Rising Out Of Complete And Utter Defeat

I went to bed early last night because I was tired, but if you hit the sack three hours before you normally do, you can expect to also wake up in the morning three hours before you usually do as well. Laying in bed with nothing but your thoughts can be strange. It can be enlightening. It can be difficult. It can be frightening.

I finally couldn't handle it anymore. Even though it was very early in the morning, I got out of bed and came in here to write up a post about the things that had been tumbling around in my mind while I waited for the sun to come up and the others in the house to begin stirring.

Life is a bitch. It's a constant struggle, and I'm not so naive as to believe that it should be any other way. I realize that I have to head to work every day whether I want to or not, because I don't want to live the kind of life I would have if I didn't. Is my job fulfilling or satisfying? Do I feel like I've reached my full potential by way of it? Not really, but I don't necessarily expect that. I like it enough that I can keep at it and keep earning that paycheck, and hopefully it will continue to be enough to pay the bills.

I don't expect my career to fulfill me. Instead, I try to get that fulfillment outside of work. That's why I do podcasting. 

That's why I write my stories.

That's why I love to travel to places like national parks with my family.

That's why I collect toys.

That's why I like making arts and crafts.

...and so forth.

Except, I often let things get in the way of that enjoyment and fulfillment. Sometimes it's laziness, sometimes its disorganization, and I think it might surprise you to hear that it's often my addiction to sugar and carbs that keeps me from being happy.

That last one is pretty stupid, and yet here I am. I'm about as defeated as I could be, and it really sucks, because I know what to do, but I just can't seem to manage to do it.

For a little bit of history, I was really active as a child and a young adult. I thought I was healthy, because I was thin and athletic. That didn't last very long into my adult life. I started putting on weight, and I assumed it was because of my own moral failings. I was unable to control myself and just eat one.

Once I popped, I couldn't stop.

And so on. Before I knew it, twenty years had passed and I'd been overweight and unhappy the whole time. I struggled against it, but it always won. Then the doctor told me I had type-two diabetes, and I would be on meds for the rest of my life, never actually controlling it, but rather slowly declining until I died much younger than I would have if I hadn't had that problem.

But then the heavens parted, and I learned that I didn't have to be depressed and fat, barely surviving on pharmaceuticals until I died.

Seeing this video from Sarah Hallberg started me on a journey of discovery that completely rewrote the "knowledge" that I had relied on my whole life about health. Turns out that pretty much everything the government had told me about health was wrong...not only wrong, but pretty much the exact opposite of what I should actually be doing. There was a reason I was 100 lbs. overweight and constantly tired and depressed. I was abusing the hell out of my body with the things that I eat.

I set about changing that, first going Keto, then incorporating intermittent fasting. Then realizing that even Keto wasn't good enough, and taking it all the way to a nearly zero-carb carnivore. 

I did pretty well, lost a lot of weight, and was in a really good spot when my dad died at the end of 2019. I allowed my first cheat in, and I've never been the same again.

I fell off the wagon, and gave in to my addiction, and discovered just how bad my addiction was. I tried to restart over and over. This blog has been a record of many of my attempts. Every time, though, I wound up going back to sugar and carbs like the worst alcoholic or drug addict.

So, here we are in 2023, five years after I first started this process, and I'm no better off than I was to begin with. In 2019 when my dad passed away, I would never have guessed that I could be in this situation. In fact, you could say that I'm not only no better off, but possibly a little worse off that I was when I started in 2018. A lot of that is bound to happen. If I'm not taking care of my diabetes well, then I'm going to deteriorate.

And oh man have I deteriorated. I'm in such crappy shape. I have really hit rock bottom. Well, not quite rock bottom, but as far down as you can go before the permanent problems begin...or become apparent, they've probably begun already.

So, yeah, I'm feeling super crappy, and I want to change that, but I just can't manage. Every time I try, I fail. I wake up and say, "today's the day." Then I go out to the kitchen to make breakfast, and find that there's cake in the fridge and I eat that instead of what I should, and then it's on, and at least for the rest of the day, I go hog wild.

Back at the start of March, Marshal and I were doing things right. Eating carnivore in the healthiest way. I was getting relatively freaked out, because I decided to break out my blood sugar meter, and found it in an unacceptably high state. I checked it day after day, and even though I wasn't eating any carbs, it stayed high. Was I past the point of no return?

If someone was in a state of worry like this about their health, you'd expect them to stick to the no sugar eating plan like glue, but not me. Soon I fell off the wagon, and started eating garbage again, despite the certain damage I was inflicting on myself.

That's the main thing that makes me feel so down in the dumps. I'm just at a loss. The addiction seems to be unbeatable, and I'm going to eat myself into an early grave.

So, I failed, but I didn't know if Marshal had similarly failed. We'd texted about it back and forth when we'd started, but those texts had dried up, and I hadn't heard from him in a few weeks. So, I decided to check up on him.

His response:

That was what I thought. I always disappear and stop communicating when I'm doing poorly, so it doesn't surprise me that he did the same. My response:

Marshal's a religious guy, so he's not going to agree with me there...although he kind of did.

Yeah, that is exactly what we are doing. Sugar is killing me softly with his smile. Except it's worse, and I couldn't help but point that out.

It wasn't disguised.

That started a really good discussion between the two of us, and I think we've developed something that might work. I feel good about it anyway.

Here's my video that introduces the effort:

I'm excited, and I believe this might actually work permanently. We'll see come 2024.