This post is supposed to detail how I'm losing the weight. If you'll remember, I need to lose 75lbs by December, 2009, or the Mormon Church of Later Day Saints, that lovely entity whose own historical issues with marriage seemed to provide no empathetic hesitation of their financial support of Proposition 8 here in California, will receive a donation of $500. I want to get on with the meat of this journey, so I'll hurry up. To lose this weight, I see a therapist, Dr. Derman, who works out of his pool house and makes great movie suggestions, once a week. He helps me see reality and focus my energy on finding myself and my vulnerability. You'll be hearing a lot about him and his methods. Also, I see a personal trainer twice a week, Heather, who has a tattoo on the small of her back and always tries to get me to eat better, who patiently walks me through the most basic of workouts with the understanding that my goal of losing 75lbs as of December, 2009 is part of a lifetime of better health.
    Ok, so you know how I'm going to do this. That over, let's get down to it.
    I gained seven pounds this week. I had been toddling along at a good clip for a few weeks. I had been exercising; I got through Thanksgiving a pound lighter. I maintained on a whirlwind trip to Kansas City, and I lost a few pounds during the election with all my volunteer work. What happened? I don't know if you've ever lost 26lbs. If you're reading this, you probably have and gained and lost it many times over. 26lbs, for me, is around the time when people start to notice. I didn't realize it, for I've always been desperately eager for fame, but I have a problem with attention. Compliments from coworkers and family, while always appreciated, make me feel exposed and I want to hide. At the moment, I can't face that attention. My mind can't support it. 
   You see, right now at this very moment, you are the weight that you are able to mentally handle and support. There are certain things that you believe about yourself that keep you at that weight. Some of mine are as follows, "I can't handle the attention. I'm overwhelmed by how much weight I have to lose. I'll never be able to keep it off. I am not and can never be sexual again." Once you face those illusions and engage in conscious effort to move through them, you'll lose the weight and the closer you'll get to who you really are. The heavier you get, the more you lose the belief in yourself, which essentially means you are losing and moving away from yourself, which makes you feel empty. What do we fill that emptiness with? Well, I fill it with these:
 

    Double Western Bacon Cheeseburgers. Heaven in a waxy wrapper. These things are my favorite! I could have one of these for breakfast, lunch, and dinner until you needed a fork lift to get me out of my apartment. They're just so good. Not only that, they are always willing to let me stash away my truth deep within it's charbroiled ecstasy.
    So, why the step backwards this week? I think it has a lot to do with feeling overwhelmed. And that's feeling overwhelmed by everything--the attention, flaab.com, my job, my writing. Mainly, I was overwhelmed by the enormity (pun fully intended) of my weight-loos journey. At the end of the day, I am not like many of the other people on this site in that I have a lot of weight to lose, and that brings along its own whole set of issues.
    I used to be a Weight Watcher. It worked for awhile, but then I stopped going to the meetings, stopped counting points, and (surprise) gained back all of the weight. It was always difficult for me in those meetings because I'd invariably end up sitting next to some chick who made it to her lifetime goal by losing the 20lbs she's gained since being married to her high school sweetheart. I can lose twenty pounds as easy as I touch my face. Try losing the 75 plus I need to lose just be considered not morbidly obese. The span of my journey belies the focus that I work for in my concentrated attempt to chip away this mountain. After working hard to lose 26lbs, after having people compliment me on looking better, after realizing that after having put so much into it, I'm not even half way there, I just say to myself, "I can't think about it any more. It's exhausting. I'll take a week off. I can't spend any more energy on it." Note, the "energy."
    The pathway and door to everything you have ever wanted to do or be exists at your fingertips, as is every temptation, roadblock, opportunity to hide, exists around you as well. What do you choose to give your energy to?
    I ask myself "Why me?" all the time. You don't know me, but by mid-July, when I've been blogging here for months (after people have come and gone because they only had ten pounds to lose and did it through pills, excessive sex, and starving themselves) you'll have gotten to really know me. I also feel that by that time I will have shared some of my life experiences with you that I feel contributed to my weight gain. (Oh, just as an aside: everything is connected. The way you did your homework in high school has affected your weight. The way you reacted when that person glared at you in line at the bank has affected your weight. The way you handled that break up? Yup. It all manifests in your body. Anyway, moving on.) By the end of the summer, maybe even sooner, you'll come to find that my life has been very different, and recently, I've been dwelling on that (again, the overwhelming factor), wondering why I couldn't have been a normal person, who finished school, secured financial maturity, found a man who loved me, moved in him and lived happily ever after. The doubt and disappointment and the aimless wondering about the life I am not living got all of my energy this week. In so doing, I put myself back into the darkness, placing my energy out there, on the external, not what really counts, which is me.
    You see, asking "Why me?" implies that you are the passive receptacle of life, that life has been something done to you. I will tell you a secret: you are the creator of your life. This is your journey. You have the power (I have the power) to bring the energy back to yourself. I have the energy to honor myself and challenge that voice in my head that says I need to eat Double Western Bacon Cheeseburgers in my car by myself by asking it "When did I give you the power to tell me what to do? When was all of this decided." All we need do is bring the energy back to our own honor. After all, as much as we hide ourselves, as much as we dive into unconscious behaviors, we're always still there. We're never not there, we just aren't shedding light on it.
    All bad habits and unhealthy patterns exist in the dark. The dark is unconsciousness. We eat without awareness. We deny ourselves the knowledge of what we are doing to our bodies. I am over 300 pounds, and yet, only when I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror or a photo of myself, am I reminded that I'm fat. In my mind, I still look like this:

When  I actually look like this:

    Awareness is the key. The light. The energy. Shed light on yourself. When you bring the bad habits--the fast food, the binge eating, the seven servings of mac n' cheese--into the light, you expose them for what they are, a way for you to not live. Bring light into your life and you have the ability to change it, for now you are present in it. You are not your cravings. You are not the food you eat. You are not the disappointment you feel when you give in to eating that pie. You are the awareness. The less you are aware, the less you are you. And you are beautiful.
    Isn't it time to take your beautiful self on the most exciting journey of all, self discovery? The hard part is that every step of the journey presents another opportunity for the external masses to judge: "Oh, you've gained some weight; oh, you look great; oh, should you really be eating that?" Some judgments are kind, some are complimentary, some are downright rude. All mean nothing. They are external, out there, the world we compare ourselves to when we forget that we are incomparable. Shine your light on you. This is your journey, so wake up and start drawing the map.

See you next week,
Philip

I knew I was fat when Mervyn's didn't carry my waist size: 46, oh and when I broke the toilet seat, but that's another story. Anyway, I'm not going to say I didn't privately smirk when Mervyn's went out of business. Now, Target, on the other hand, they carry my size! Is it ironic that Mervyn's was part of the Target family? Does that mean that more Americans are fatter than not? What does that say about our society as a whole? Do I really care? No. Moving on.

I actually need to lose more than 75 pounds. But, to go about this in a healthy way, which is optimum, I am giving myself the goal of 75 pounds to lose for December, 2009. If--excuse me--when I lose 75 pounds, I will weigh 260 pounds. Have you done the math? Yes, at this very moment, while December 2008 is still young, at 6' 2" I weigh 335 pounds. I carry it very well. Honestly, it doesn't feel good sharing this number with you. However, it is what I weigh, and this journey is about honesty.

Time for more honesty. I'm gay. I've known this since the day I was born, and it is not a choice. What does this have to do with my weight loss journey? A lot. You see, when I was eighteen, a young, fabulous gay man in Los Angeles, I was skinny. Excuse me, I should clarify. I was gorgeous, a model actually:

Of course, gorgeousnes does not guarantee a happy relationship. And after one too many break ups, I gave up. I said to the world,  "here, you can have being vulnerable. I'm going to McDonald's."

It was soon after this point that two of my closest family members(my Grandmother and Aunt) perished to kidney failure and the poor judgement of doctors. I was devasted and over the course of four years gained 150 pounds, hiding from actually living:

Ultimately, it was my choice. I'm doing something about it now. My life is filled with hope that I can and will change. At the moment, I still happen to be fat.

I've already started my weight-loss journey. I have lost 25 pounds since the end of August and in so doing have had the courage to end my personal exile and return to the gay scene of Los Angeles. Of course, as any insecure fat person would, I returned safely and on my own terms. This is where Proposition 8 comes in to my story.

For four months, I volunteered every Saturday with the No on 8 campaign. This was easy to do as my best friend, Gina:

whom you'll be hearing a lot about and likes to tempt me with turkey, was the field director for the Hollywood and West Hollywood offices of Equality for All. We all spent hours trying to defeat this, many people volunteering to give up their lives to ensure basic equal freedom under the law. Sadly, as I'm sure you now know, Proposition 8 passed, and my right to marry was taken away from me, because for some strange reason people feel that their concept of spirituality has something to do with the rights I had legally been granted.

I have nothing against organized religion. I consider myself a child of God and a spiritual person.  However, The Mormon Church of Latter Day Saints, who by the way have historically had their own issues with marriage, persuaded and cajoled their followers in California to donate what is now believed to be 70% of the funding for the Yes on 8 campaign. When a religious group, specifically the Mormon Church of Latter Day Saints, decides to syphon money from its followers to personally strip me of the right to a happy ending, I take it seriously. So, I've decided that if I do not lose 75 pounds by December 1, 2009, the Mormon Church will be receiving a donation of 500 dollars. 

I'm excited to share this journey with all of you. You see, we're all the same; we all have the same issues, the same desires. And I can't wait to let you know that you're not alone in your journey, whatever it may be.  You're going to find that the weight-loss journey is not about what you eat. Weight loss is giving yourself the permission to experience your full power. It's about having the courage to live your life, to discover who are you are and your potential. You see, at 360 pounds, I was not living. I was hiding. Aren't you tired of hiding?

By this time next year I will have lost this weight. But more than that, I don't know when, but some day I will become comfortable to start dating again. This is a step in the process of living. I will find a man who loves me, and I promise you I will marry him.
 

Stay tuned! Next time, I'm going to let you in on my plan! How is this all coming together? How did I get the courage to start again after trying so many other times and letting myself down. Oh, it's gonna be a great year! Let's go!

 P.S. For more of my fabulous adventures, check out fashionphil.com, my blog that I should really update soon.