time to get my walk on. So I walked 1.90 miles and am ready for Day 19. Since I wrote my last entry, I passed a very important first visual goal. I walked a marathon in 16 days of walking. That is right I walked 27.01 miles in 16 days. A full marathon being 26.2 miles, I knocked it out of the ballpark! I did not celebrate with food. I celebrated with a pat on the back. I have so many other visual goals to get to. Next one up is 25 walking days. Remember Day 18 was today. I have even surpassed walking 2 miles twice. I will be pushing myself to walk further and further, just need to do it slowly so I can build up my stamina.

Before I close, I again want to express my complete admiration and appreciation to all of you reading this journey entry and all the support you have given me. As I told someone the other day, I hope I do not need the support to walk and journal, but I am sure glad it is there because it does make it easier!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for taking part of your very valuable time and being a part of my journey. I am so very glad you are here.

Sincerely, Chris

Tell It to me Tuesday- Chris's Journey #5

Entry 5: Wants and Needs

Weight Previous: 453 pounds Current: 451 pounds Total since walking began: 4 pounds

The thought of wants and needs has been floating in my head for the past week or so. I have said to several people , “For 39 years I have always been doing what I want. Now it is time to do what I need.” So the question is, what do I want and what needs to change so that I can do what I need. So here is a list of wants and needs.

• I want to eat without thinking about what I have to eat. • I need to consider every meal before I eat so I can make sure I am eating the best meal possible. • I want to sit on the couch and watch TV on my time off. • I need to get up and move. Without movement my body will continue to be the shape it is: round. Sadly, round is a shape. • I want to never have to worry about my weight again. • I need to take this addiction seriously. Like alcoholics need to stay away from drinking, I need to work to stay away from unhealthy foods and situations where I will overeat. • I want to be in a relationship right now. The loneliness is really starting to bother me. • I need to spend this time to take care of myself. Healing is hard when you are focused on someone else instead of yourself. Plus God will take care of the relationship in His time. • I want to have my shame be a quiet one. All to me, keeping the pain in. • I need to share my struggle with people. For support, for help, and for love.

If I think hard enough, I could probably rattle another 15 or so of those responses. But you all get the point.

So my struggle right now is shifting me to being an “I want” thought process to an “I need” thought process. I cannot tell you how many times during a day that the “I want’ thought comes in to my head. Maybe hundreds or thousands of those “I want” thoughts come in my head throughout the course of a day. It is almost like breathing. I feel like a small boy yelling to his parents at the top of his lungs, “I WANT, I WANT, I WANT!” I want a burger. I want a milkshake. I want the large curly fries. All of those thoughts come up during any hunger times or any meal times. And then I have to feed the want and overstuff myself of food.

The wants are not just for food. Sadly, that is just the tip of the iceberg. Almost when every time a walking day comes, the “I want to stay home and chill” pops in to my head. “I want to relax today” or “I do not want to deal with my weight” keeps coming up too. Want, want, want. Just wanting to hear the day that a pill for weight loss comes up, so that I do not have to do this anymore, and I can just lose the weight without thought or work.

This is where the needs come to play. I need to modify the way I eat. Every little modification means pounds lost. I need to get off this couch and use my exercise bands. I need to strap my shoes on and walk. I need to do things that may hurt now, but will help me feel better later. I need to love me better.

One of the other things I need to do is to be grateful for the people in my life. The ones I know and the ones I do not know. The out pouring of support has been nothing short of amazing. Wonderful people in all areas of my life have written and supported me over the past 5 weeks and I am grateful. I am doing this journey for me, but any journey is better with company. I am grateful for all the support from people known and unknown. I do not know where this journey will lead, but I am so glad you are with me on it.

Until next Tuesday.

Sincerely, Chris

Tell It to Me Tuesday- Chris's Journey #4

We all have them- Distractions. This week Chris here talks about his and how he overcame them and just kept on walking!

Blog 4: Distractions

Before I begin, I just wanted to put my day 10 FB post on the blog just in case you have not seen it.

"So today in my new journey to being healthier was day 10 walking. 15 walking days till my first celebration. In the 10 days I have walked 15.73 miles or an average of 1.57 miles a day. My friend Jonathan Oakes recommended that I start figuring out in distance where I have walked to if I kept walking. Well for 15.37 miles, I am 43.57% to my alma mater Flagler College. Pretty cool huh?"

Now back to my regular scheduled blog.

I do things well when I am on a schedule. At work, I create an assignment log every week that tells me what to get done and the importance of each item. In life, I need to know what we will do when we go out. Without a schedule there would be chaos in my life. Do not get me wrong, I like to be spontaneous. However, once the decision to be spontaneous has been made, I want to plan it out.

This also goes with my walking schedule. I have an automatic Tuesday and Thursday and once over the weekend schedule. Tuesday and Thursdays when I walk, I check in with Francesca for accountability and I have the weekend to decide what will be best for me. It worked well when I was just starting to work out, and it has been working out well for the first 10 days walking. I have been successful in meeting every mark and every scheduled day so far. Rain or shine if I was supposed to walk, I walked, and I was proud of that. Then last Thursday happened out of nowhere.

When I got out to my car last Wednesday night, I noticed that the car did not start as quickly as it normally did. It still started and I still got home, but I knew something was going on. I made the decision to get up early and not walk, but take my car in the shop. I hoped to get everything done and walk in the evening after work. I even planned my workout bag and everything. So got up early, got the car place, and sat in the waiting room and waited. Well, I waited for a half hour and the nice man at the Sun Tire came out and said it was the battery and alternator. GROAN!! Not only expensive (well for me) but also it was going to take time. How much time? Well the alternator and battery that my car needs was not in stock and they had to order the parts. It was going to be a few hours just to get the parts in, let alone install them. It was starting to occur to me that this day would not work out the way I planned. What about day 11? At this point in time I was not sure.

So I called a buddy to come pick me up (thanks Eric!). He took me to work and I started my work day. I had lunch scheduled that day, but with no car I could not get to it (sorry Jen). So my beautifully scheduled day was completely getting out of hand. By the time I got out of work it was 5:15 PM. Another buddy (thanks Jonathan!) took me to get my car, and by the time I paid for the repairs, it was 6:00 PM and almost completely dark. With as dark as it was getting I did not feel comfortable walking. Not because of my safety, but from my fear of getting hit by a car. OK, I guess it was my safety. So I decided to hunker down for the night and miss my first Thursday of walking.

I decided that I needed to walk Friday morning. My biggest fear in all of this (which I think I have mentioned) is missing one day. One day equals two equals not walking anymore equals mission failure. I decided to walk Friday morning for two reasons. First, I knew if I waited till the afternoon time that if a movie plan came up or some kind of fun activity came up I would blow walking off. The second reason was a message my friend Christie sent me Thursday night. She told me that she could not wait to see what was next in my journey. I am not sure if she wrote for encouragement, or if she recognized that it was Thursday and there was not walking post for me that came up. Whatever it was the reason she wrote the message it inspired me. So Day 11 was going to happen…Friday morning. Bring it. I had to get up at 5 AM because I had to get the walk in and then get to the office, but bring it on!

Then 5 AM Friday morning came. Do you know how early 5 AM is?? Well it is early. Roosters are not up yet. It is still way dark. And I was still tired! I wanted more sleep, which almost never happens. Then the thoughts came in my head. I need to rest. I need to make sure I am awake for my important 9:00 meeting. I need to do anything but walk. I almost talked myself in to it too. But then another thought came in to my head. I have a reason to walk today. I have a family in my life that is going through the ultimate test right now. The family is struggling and I was asked to pray. I put it in my head that if this family could go through this struggle, then I could walk. So I got my walking shorts on. Then my shirt. Then my socks and shoes. I then got my change bag with my work clothes in it. I left the house and drove to work.

The campus at work is beautiful and well lit. So it is the perfect place to walk at 5:30 in the morning. I parked my car, took a sip of water, and I started to walk. And I walked a new path. I walked and got more determined as I walked. I prayed and walked. I thought about my friends and walked. When I got tired, I thought of their struggle and kept walking. The cool air was agony to me. It was a lot colder than I thought it would be. But I kept walking. When all was said and done, I had walked the longest I had ever walked, 1.87 miles. I went in the Y at work showered, and went to work. Day 11 done. Take that distractions!

Today was day 12, and I knocked that out too in the early afternoon on a Sunday. I had all the same excuses in my head, but I ignored them. Today was my walking day, and I was going to walk. I strapped my shoes on and put foot to pavement. 1.67 miles knocked out.

Distractions will always be there. I will not always be able to walk on the days I schedule to walk. But the point of this is to take the distractions, recognize them and figure out a way where I do not let the distraction run my life. Here is this week’s learning lesson. The chaos that ran my life before of bad eating and no exercise and poor choices is GONE. That chaos is gone and I cannot wait to bury it from my life one day. I, Chris Hollister am in charge of my life. Me and me alone. If one day does not work to walk, fine. Plan another day. Distractions you are in my life, but you do not control me anymore. You are a blip in my radar, and a little one at that. I will walk the next day. I will walk in rain if necessary. I will walk in heat. I will walk with no music or company if I have to. But I will walk.

Today like every day I wrote on my walk FB post “Finish Day 12, hoping for day 13”. Well no more. That was a mistake to write that today. I am no longer going to hope. I am going to do. So everyone, I finished day 12 today. See you on day 13!

Sincerely, Chris

Tell It To Me Tuesday: Chris's Journey #3

Today Chris and I walked up the second level of the parking garage, and did a little zigzagging around the garage. He thought it would look cool on the runtastic app, except that we had no reception at all while in the garage. He ended up doing over 1.78 miles, and felt good! Oh, and he did his first band upper body workout! Video coming soon! Whoop! Whoop! Read below to keep up with his journey and progress!

My Grandmother always would say to me, “I love you and I like you”. The variant of that would be when I was in trouble was, “I will always love you, but I will not always like you”. If I could talk to myself most of the time it would be, “I do not love you, and I really do not like you”.

So, I have a horrible self-image of myself. No matter how fat and overweight you see me as being, I see myself as twice that and then some. I was thinking of that to myself on Day 9 of this journey I am beginning. I started the walk and the usual was happening. My feet were hurting, my legs were hurting, and I did not have a proper music play list. I was just whiny. A few steps in to it, I was telling myself to just turn around. There is always tomorrow. As Admiral Akbar would say, “IT’S A TRAP!”

The “there is always tomorrow “is my trap. I cannot tell you how many changes to my eating habits I did not begin or how many exercise routines I did not start, because there was always tomorrow. If it was not tomorrow, it was let’s start Monday; it is the beginning of the week. If it was not tomorrow, or Monday, then it was we will start at the beginning of the month. Tomorrow, Monday, beginning of the month, it did not matter to me. I was not going to start it. It is because I did not have the love or liking of myself to begin. If you love someone, you (within reason) will do anything for them. Whether it is picking them up at the airport at 1 AM, or house sitting for them at the last minute, or even helping someone by driving out at midnight to fix a flat tire, if it is important we are there. So the thought frequently goes in my head, “you like them that much you will do that, but you do not like yourself enough to not got for a short walk”?

So the thought in my head at the beginning of this walk was I can do this tomorrow. After all there was football to be watched (although it was bad Gator football). It was a busy day, I needed to rest. Rest is good for you. Your feet hurt Chris, you should not walk with your feet hurting. All the excuses were there. I could have taken any of them. I could have taken all of them. But then the statement my Grandmother made to me came in to my head. “I love you and I like you”. Then my orders became clear. It was time to walk.

Day 9 was a hard 1.6 miles. I hurt afterwards. But I still did it. I was tired afterwards. But I still did it. Several friends on Facebook posted a picture of this overweight guy walking on to my site. The caption with the overweight guy was, “No matter how slow you go, you are still lapping everyone on the couch”. That was true. All those people watching the game. I was lapping them. Chris 9 walking days ago, I lapped him. I was lapping everyone except the nice old lady that had her dog bark at me really loud. She was lapping me, but I let her…that dog was weird.

OK, back to the blog. In this journey, I have to learn to love myself. If I do not this entire journey is for naught. When you love someone you will do anything for them. Right now, I would do anything for my friends and family, but not for me. I need to love myself so that I will do anything for me to keep me safe. I need to love me to keep me healthy. I need to love me to keep me walking.

I love you and I like you. Day 9 complete. I am hoping for day 10.

Also, I am no longer 455 pounds. I am 453 pounds. I love you and I like you Chris.

Sincerely,

Chris

Monthly Back/Abs Workout

How To

Super Mans: Lie on your stomach, your legs need to be straight and together. Extend your straight arms above your head. Keep your head/neck in a neutral position. Keeping limbs straight (but not locked) and torso stationary, Simultaneously lift your arms and legs up toward the ceiling to form a gentle curve with your body. Hold for a slow 10 counts. 

One-Arm DB Row: Place your left knee and your left hand on top of the bench for support. Let your right arm hang down and a bit forward. Pull your abdominals in and bend forward from the hips so that your back is naturally arched and roughly parallel to the floor, and your right knee is slightly bent. Tilt your chin toward your chest so that your neck is in line with the rest of your spine. Pull your right arm up until your elbow is pointing to the ceiling, your upper arm is parallel to the floor, and your hand comes to the outside of the ribcage. Lower the weight slowly back down. Keep your back straight at all times!

Bicycle Crunch: Lie flat on your back. Place hand behind your head, slowly lift your shoulder blades off the ground ( do not pull on your neck), then bring your right elbow towards the left knee while straightening your left leg. Switch and do the same motion on the other side. 

Cross Crunch: Lie on your back. Your arms and legs are diagonally out so your body creates an X. While keepiing your arms and legs straight bring yout right hand towards the left foot, then your left hand go towards your right foot. Make sure that your are lifting your shoulder blades off the ground

** Remember to breathe and listen to your body! Stop to take breaks when needed!**

Resource: Sparkspeople.com, bodybuilding.com, dummies.com