levihoeniges-blog

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Day 2 of 90

It’s like I’m prone to self sabotage. 5:30 pm just finished a bowl of ice cream without working out just waiting to go to bed. I thought to myself, “Screw it, let’s get it done.” And went to the gym. Still under my caloric goal and doing well. I’ve come to accept that my friends going to be much help in this endeavor like the bet we set up last year. I need to find a group of people that share in the same struggles and share an interest or two. Time to find them, wherever they’re at. Exercise: weight lifting/cardio ✅ Processed food: ice cream ❌ Caloric intake monitored: ✅ Productive day: ❌

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1 of 90

Came up with a program for the next 90 days. It’s to keep me on track this summer for losing the weight I want. A few simple rules really: -exercise everyday, except Sunday -keep track of food intake every day -2/3 meals either protein shake/green smoothie. Monthly goals beyond that It might seem a bit aggressive with 2/3 meals out of the day being protein/green smoothies but my body holds on to weight muscle/fat like no ones business. I hope a pretty lean diet can get me off the boat from diabetes and heart disease. Still keeping food intake 1800-2000 calories. We’ll see how it goes though. Everyday these 90 days I’m going to blog. These first couple weeks are going to be a reallll b. After a couple weeks I’ll still daily blog but it’ll be topic related. Today tho, I did pretty well. Had some pizza last night so I was all carbed up which made the elliptical pretty easy today. Went out to eat for dinner and had a couple of beers, but beyond that I did well. Still under caloric goal.

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A bit of lightness

Most of my posts have been pretty heavy so far. I feel they paint me a completely depressed loner, although that’s not the case. A lot of the heavy stuff I feel comes from a common thread that everyone has. To be known, to matter, for someone to give a shit about them. I’ve been writing this blog thinking I might share it, looking back at the posts I’m not so sure. A couple of these topics might come off as disingenuous to some who know me. Perhaps they paint me in a better light? Maybe a darker one? I can’t be certain. Next few days I’ll be in Seattle with some time away from work in school. I figured I’d start writing some of my funny little essays that if anything will amuse me. First topic: 1990’s Godzilla starring Matthew Broderick is an allegory for the American Revolution.

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A seed of discontent

A likely story I’ll tell at my grandfather’s funeral given the chance is not the type of happy memory people would typically bring up. It doesn’t really put me in a flattering light either. I’ve always been a bigger fan of the gross, but profound as opposed to the clean and boring type of story. I was living with my grandparents before making a move out to Washington when I had come down with the flu. Not your hum drum, “I think I’ll call in sick to catch up on some tv” type flu. This was instead paralyzing pain, fever/chill, every orifice explosion type of flu. This detrimental state lasted a better part of week without much incident, except one time seared in my memory. I was watching the price is right on the 12” tv hooked up to cable, when I lurched to the left side of the bed and in a nice way I’ll put it: lost my lunch. Feeling miserable, not being able to move much I regrettably informed my grandparents and apologized as profusely as my vomit smelled. My grandfather without asking came up with a bucket, some simple green and got to work cleaning up my most miserable of messes. But I noticed something. He knew how miserable I was as if he could feel it. Empathy sure, but instead of pity or just feeling bad for me there was a type of warmth of compassion that words won’t suffice. He smiled, he fielded my never ending apologies and he almost seemed happy to serve. Him, my grandfather I’ve admired all my life, 75+ years old on his hands and knees cleaning up all my bile goop. Happy? To help me? Know I’ve had other instances of compassion I’ve known through my life, they all seem to plant and or nurture the same seed. I’m prone to selfishness, apathy, even more than moderate disgust with most people (especially myself). Most people around me whether it be school, work, church, or wherever may not get that impression from me, but it is there. The seed of discontent I���m referring to is not necessarily knowing, but atleast feeling that I’m inadequate in the most powerful, challenging and heartfelt expressions that incorporate compassion. I feel like that is a main driver of what/why/who I try to interact with. idk, seemed like a good story to tell.

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Eternal Sunshine

“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is a brilliant movie. A bit self indulgent sure, but it begs the classic question is it better to have loved and lost and all that BS. Always been terrified of putting myself out there and as I age it only seems to get worse. There’s a girl I even have in mind at this moment, but so many things terrify me. Idk, short post, but I have never been able to get over that hurdle. :/

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Yet another story

This story is far less fun the monastery one. Less enlightening for sure, but just more dark and dreadful. So I’d skip this one personally, but I find the more I tell it in one form or another, the easier it is for me to live with. (This will be a longer post) There are certain horrors everyone has faced at one time or another, I do not wish my words to be misconstrued that I’ve had it any better/worse than any one individual. Comparing experiences like that seems to be at the very least absurd to offensively abhorrent. This is just a story and the take I have on it. I’ll do my best to not change the details or make them seem more extravagant then what had happened. A rainy night late February in 2009 our next door neighbor had called about her husband who had not showed up for dinner, which was very much unlike him. To give some context, these neighbors we knew very well as we grew up in the house next door. They babysat my brother and I from time to time, have cookouts on occasion and occasionally go to the local candy maker where they’d work part time. Anyway my dad and I decided to go looking for him. He was a bit of a drinker so we would check the likely spots he’d go to hide from his wife and drink a bit. Went to the nearby O’Neil park parking lot and didn’t find him. Traveled over to his work place and his truck wasn’t there. Drove to the nearby VFW, his frequent water hole and found his truck parked between the garage and the main building, but didn’t see him. Dad went into the VFW to ask around and people were either to sloshed or preoccupied with themselves and I looked around the truck myself. By this time the rain was really coming down, and for those that don’t know about Midwest rain, imagine torrential downpour as the average type of rain. Of course I didn’t see anything. Dad came out and he looked around the truck himself, and the next few events are a bit of blur, but I remember noticing the driver side glass and why I couldn’t see into the truck. It wasn’t just the rain, the glass had crystallized because s bullet had past through it and hit the garage adjacent to the truck. So super long story short, my dad and I were the first ones to come across our neighbor who had shot himself in the head. This story isn’t about him though. It’s about my dad. It’s about me. It’s about the profound effect it had on our family, whether we talked about it openly or not. The last major thing I want to talk about in this post aren’t the following events in great detail, but instead how they shaped us. The following years (all of my 20s really), I’ve tried to make some sort of sense about what it means to me, how it affects my life. I then bounced from existential crisis to crisis trying to drum up some sort of clarity with really to no avail. My father on the other hand expressed the greatest amounts of compassion I’ve ever witnessed personally. He did not make it about himself, but instead tried the best he could to relieve those around him. Now at 30, the events still unfold on a daily basis. Sometimes it’s a brief thought while thinking about my dad. Sometimes it’s seeing a white pickup truck. At other times it’s seeing really cheap disgusting beer or even a whiff of Febreze. I’ve had therapy and when I have appropriate health insurance I’ll seek it out again. As a CNA at an ICU in the past, I’ve seen some pretty traumatic physical things, but none stirs in me quite like that February night. I do live with it everyday, but I try not dwell. Conversely, I also try not repress anything too. So what do I do cope? I’ve mentioned things in prior posts of some unhelpful self destructive ways. Exercise (specifically cardio) does wonders for my self esteem. Pursuing a degree in nursing to preserve life seems to be the only proper fit as far as career. Trying not to isolate myself as much as possible also helps. Besides exercise though, when things are done for other people with as pure as intention as I can muster, that seems to be the best thing. A rather long post and I’m sorry if it comes off wordy. Future ones should be more manageable. :)

[levihoeniges-blog]

Strange illness

So after watching an episode of The Voice and drinking a glass of Chardonnay (both done semi-reluctantly) I tried to go home from a nearby relative’s house. I had lost my keys, I had left my car lights on and after fixing both I was feeling pretty worthless about my aloofness that got me to that point. Ordered a pizza to make me feel better from Domino’s and gorged myself. Feeling overly full after eating the whole thing, I did indeed throw it up on purpose to relieve myself. This wasn’t the first time, as I have done it dozens of not hundreds of times before. I’m a bulimic and I know it. That’s why I’ve been trying so damn hard to not necessarily to lose weight but just be healthier the past few months. Working out several times a week, staying away from processed/fast foods, has greatly improved my life quality lately. I feel generally positive that past few months and it’s been amazing. Why bring this up now? Today I feel like literal shit: flu like symptoms, an extreme haziness/headache and the kind of lethargy that you feel when the flu is attacking you. For 3ish months I’ve been living pretty cleanly and to feel this. I can’t help but feel this is how I was, but just all the time. Anyway there are reasons I am the way I am. I’ll get into them soon enough.

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So I’ve got a story

Well we all do, some of us have multiple of them. I don’t like telling them much to others as it provides insight into how I think they’re significant. At one time I was looking at monastic life as feasible way of living. Away from the troubles of every day people. Who in my opinion, work tirelessly for a number of decades, retire, and the best case scenario, die among a couple of loved ones they’ve managed to not alienate. All of this while strapped to a bed in the most ironically named, lest hospitable place, a hospital. Never wanted that in my young adult life, even now doesn’t sound all too appealing. But back to the story. The monastery, “Christ in the Desert”, is as idyllic as one could imagine. The access road (near a residence inhabited by Georgia O’Keefe. One of the most prolific painters in the 20th century) is bumpy and non-paved. It winds through vividly colorful, sediment layered canyons, with parched desert foliage, which includes a large amount of wild sage. Approaching the monastery itself was like something from a movie and no monastery before or since has come close to that awe. There’s a guesthouse in which I stayed for about a week that had a single room, no bigger than my studio apartment now. Which might actually, explain why I like my current place for the past few years which some might find insane. Anyway, I participated in the liturgy of the hours (for the most part) and had all communal meals and essentially did my best to respect the Rule of Saint Benedict while I stayed there. Although I did venture off on nature walks from time to time. At the monastery, they encourage guests to daily “work” which they go along with one of the monks to work around the grounds. One day in particular I was paired up with a visiting Franciscan monk (whose name escapes me :/) who sought his own retreat at the monastery. We were tasked with helping build a part of fence for hops the monastery intended to sell to produce their own beer as a source of income. I’d always been a fan of Franciscans, as I grew up in Catholic Church ran by them. While most priests received paychecks and carry out their daily living, Franciscans take a vow of poverty. This in my eyes was always an defiant act against our U.S. culture and I still admire that. Now that I think about it I’m pretty sure his name was Father Joe (who may have been in his late 30s), so let’s go with that. As I tried to feebly help Fr. Joe (with my 20 year old lack of knowing much of anything) he told me about his life and found it all interesting. Details are blurry, but I remember a distinct moment when he confided if he really was meant for religious life as he had taken up. He actually talked about what if he had a family. I was taken aback by this and had flipped my perspective almost in a 180 degree fashion. There I was almost envious of this man’s life, but why? I’d thought a monastic life would’ve rid the problems of the world. The truth being, that I was help building a fence for a source of income as even monasteries have money issues. And even devout men require, if not yearn for a family to love and be loved. Even in the middle of an idyllic desert, the world issues are still ever present.

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It’s all about the tension

I read of rubber bands treating OCD patients years ago while taking a psychology course. The treatment is fairly simple in execution. As soon as a person is prompted by thought or action in compulsive behavior, they in turn snap a rubber band on their wrist, thereby using negative reinforcement to avert behavior that they’re trying to overcome. Now for me I’m not strictly looking for negative reinforcement, but still want a reminder of compulsive behavior to overcome. At 384 lbs. I was at my heaviest weight, like OCD you don’t get to that type of weight and not have a couple things off upstairs. I don’t like the idea of snapping of the rubber band to promote negative reinforcement in my case because I believe that might create the association of self-inflicted pain as doing the right thing. Not the greatest association to set up in the mind. In 2011, when I combined exercise, healthy diet and this seemingly dumb rubber band idea I got down to 275. Now my heaviest weight was merely 18 months ago, so this is my 2nd shot, probably my last one at that to taking off the weight permanently by myself with any intervention, or major healthy complications. I’m 30 after all, these fluctuations of yo-yo weight loss has devastating health effects after awhile. Next topic is about tension, and how I admire it.

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339, and still hungry

Not physical hunger per se, more to the tune of, “I’ve got some momentum, let’s go boi.” Finished up that four month competition with my buds. I was the only one to lose weight but my mindset had from switched to kinda wanna, to I absolutely need to. 21 lbs from thanksgiving (Let’s be real though I started in late Feburary). Actually 49 lbs from the heaviest I’ve ever been. I’m simultaneously a lot more energetic and a lot more drained a lot of the time. Atleast 3 days a week in the gym and just this spring break I started weightlifting. A relative (whom I still really like) asked what were the issues I had and I listed them, to the reply I got, “So it’s about self control?” I tried explaining (through text, so not in great detail) that a compulsion is something significantly greater than just wanting a bigger slice of chocolate cake. Ironically enough, people who want to chalk it up as a mere self control issues have their own varying degrees of it in their own life. Like keeping their mouth shut and thinking of how words affect people. Which this relative seems to have a hard time with by labeling their behavior as “honesty”. Regardless, this isn’t about them after all as it is about me. I’ve been wearing a rubber band again, which has been of particular help, but I feel that requires a bit of explanation which I’ll share in the next post.

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Running on low

I’m 30, going to school, got a rad job, but I want more.

My weight is at 352 lbs. It’s been over 5 years since I’ve even kissed a woman. And I’m bulimic. 

There’s so much beauty in this life and yet so much to despise. Contradictory thoughts seem to plague me every day where I’m at with the life I’ve been given, and this is starting to come off like a adolescent school girl’s diary more than anything else so I’ll keep it short this post.

I want to walk around Mt. Rainier, I want to make myself vulnerable enough to where I can actually be in an intimate relationship, I want to not be so damn scared of everything all the time.

Through God I can do anything, but this mountain is entirely to steep it seems from the bottom. Let’s see if this blog helps me chronicle whatever the hell this blog is.