Raging ADHD or Raging BS?

True Believers!

The journey to health goes far beyond my addiction to donuts, cake, and lovely red-haired girls. It is an all encompassing path to liberation of the mind as well as the body. I saw an article link on Facebook this morning to a story on ADHD being a fictitious disease and made a statement toward it that I want to share.

"And those with an actual stream of consciousness are labeled as "diseased". Between big pharmacy and religion your government doesn't have to lift a finger to make you a slave; your own naivety and the need to see yourself as flawed are the chains that bind you. The only arms you need to bear in defense are your thoughts but you have willfully surrendered them."

Some of you may be offended by this statement. I debated a bit about posting it here for concern over alienating the readership due to the mention of the two things that shan't be mentioned without getting people up in a tuft: politics and religion.

If you are offended, ask yourself, why?

If you mistook this for a conspiracy theory jab, check again.

What I want to add to this is the fact that I believe, due to my own personal experiences, that a plethora of our societal ills can be fixed with two basic things: nutrition and exercise/physical activity.

Now that I have your attention and have possibly invoked feelings on topics you may be strongly about, I ask that you these questions:

What are you doing today to improve your life and health?

What difference are you making for the lives of your children by helping improve their life and health?

Working for a living isn't an acceptable answer because that alone ain't working to improve, it's simply maintaining or falling behind for many of us.

How are we going to improve if we aren't willing to keep moving ever forward one step beyond?

With Passion,
JW

The Secret Of My Success: Donut Miss This Blog!

DONUT TRY THIS DIET AT HOME

True Believers! A year ago I would have been the last person one would expect to ask about health or fitness. As the pounds dropped people took notice. Two of the most frequent questions are: A. What "diet" are you on? and B. What type of training do you do? This video will answer all of your questions!

19 days down, 416 to go until I beat my self imposed streak of not eating a donut. Challenging C.M. Punk's 434 day title reign was the mental trigger I chose to put them down. The problem is that I have subbed in cake and ice cream; the latter of which always rears it's delicious head when the warm weather sets in. Thankfully summer is relatively a short season in these parts! I'm going to add cake to this list soon. Ice cream should probably join cake on the list...one vice at a time? Weddings and your birthday should be the only occasions for cake anyway, right?

And it's not easy, folks. The donuts can literally roll out of nowhere from the strangest places! This was taken outside the famous Kiedrowski's Simply Delicious Bakery. Don't click that link if you are within a 50 mile radius of Amherst, Ohio because you will want to stop whatever it is that you are doing and drive there! My arm was twisted into two maple pecan Danishes while I was there and they were SPECTACULAR. Shout out to my buddy, Casie aka Pretty Poison, who is known to haunt Kiedrowski's but wasn't there during my visit. She's a fellow baked goods and comic book/superhero/Star Wars junkie who looks far better in an R2D2 bikini than I do.

If you are going to indulge, which we all do from time to time, then I strongly urge you to BUY LOCAL! The quality is superior and it also helps sustain your community. And now I feel less shame for my pastry sins this weekend.

The real secret is maintaining insulin levels and not spiking them. Clean eating, lots of protein, very little to no processed foods. Weight lifting or resistance training BEFORE cardio. This is what works. Lately my sugar creep in has become an avalanche and I'm working through the mental end of this because physically I'm still seeking out sugar. I'll go more into nutrition that actually works for you later but in the meantime just Google the term Paleo Lifestyle. It is important to note that I'm a VORACIOUS omnomnomnivore with highly carnivorous tendencies. All vegan talk will be dismissed with prejudice. I appreciate your compassion but my lust for flesh and blood is just too strong.

I am curious though...What is working or not working for you? Comment away.

The next edition will be on my ongoing identity crisis. Until then keep moving forward one step beyond!

JW

Reality Really Bites Part 3: Up The Creek, Just Down River

True Believers!

It's been a while but I'm not the kind of guy to write just to hear my fingers peck on a keyboard. I do want to share with you yet ANOTHER casting experience I had with Biggest Loser last weekend in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Three weeks ago my employer received a call from someone claiming to be the casting director for the Biggest Loser Cincinnati event. She asked if any of our customers or employees would be interested in attending. The offer was extended as a cross promotion and all she would need were email addresses and contact info. All of this seemed legit since the name matched and our demographic could benefit. Without hesitation I offered contact info for myself and a friend who encouraged me to attend despite my lack of success last season.

I immediately messaged my buddy to tell him we had passes to jump ahead of the line! Could the same stars that aligned last year be realigning to FINALLY get me the shot at $250,000? We were beginning to believe.

The week before my friend and I had a falling out about similarities between the content of our videos. Pedro, if you are reading this, I ain't mad Bro. hopefully the recounting of what went down will make you feel better about your decision to not attend.

I emailed the director asking for protocol to advance in the line. This person told me to "arrive at 3pm and my name would be on the list". Now I've been the man WITH the list before for much of my life in music so I took the word as good. Since I no longer had a partner to share gas and lodging expenses I opted to wait until the morning of the casting to travel so I could avoid a hotel bill. This is of course because I fully expected to have to stay over for a callback on Sunday. See, I still have that positive, borderline arrogant, spirit that I thought faded!

Great time was made on the drive; I even spotted a coyote standing along side the highway. In many native cultures the coyote represents the trickster. The thought made me chuckle. What could possibly go wrong?  I had front of line privileges AGAIN, and an even better video story than last year! In it to win it.

 I took one of my largest outfits and put it on over top my clothes in preparation for a big reveal during the expected two minutes of roundtable for these types of casting events. I had my speech promo mapped out in my head and i was ready to unload and show the world that it was my time!

"Hi, (insert casting director's name) has me on her list, I was told to arrive at 3pm"
"You aren't on the list"

What.the.frack. Here I am, holding up pants that are 20 sizes too big, wearing what looks like a giant red clown jacket, trying to pull the "surely you must be mistaken" card. He wasn't mistaken, I WASN'T ON THE LIST!

Having been the keeper of the list for more events than most will ever attend, I kept calm. I then produced the email and showed it to him. I told him that I was a callback last season and that I'd been through the process before. When I told him there is no reason in hell I'd show up at 3PM! without instruction to do so knowing how big the line would be that late in the day. He informed me that I wasn't the only one who was in the situation; there was a scam going around and there were others that got through earlier that shouldn't have passed.

I didn't give the man any guff, I merely held onto my clown pants and headed back to the end of a line that was 2,000 people deep at 3:15pm. He assured me he would check into it and come back for me. I've used that line before, I know the score...

Part of my trip included meeting up with an old roller derby friend and announcing partner to take in my first post-retirement from announcing duty bout. I was looking forward to enjoying the sport with my friend who also left the broadcast booth last year. From the end of a still growing line I sent a text informing him of the situation and that I would be trapped in line and couldn't make it. Oh, hello coyote, you were actually an omen this morning!

After the third pass to count the growing line, the gentleman with the list made good on his word. Not only did he check on me, he PULLED ME TO THE FRONT! Clearly he knew that all in Olympus had sent me there to save the fat portion of the human race, I mused as I struggled to walk the line and hold up my old size 66 khakis.

This was it! Go time. I'd even paced out my promo and had it right about the two minute mark.. I was informed once inside the Planet Fitness where the actually casting screenings were happening, that due to the amount of attendees we would only have 30 seconds. Huh? Really? 30 seconds? So much for my great promo. I mean, I can tell you how great I am but it'd take more than 30 seconds to scratch the surface of that greatness!

It went. That's about all I can say about that. They asked what our greatest challenge was outside of our weight was and I went OFF! My 30 seconds was some great heel promo about how it was ridiculous to consider that question because EVERYTHING challenging revolved around my weight. My time was brief but I let it loose on them and I feel great for doing it my way. I still think my villainous self would be more watchable than a bunch of crybabies any day. Apparently they haven't come around to that idea.

We were all thanked and dismissed with the instruction that callbacks would be made by 10pm. I did make the bout in time! The first half of a double header was enjoyed track side and I loved the experience of being just a fan! Of course I'm a fan of the sport but it was great to not have to work the call.After 7:30 my phone didn't leave my hand. by just after 8pm my phone was almost dead. There was no way I would possibly miss my callback so I said my fare wells and went to my truck to charge my phone. Of course I'd have to wait around til 10pm so I could get instructions for my callback, right? The Cincinnati Rollergirls always put on a great event so it made it even harder to split early. I stopped at the merchandise booth and picked up a shirt to support the league. This is something I LOVE doing now that I'm no longer too fat to be a fan!

Nope. 10:00 pm and the phone never rang.In search of satisfaction I decided to head to Terry's Turf Club and take in arguably the best burger the city had to offer, no bun of course. It was top of the line and if you are ever in Cincy, get there before midnight and enjoy!

All in all I got something I needed out of this trip on multiple levels. It was a minute out of town which I desperately needed. A solid vacation is still needed but we're still in financial limbo so that'll have to wait. What I needed most was my spark. The rough winter and everything else really took it out of me. When I hit that line and I saw so many people struggling with the same issues it made me really appreciate my progress. Then I saw some of them stepping out of line and shoving cigarettes into their over 400lb faces it made me realize that the boat I'm in ain't so bad. In comparison to the one they are in, mine seems like a yacht with a flag on the top that says "chillin' the most". Yes, I quoted Kid Rock. Why? Because he has one of the strongest work ethics in his business. And after seeing the defeat on the faces of those people in line, I realized just how strong my work ethic was and just how much I was neglecting it.

I'm back.

Hi, my name is J.W., I'm 37 soon to be 38 years old and I now weigh 392lbs. This is my wake up call. This will make sense once I post my casting video which will happen very soon. Until we meet again, keep moving forward one step beyond!

Yours in burgers without buns (and half the fries, I prefer tots),

J.W. aka the highlight of Monday night.

Thank You, Charles Ramsey

Can we get the Superman logo replaced with a "C" and make a commemorative #believeintheCLE shirt to raise funds to get Charles Ramsey a sweet reward? Let's make this happen!

In Bloom: The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow?

True Believers,

It's been a while since I've written but there has been a lot on my mind as of late. The loss of my nephew took a lot out of me and I'm still reeling from it. During the course of my absence from writing I've been struggling with my own weight related identity issues and depression. I want to address some of them here openly because there may be someone out there reading this who needs to know that they are not as alone as they may think. This is my free form of mental health care.

A big contributor to my bouts with the black dog as of late have of course been financial. Getting slammed for over $400 in traffic court fines really set me back -- it was a slide through a red light in a white out, no accident for crying out loud!!!

Recent pay restructuring at work has also led to an average loss of roughly $80 a month in wages. I've pared down my enjoyment spending quite a bit and it sucks.It's not at the cat food for dinner? level so there is hope.

 As a result I now find myself without any type of gym membership whatsoever for the first time since I started my journey. A membership has provided me with refuge through the loss of my stepfather, teaching career change, multiple health scares from an ailing Mum and of course the natural brutality of a Cleveland winter. Thanks in part to wintry conditions and a notoriously merciless traffic judge, I now lack the funds to maintain my refuge. This still really bothers me and I have to find something soon aside from walking/trying to jog.

This winter lingered far too long! A scene from a morning walk in March.

My depression peaks seasonally. This winter in particular was difficult because I've really been struggling with the old habits of Private Pyle; my generally high self confidence has waned and I've been making late night binge runs to the 24 hour grocery store on a regular basis. It's almost as if I can't grasp the direction in which I was heading and I'm finding it easier to re-route back to the old me. It's incredibly frustrating. Despite these hurdles I've maintained nutrition tracking so I can reflect upon the garbage I'm putting in my system. If I get to the point where I'm not doing that or lying then I know it's time to call in a professional. The thought of counseling has entered my mind but alas I'm uninsured like many Americans and cannot afford it. Per the suggestion of a friend I'm considering attending an Over-eaters Anonymous group. I will openly admit I'm not a fan of 12 step programs but I'm willing to give it a try.

I received a message from my support group leader, Dr. Ray, that asked if someone were to look into your car would they think that a healthy or fit person was the driver. I cringed when I read it! I'm a messy Marvin by nature. My tendencies during peak bouts of depression lend to a complete disregard for housekeeping, especially when it comes to clothes. This situation, combined with the fact that we've seen weather days in the 80 degree range followed by snow the following day have made the mess even worse! When you add the fact that I'm still holding on to clothing that is WAY too big you get a disaster. Here it is folks, in living color...the mess that was my room.

80 and sunny out today with chance of snow tomorrow! 

I can hear it now: "CLEAN YOUR ROOM!" Don't worry, I did. And it helped lift my spirits immensely. The weather has finally broken and that is helping quite a bit. I finally started the Couch to 5K program in preparation for the Warrior Dash in August. And my really fat kid clothing has been bagged up and most of it donated. Some was sold since I needed cash; it was relatively new and I found a consignment store that deals with big men's clothing. Now I really need to clean my kitchen and take a better interest in prepping...baby step into the kitchen, baby step to the sink...I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful...

There is something else I want to mention. Despite the major bummer of not making the casting cut for The Biggest Loser last year, I've decided to give it another go. The video editing and new sequences have put my lack of progress into perspective. The casting is this Saturday in Cincinnati. Afterword I plan on taking in my first roller derby bout as a spectator since leaving the announce booth! I'll let you know how it turns out but for now I gotta make like a banana and split! We have to find something that fits properly to wear to a casting call. Any suggestions? Anyone you know going to the May 11 casting?

Keep moving ever forward, one step beyond!

JW

P.S.
At midnight I'll be one week DONUT FREE! Now if I can shuffle away from cake I'll be ok.
Follow me on these amazing FREE apps
Fitocracy for fun points for exercise: username ProfMarvel
Myfitnesspal for tracking nutrition: usernameProfMarvel