California

I arrived in San Diego very, very late on Saturday night, thanks Jetblue, and I made it to my....old house....very late. Because of the hour I could only look in on the kids and then I piled into my car and was off in the middle of the night to find a hotel. After only five or six hours of sleep I awoke Sunday morning absolutely starving. So I left the hotel and walked about four blocks down the street looking for some place to eat. It only occurred to me then that I had completely forgotten that I have a car now.

After breakfast I needed to fill up, $47.80 and a mild coronary later I was off to find somewhere to live. Why didn’t someone tell me that the gas companies had finally lost their collective minds?

A quick check in storage for some gear, numerous telephone calls and, after tooling around all afternoon, I arrived at the restaurant. April and I had arranged to meet there for dinner but we thought that it would be fun to not let the kids know that I was home early. Since they were asleep when I got home and oblivious to the fact that my car was no longer in the driveway, they had no clue. When I seen that they were in the parking lot looking for a space I dashed into the bathroom out of sight. While in there I was recognized by a man who was utilizing the bathroom for more than a hiding spot. While still in process at the urinal, he said, “Hey aren’t you that guy!?” I acknowledged and with his free hand.........think about that for a minute...... he reached out to shake my hand. Being nimble of thought I flashed him the international ‘What the hell are you thinking!’ sign. He understood and was satisfied with thanks from me instead. Time to get the hell out of there! I wonder what he thought I was doing just standing there anyway.

Melanie was the first to spot me and it took at least three of four seconds for the surprise to sink in. She almost jumped out of her chair! Marc on the other hand said, “Hey, look its Dad.” Thanks boy.

It was great to see them and April and after catching up a bit, things settled down. The boy did eventually get excited to see me and they both sat next to me for the rest of the time.  Being in between these two is not always the best place to be. About halfway through the dinner almost the entire wait staff came up to the table to ask for an autograph and some pictures. My family was more than a little bit freaked by that. So I signed a copy of the San Diego U-T that featured me on it and they agreed to wait until after dinner to get the pictures.

Then the kids came with me to hang out for a while, we had a good time except towards the end things became a bit sad. Melanie was especially upset and that just breaks my heart. I talked with her for a bit and she seemed to be better and then they went home without me. Watching them drive off has been the hardest thing that I have ever done.

So on my way again along a ridiculously narrow high-speed street, with at least nine media people following on foot and two in cars. This time I was uncertain of where the road was going to take me. Well actually I knew exactly where it was going, it is just that everyone was telling me that the road was not pedestrian friendly up ahead. This gave me a chuckle, compared to what? I wondered. Right now I am literally walking in traffic.

Well we continued on despite the warning because at the end of the day, what was the option? I was not about to turn around and double back on the guidance of the tire shop guy and no one else had any bright ideas. After a while we found something that helped give me my bearing . . . Manhattan!  After cresting a hill on Route 46 we got a glimpse of the city and the moment was not lost on the photographers. Down the hill around the bend and we finally made it to Fort Lee, NJ. Actually there is more to it than just that but I am getting bored with writing about the road, so I just jammed right through. Don’t want to relive it!!

After getting to Ft. Lee we were intercepted by a great bike Police officer and escorted through the town along side streets and through a part to the George Washington Bridge. Special thanks to the Ft. Lee Police Department for their help.

When my posse and I came around the corner we got a glimpse of two or three reporters and walked right up to them. I was half tempted to ask, “what’s going on here?’ pretending not to be me. But I figured it would be another one of those “not funny outside of my head moments”, if I did. After a few minutes I was swarmed by about 25 or 30 photographers and reporters. We talked for a bit and at exactly 5:30 PM I started my way across the bridge with them all in tow. A port authority Policeman was yelling out, “No pictures! No video! No pictures! No video!”, as we passed. Well that lasted all of about five feet before they were all clicking, whirring and buzzing away. The Today Show had arranged a helicopter to hover off the side of the bridge and shoot video and it was there on cue. I was told to stay to the right of the walk way so that I would be in its shot. Because of that I had to wrestle with cameramen and reporters the entire way across the bridge and they were literally swarming for position.

It was the weirdest sound smorgasbord; I was literally drowned out by the chaos. Helicopters, reporters shouting out questions, cars whizzing by, a reporter speaking Japanese, non-stop, into a camera as she walked right next to me, the random but frequent “Andy!, Get out of the shot!” being yelled out, it started to rain, “Hey! Yer that walkin” dude!” the wind was howling and every twenty feet I would say, “Pole... Pole!... Pole!!...” followed directly by a loud and determined – WaaaaaThump!—owwww! sound, when a reporter or two smashed backwards into the bridge supports. I don’t believe that they missed a single one despite my best efforts to warn them. Also they demonstrated great sharing abilities by seemingly trading off the “who gets to run into the pole next” privilege, luckily there were a lot of poles.

Upon reaching the halfway point we stopped for pictures and I had a chance to really look out at the amazing Manhattan skyline. It truly was spectacular.

Finally we were there on the island after a mile across the bridge. Among the reporters and camera people I recognized a few faces and said hello, then we stopped at the corner of 178^th & Broadway, where we conducted an impromptu press conference. I talked with them for a while and people started to gather, “Steve! AP here, what do you thinkabouthiasgansgansg” as she was drowned out by another shouted question. One over the next, not unlike a wild animal feeding frenzy, but I managed to actually hear a few questions now and again and answered them the best I could. A guy passing by asked what was going on and when someone told him he shouted, “Dude, that’s crazy man! Damn, I give you mad credit, Yo!

After the corner was completely blocked I shook hands with a few of the supporters and was whisked away to my hotel by a prearranged car service. This was required because I had been warned by the police that if the scene was to get to big I could be cited. Documentary PJ and I jumped into the car and went on a seven mile site seeing tour through the western part of Manhattan.

I had been to NYC before but this time was different. This time it was much more amazing.

After settling into the hotel we all met up and went for a celebratory dinner at Mickey Mantle’s restaurant right across from Central Park and finally it was over, this was officially our last dinner together on the road.

The next morning I was up bright and early to meet the car from the Today Show. 6:05 in the morning is especially disturbing after only five hours of sleep. Things had been racing through my head and I just couldn’t seem to fall asleep.

So I get to the show and find that they are extremely organized. I get shuffled from one place to the next, speak with this producer, and get molested by that sound girl trying to put a mic on me, upstairs to the green room, which is never green by the way, where I meet other people that are going to be on the show. Don’t sit down because we need to go to the studio, in there I see super sized pictures of me all over the place....No that’s not weird at all!! Then a bunch of suits walked in like they owned the place and I see Condoleezza Rice walking in the middle of them. Apparently she is on the show before me.

Then I am pulled by the arm off to make up, sit down here, this will be just a minute. “Hey!” I yell, completely freaked out by the face powder. “I need to give you more eyebrow!” she says. Whoa now, stop that! Don’t put that there!?! Just then I was pulled away by another producer to go outside for a live shot. They walk me to the side of the building and we are waiting. While standing there between the building and Condoleezza Rice’s Secret Service motorcade, I spot Dave and PJ filming from across the street. Just then I hear, “Hey! Come here for a minute.” Come from the black SUV sitting there. “What!” “Come here for a minute.” Hey, I am not twelve and you don’t have any candy, get it straight pal!  Just then a couple of Police Officers with M16’s pour out of the backseat of the black SUV and scurry over to me from all sides, it seems. “What’s that?” The disembodied voice from the SUV asks. “A knife” I replied. Then they really got serious and started to push me away from the motorcade until the producer from the Today show chimed in and said, “No, no, he is a guest on our show.” With that they confiscated my knife and went back to their truck as if nothing had happen. Tell me this, how many times is that going to happen in a lifetime?

We finish the outside shot and go back to standing around. Busy, busy people fluttering about with serious looking pieces of paper and talking into there head sets and I just stand there watching. Occasionally someone breezes past and says, “Great job” or “congratulations.” The from out in the hallway I hear a lot of yelling, a booming voice singing something I had never heard before, or something I had heard before but his singing was so bad it was unrecognizable. Around the corner comes the crooner, Al Roker, he rushes right up to me and says, “There he is! Congratulation man, Hell of a job!” and he was gone as quickly as he appeared. Did I mention that everyone on TV is actually much shorter than they appear?

I wound up meeting all most of the staff including Matt Lauer and Katie Couric of course. But as a special treat I was able to shake hands with Chris Hansen from that show, “To catch a pervert.”

After the interview I went back to the hotel for a short respite and then off to American Morning with Soledad O’brien, who was great. She was an incredibly warm and caring person. After the interview I met the women from the show “The Facts of Life”, they were on after me. I had a crush on two of them when I was a kid and meeting them in person was nothing sort of weird. Later that day I also appeared on MSNBC, ITN (British) and finally the Glenn Beck show. All of those interviews have been posted on my website “News Buzz” page if you are interested.

Finally I had some time to meet with some friends, old and new, and get some sleep.

Next . . . . I meet with Dr. Pamela Peeke and more stuff in Washington DC.

Long time no hear from, very sorry about that. This last 10 days since I finished in NYC have been insane. There is so much going on that I have been running around like a madman trying to catch up.  I have been faced with a lot of things that require decisions and these decisions are very important in a lot of way. So I have been somewhat consumed by them and remiss in my journaling duties. There are a lot of interesting things going on and I would love to keep you all posted about them. So now that I am developing a steadier schedule I am going to start to post journal entries on a regular basis. I have decided that I am going to post on at least Monday, Wednesday and Friday, even if it is just to say hello. So stayed tuned for the next exciting episode of Thefatmanwalking, and believe me when I say that there is a lot going on and it will be very interesting.

I left off the other day promising to talk about Dr. Pamela Peeke, so I will start there.

About two months before the finish of the walk I was contacted by Dr. Peeke and she was very interested in my health at the time. We talked for a while and she was very helpful when I really needed it most. While I was in Pennsylvania I had a medical situation that freaked me out quite a bit and she guided me through it, for that alone I owe her a debt of gratitude. Since that time she has stayed on top of things with me by being there everyday with help, support and encouragement. I have learned a great deal about health and obesity from her and was thrilled when she invited me to her office in Washington D.C. for a thorough post walk examination and a body composition analysis.

So after I was done in NYC I rented a car and drove to Washington D.C., I was greeted by her staff and whisked right onto the machine practically. Turns out that my body fat percentage is down to 38%, which is great considering where I started. She thinks that I could get down to around 200lbs and would be at a perfect balance for my size frame. It is encouraging to be able to know what you are made of and how to approach getting the rest of the excess weight off.

Additionally, she introduced me to a couple of executives from a major television channel that is interested in meeting me. How can you not be excited about that? They wanted to discuss working together in the future, WOW! After meeting with them they decided to send a production crew out to shoot a test, to see how I worked on film. All this within an afternoon, I am told that this is very rare. So, needless to say, I was duly impressed and humbled by their graciousness. So the crew showed up late in the afternoon at Dr. Peeke’s (Pam’s) office and even though they were all very tired after a long day, they greeted me enthusiastically and we had an interesting evening. They filmed Dr. Peeke and I interacting, then the weight in and body composition analysis, we talked for a while and then they were gone. It sounds easy but there is a lot of hurry up and wait in involved but, regardless it was a fascinating evening. Even though I was all stuffed up and on Claritan I think that the whole thing went well.  

All told, I spent two days in Washington with Pam, I met her husband, (a Police officer with a “what did you do wrong, endless glare”) but a really nice guy despite that. I also had the privilege of meeting some of her friends and some friends and colleagues. It was nice to be able to sit and talk with people who have dedicated their efforts to combating obesity and truly understand its inner workings. They were very supportive and informative and I consider myself fortunate to have had their attention and having gained some wisdom from them. This really helped guide me to the next step in this evolution of mine.

Childhood obesity—I can trace a great deal of my personal drama back to when I was a child, as I am sure you can too. For me there was a lot of terrible things that occurred, interlaced with some good family and friends, but it seems that the bad is easier to remember and Is certainly what overwhelmed me as a young adult. This subsequently led me to this very journal today; an amazing process but very difficult to understand while you are living it. In fact, many don’t survive it as well as we would like and that is a terrible reality that we all must face. Especially considering the current condition that we find our youth in today. It seems that obesity, (need for comfort) in children is at an alarming number today. Obesity among children is on the rise and they need our help. What can we do about it? That is the very question that has been going through my head for the last year. I took it upon myself to learn what was going on and I was discturbed by what I found; adults’ studying it… talking about it… concluding that it’s an epidemic… but I wonder how the kids feel…

You have read so much about my issues with weight and depression because I walked across the country to try and get right with things. But what about the others that cannot do what I have done? Especially the children, I have admitted that most of the things that have affected me as an adult have root in my childhood. Right now, across this country and even in your town we are raising fat and unhappy kids. This is an epidemic that, if let unchecked, will shape the future of our country, but more important is the devastation that our neglect will have on these kids lives.

People look around now and think that there are “some” overweight people, completely missing the fact that at this very moment overweight people are the majority in this country. To not be overweight puts you in the minority and that number is shrinking everyday. Considering that it is not hard to see why we have so many overweight kids, we are teaching them how to do it. Sugary drinks in schools, boxed-food and hour upon hour videos game at home, lack of any real physical activity and an over abundance of things to keep their expanding butts on the couch all add to the problem, this is not a mystery. Why we allow this to happen is. Look around at our children at see how many of them are dangerously over weight and they are not finished rowing. While you are thinking about that remember that more of them will be overweight tomorrow unless we act to change of apathy regarding health.

This is not an individual persons struggle anymore, this is a societal issue. This is about us as a people and to turn your back on that is almost criminal. So it seems to me that we need to focus on things that will make the most impact for public health and I believe that that is our children. Who is doing anything for them? Doctors and scientists study it, talk about it, publish articles about it and tell us what we as parents need to do but most of us do nothing. The most important question is one we never ask, what do the children think about it?

If you have an obese child do you wonder how he or she values themselves, they are not laboratory mice, they are our future, our sons and daughters and we are failing to teach them when that knowledge will make the most difference. Our kids live what they learn, what we teach them and when we look into their faces and see such grief and sorrow, confusion and anger because they are overweight, who do we blame, who do we hold accountable?  What do we want them to learn here? It is not Okay for them to be fat, “sorry that you don’t feel good about yourself, but you need to lose weight, God do I know how is feels to have someone state that obvious point and I am an adult, the prejudices, self-doubt, feeling of inadequacy, can you imagine feeling that along with all the other drama of growing up? Does it make you feel sick? It should and that is what you need to feel, especially if we choose to do nothing about it.  I choose to be part of the solution.

To that end I have decided to use this publicity and public interest in my adventure to create an organization that will hopefully turn the light on this problem and help to develop realistic, sustainable ideas for the kids. We need to turn this around for them and not allow those wonderful little people head unknowingly into the life of depression and despair that we have to endure as overweight people.

So in the next journal entry I will tell you more about the process and what I am planning to do with it. Right now we are in the building phase, trying to get sponsorship and support to allow it to happen. I have a ton of invites to speak at schools and am accepting more. I also hope to get the help, support and guidance from some of my new friends, Dr. Peeke, Eric the trainer, Sunfare, GoLite, Verizon and many others to develop this into a realistic, workable solution for our kids, ourselves and our future.

 If you have any ideas or suggestion please feel free to comment because the one most valuable tool that I have had this year is the collective wisdom of Thefatmanwalking audience.

Difficult times ahead. With all good things there comes adversity, difficult times and uncertainty. Why, if this were not true then all things would be good all the time. This notion holds true for me. In fact, this is the story of my life. Things have never been particularly easy for me and I don’t suspect that the transition from walking across the country to building a foundation for children will be any different. There are a lot of things that tie into this and getting them all straightened out is more difficult and costly than you would suspect. Luckily I am building a great team of dedicated people helping and guiding me through the process.

On a more personal note, right now I am living in a hotel while I try and figure out what to do next. There are several options available and all of them have both good and bad things about the, I am trying to decide which is the best for my family and I. There is a long stretch between being Thefatmanwalking and the foundation, and this is the hard part. Some of the media has reported that I have made tons of money, they couldn’t be more wrong. I am struggling and the next few months will be difficult. But I think that the good that can be had from my efforts with regard to helping children is worth the trouble.

I am telling you this because I think that I will have to consider advertising for the website and I wanted to make it clear that this is to enable me to continue to maintain the website and get the word out about what is happening here. If you are interested in helping me and the efforts of the foundation then please contact me through the contact page of this website

That being said, here is the journal

This last week has been very interesting because there has not been two days alike. I have nowhere to walk to and that is actually very difficult to get comfortable with. Each day I start out with my normal enthusiasm and then within a few hours I am back to the difficulty of my new situation. One of my favorite things in life is hearing my kids in their normal activities, since April and I are no longer together I only get to be with them a couple times a week. That is very difficult for me and has caused me to be down quite a bit this week. I am trying to get it all together so that I can have a stable environment in which I can accomplish my health and wellness plans for myself and provide a place for my kids. Until I am there I think that I will have to resign myself to the uneasy feeling that this situation currently has me in. But the kids are happy just to see me regularly and they are what really matter here anyway. This is not the way that I want things but sometimes you don’t get a choice. I am trying to make the best out of it and adjust to my new circumstances as best I can.

There are still issues with the book publisher, ones that I am not permitted to talk about, but we are working to resolve them and get the book out as soon as possible. I will also post information on this progress or lack thereof, as it becomes available.

I mentioned health and wellness and that is the thing that is quickly becoming the center of my daily focus. People have been asking me what I learned on my journey and that has been a hard question to answer because there have been so many things. But I think that if I had to choose one element that is more important than any other I believe I would pick food.

It has become very clear to me that food is a terrible thing when abused. It is just as much a deadly addiction as drugs and alcohol; but much easier to get. On the road it was difficult to maintain a healthy diet because the choices were so limited. I promised myself that the first thing that I was going to do when I got finished with the walk was to get the food thing straightened out. This is easier said than done. It is clear to me that food is only part of the abuse problem, stability and finances are another part; to state it simply, lifestyle. So I am now trying to do the best I can considering the circumstances and trying to make things as stable as possible. There are a lot of people offering to help, Dr. Pam Peeke, Eric the trainerand Sunfare to name a few. I appreciate all their time and effort and with their help I will certainly have a better chance at maintaining my weightloss success and even losing more. Dr. Peeke is guiding me with health and nutrition, Eric with fitness, wellness and nutrition, Jenny Craig is considering food and even Sunfare is involved again. All great people and organizations, I hope to learn many things from them and will pass their knowledge onto you over these next few months.

I have set a new goal for myself of losing 60 more pounds in 90 days. I will be working out, walking, swimming and biking combined with eating better and less to get back to the weight that my body should naturally carry, which is around 230 lbs. But this will not be an easy task and hopefully, with all the great people stepping up to help me, I will achieve it.

I have set a second set of goals that I would like to achieve, first I would like to walk the length of England sometime this year, and second I would like to participate in the Bataan Memorial Death Marchand the 2007 Marine Corps Marathonnext year. Lofty goals to be sure, but we need goal to keep us focused on the mission.

Tomorrow I meet with some of these folks that I have mentioned to work out the details of what I need to do to get healthy again and then it is all up to me to get going. So keep checking in and see how it all turns out.

This is the eventual and inevitable turn of the media. They built this is to be a marathon or circuit race and I have been saying all along that it is about getting my head straight.

This last year has been a great one for me because along the way I’ve learned to be grateful for the little things in life. My journey proved to me that most people are wonderful, supportive, encouraging and generous in spirit.  A few have agendas though and when they do there’s nothing that can be done alter a mindset.  Any conversation can be taken and manipulated out of context to support an agenda, innuendos are easily made.  My truth is that life experience isn’t quite as sizzling as a story has to be.

I began this journey because I was overweight, unhealthy and depressed… really depressed.  And because of the kindness, encouragement and generosity of strangers, I made it to New York City.  But with all things comes balance, so there has to be a negative element. But luckily for me most people seemed to understand what I was doing and the amount of negativity was very minor; less than one percent of the people contacting me in fact.  Some of this cruelty became threatening and its unfortunate but many threats were made to me by email and in the guestbook but I continued on anyway. I refused to be held hostage to a minority of hateful people. But I prefer to concentrate on the fact that most people I’ve met have been wonderful, and this verbal one percent only serves to remind me that prejudice against obesity and depression is still very much alive and kicking.  

I have spent the last three days enjoying my time with my children and that was great. It was the first time that we have had an extended period of time alone. Spending time with them was the thing that I missed most when I was gone. I am constantly amazed at the depth of a child's mind. My daughter never ceases to amaze me with her view of the world. Sometimes, when I am listening to her, I see myself. I remember a long time ago having the same zeal and interest in the world. Providing them with the best possible home and upbringing is the most important thing to me and everything that I do as an adult is to help to ensure that they have a better childhood that I did. So, whether some faceless, nameless person on a guestbook disapproves is irrelevant to me, my family approves and there is no higher justification.

But one thing that recently caught my attention was a question posted on my guestbook, “Why start a charity for children’s obesity, you’re not a role model, you’re still fat.”  That’s exactly right, I’m still overweight and I’m working on it every day and I refuse to give up on myself, which is what should be gleaned from all this, perseverance under difficult circumstances. After all that time and miles I was not magically cured. Imagine that, I am human after all. I learned that things require time and perseverance to be accomplished.

In other words, it is not whether you live up to someone else’s expectation but that you live up to your own.  I know how it feels to be seen, treated, overlooked as a fat person and that’s exactly why I hate to see children feel this way.  Depression, cruelty, lack of esteem and personal value can to terrible things to the human spirit. This brought me to the emotional brink and my journey brought me back. Now I think that I need to concentrate my efforts on helping others to avoid finding themselves here at all. Every single one of us should be able to stand tall and proud regardless of size or affliction… regardless of anything that we feel is keeping us from our potential.  We all have the ability to soar… accomplish… that’s my goal, even it means only one person. If you positively affect one person’s life, how many people will he go on to affect?

A final note, presently I am living in desert area temporarily and internet availability is limited to the public library or a local restaurant. This combined with the fact that I need to handle the requirements of my daily life means that I will not be able to guarantee journal postings. I will try and post them as I stated last week but if I am not exactly on time know that I will do my best to post it as soon as possible.

Since I have been home I have been able to gain a new, healthier perspective on my personal wellness. Not being subject to the food conditions on the road is obviously helpful. But I am learning that, if you give into bad behavior, you can find a way to not do the right thing, wherever you find yourself.

Eating right and exercise is the easy part, getting off your ass to do it is where the trick is. Good healthy food is out there right along side the bad choices. There are plenty of ways to re-introduce exercise in your life. But the relationship between eating and overeating, exercise and convenience, healthy food intake and feeling good inside is so intertwined that most people are overwhelmed to such a degree that that can no longer see the things beginning or end. Sometimes we spend so much time trying to figure out how to do it, that we forget to just do it. Sometimes, preparation is another word for procrastination.

Unfortunately, getting healthy dos not produce instant results like hitting the lottery would and we have become such an instant gratification society that we refuse to wait for anything at all. So this is what leads us to spending a good portion of our lives looking for quick fixes. I have spent a great deal of time thinking about this and I have concluded several things, chief among them is that this desire for a quick fix is the problem, not the actual being overweight.

What I mean by this is that we determine our self worth by what people think about our appearance, not by our character. We take perfectly good solutions that are available and turn them into quick fixes. For instance, Jenny Craig is not happy about the fact that I besmirched “boxed food” as being a quick fix. I looked back at that journal entry and I realized that I was blaming the industry for a problem that we as people have actually created. Most of the weightloss programs, methods or philosophies have merit and are a great part of the overall cure. Used properly and in conjunction with sensible lifestyle choices, including eating well and exercising, they will be successful in getting you further along the path to better health.

The problem is that most of us sign ourselves over to them completely and I think that this is where the problem begins. These things are tools, not cures. You are the cure and could actually do for yourself what they propose, but they can help where you are lacking. Although I have not changed my opinion on quick fixes in general, I have reassigned the blame for their creation and abuse. In short, whatever you choose to help you along the way to better health, remember that it is only there to help, not to do it for you.

So last week I stated that I set a goal to lose 60 lbs in 90 days, and as usual, a few people added their comments on it. I still stand by what I stated but would like to clarify what I meant. While I was on the walk there was obviously a lot of things going on from making poor food choices, lack of good food at times, stress and simple creature comfort. Certainly there were choices that I made along the way that in retrospect caused me to not stay on track with the overall weightloss. But I cannot change those mistakes; I can only learn from them and try to not repeat them. If I have said it once I think I might have said it a million times, this walk was about self discovery and learning to overcome bad behaviors. Certainly the catalyst for the walk was weightloss, but ultimately it was more about learning to achieve a sustainable lifestyle change and I think that this is where the important lesson for me is. Now, life after the walk is the test. Have I learned anything? Am I any better off now than I was when I started?  Only time will tell this. But today, as I am writing this journal entry I am feeling 100% better than I have in my life, I am stronger, healthier and not dependant on old comfort things to get through the day. I have not had any binge eating episodes, I have not overeaten and I am eating healthier everyday. So with a renewed commitment to eating healthier, exercising everyday and focusing on positive things I do not think that it is unreasonable at all to lose 60 pounds in ninety days. But if it takes longer than that, Okay. But at least I have something that I am working at. That is what makes all the difference. A life with out direction is a life out of control. I feel like I have direction now.

California

06 04 06

Since I returned home things have been very confusing. April and I are trying hard to make the separation transition as wrinkle free as possible, but of course there are always issues.

First one is trust. It seems that once a relationship is over the issue of trust comes up. This is compounded by the media, if they are involved in your life. April and I have had several discussions regarding things that have been printed about us lately. Even though you know better, sometimes you still need to ask whether something written is true or not. After speaking with her about this a few times I realized that she is really having a hard time with public opinion; more so than me. Because of this I wanted to state for the record that April and I are still friends and parents, she continues to be supportive and is not evil like some of the trolls would have you believe. The break up of our marriage is difficult and coming to that decision was not easy, but it was mutual. April works very hard to help accommodate my return to everyday life and helps beyond what would be expected from someone with whom you are divorcing.

So, contrary to recent reports, April is not “outing” me to the media and she is still a big part of my life. We are not hating one another and speak almost everyday. We remain friends and parents. If you hear something to the contrary then you are hearing wrong.

Now as for me, I have spent a week in the Anza-Borrego desert and today I head back to my own planet. I have some big decisions to make and I needed some time to consider them. This week will prove to be a pivotal one I think. So I spent this time with friends whose opinions I value and sought their counsel. This time was also for me to reconnect with my friends that I have not seen in a year and that turned out to be just what I needed. Sometimes you will find answers when you are not looking for them and especially if you spend your time with supportive people. Over the next week I will finalize some of these things that have been up in the air and will share them with you as they develop.

06 10 06

Week of 6/5 – 6/10   

Dilemma for the fatmanwalking!

Since my return to California after completing my walk across the country I have been faced with a lot of difficult things, not least of which is the book deal with Harper-Collins/Regan Media. It has been almost a month now and we still have not been able to come to an agreement on releasing me from my contract with them. It seems to me that they would be aware of the time sensitive nature of this book and, therefore, eager to help me get it placed with another publisher. Especially since the repayment of their money is dependant on the publication of this book. This, however does not seem to be the case at all.

There are some folks that erroneously believe that I was made rich by sponsors and advertisers, this notion could not be further from the truth. In fact, in a lot of ways I am much worse off than before I left. In fact, this journey has put me in the red, but I have a short period of time to get my life back together and my ability to sell the book is paramount to that recovery. Another erroneous belief is that my family is not being taken care of, that simply is not true. They are always the first priority for me and they are doing fine. When I refer to me I am speaking solely about me.

This last week I spent mostly in Los Angeles preparing for some upcoming events and doing a couple of interviews. During this next week I will announce what those things are and I promise that they will be interesting. It is important to me that people who were motivated by my journey continue to see the dramatic change, both physically and spiritually, that occurs when you rise above you own drama. The book and the movie will really illustrate the nuts and bolt of this journey and I believe that it will provide a much clearer picture of what really happened over the last year. However, the journey is not over. I still have weight to lose and things to work out and of course I will share it all with you...again. So, stay tuned for more information at the end of next week.

Right now I am back in San Diego hanging out with my kids and having a great time. While I am with them I focus on our time together and not the journal. Sorry, but when I have to choose between the two the journal has to wait. I am taking a few minutes to write this one while there is a Saturday morning cartoon on. TO be honest, they are ignoring me right now! One of the greatest joys in life for me is my children and I cherish the time that I have with them.

On another note; for those that are interested there are several media items coming out this week about me, chief among them is a segment on Australian 60 Minutes. I am not sure when or if the video will be available online, but I believe that it will air on TV in this country eventually. I will let you know when it does. Secondly, there are articles in Backpacker and Walk magazines this month.

There are a few other things in the pipeline but now I am being more selective because I don’t want to keep doing the same interview over and over. There are media out there that get the deeper story here and those are the ones that I am focusing on. I will post here when they occur. But the next big adventure will keep the adventure going and I promise will be very helpful for people with problems like the ones that I deal with and several others. I am very excited about the future.

Finally, I am still maintaining a better and healthier lifestyle, with minimal transgressions. Eating less, eating healthier and exercise are the focus and integrating them into everyday life is the challenge. Over the next several months I hope to make it a more natural part of my life. I sincerely believe that any long term change needs to be gradual, consistent and sustainable, however, everyday life challenges makes that very difficult and that is where the hard work is for me. So, over the next couple of months I will try to accomplish more than I fail, and hopefully make some progress. After consulting with Dr. Pamela Peeke I have decided that my goal weight is around 235 lbs. and I will make that goal eventually. But I want to make and maintain that goal instead of bouncing around the scale for the next few years. So, to achieve this goal I am dedicating my efforts to learning how to maintain heath, diet and wellness the right way. I hope to learn and pass that along to you through advise and input from some of the professionals that I have come to trust and through the development of my own weight maintenance strategies from this last years as well as what will be learned next. Things are really getting interesting now.

06 12 06

I am sitting here in a friend’s office in North Hollywood trying to decompress from the whirlwind that has been my life for the past year or so. I say only a year because in the beginning of my walk things were quite introspective and adventurous. It was the latter part of the trip in which things became nuts. Now I am sitting here assessing what has happened and constantly reminding my self that, both, it did happen and it was in fact me that is happened to. Things get insane if you let them, and North Hollywood is probably not the first place to be looking for sanity, but it actually is quite refreshing to be around friends and that is sanity wherever you find yourself.

I spent the weekend with my kids again and I find that very refreshing. But at the same time I find that after dropping them off at my former home it takes a day or so for me to lose the funk of sadness of not seeing them everyday. This is not the way that I envisioned how things would work out for my family, but isn’t that just life? Sometimes life is just beyond your reach and the best that you can hope for is to stay close enough to see where it goes. Sometimes we have to accept that the best we have is a wager that we have made the right decision. The unfortunate gamble is the lives and happiness of four people in this case, but what else can be done. These things happen in life and your only choice is to do the best that you can. So I speak with the kid’s everyday and I will continue to be there for them as much as I can. I hope that my love and dedication to them is enough in the long run.

As far as the rest of things are concerned I am at a cross roads. I know that mentioning it here is probably not the best idea but I have developed a strong belief of faith in thefatmanwalking audience. So I suppose that sometimes I look for guidance from that very group.  Right now I have the liberty to look at the landscape of my life and decide the next turn. I have several options ahead of me and assessing which is the best is tricky. They all have pros and cons and they all have costs. But each one has an allure that keeps them all in the running. It would be easy to make decisions in life if they were all a good one versus a bad one. But they seldom are, at least without the benefit of hindsight.  Rarely does a person at a cross roads examine the options and purposely choose the bad one. Instead they make the best decision at the time, based on the information available and hope for the best. I, fortunately, have the added advantage of thousands of cyber-counselors so I am going to use it. In this situation Olympic judging rules apply. You take the fringes, those vehemently opposed and those zealously in favor and toss them out. Then you rate what remains, so here goes.

There are basically two paths in front of me. One is that I finish this FMW stuff, put it behind me and go back to my life. That means that I go back to working at a company and try to avoid the wide swath of a rut that I formerly dug for myself. I am not trying the swing the vote here but instead I am trying to illustrate my feelings.  I am good at what I do but I have proven to myself that I become completely absorbed with it and forget about the living part. I would have to work hard to avoid this and I think that I can but those forces are strong. I can work at getting back to school or maybe buying my own business again or simply be content to labor and make do with what I have, finding peace of mind in the mind, not outside of it. Certainly there are merits to this path but it is one well traveled and the perils well known. A fancy way of saying that it scares me a bit; there is a history there and I may be a bit too manic when it comes to work. Not being able to balance family, life and work is why I went on the walk in the first place. Like an alcoholic who has to find new friends, hangouts and hobbies, I think that I need to reinvent myself in a different way. I fear that giving into my instinctual urge to go to what is comfortable is my main weakness.

Which brings me to option two; embracing the FMW and move forward with it, following it to the next level. This means taking a serious risk heading into territories unknown. I love change but only when it doesn’t change everything. There is comfort in things being the same and there is excitement in things changing, in the middle of these two notions go I. Right now I have quite a few people telling me that there is a lot of good that I could do with the FMW and that there are a great number of people out there that would be well served by my focusing energies on the two things paramount in my life, obesity and depression. I know that there is no shortage of people who love to blame everything wrong on depression and no end of excuses for why we are obese. But I am not talking about that. I am talking about real issues and real solutions for real people. I have learned a lot over this last year or so and most important was that people can make the required changes in their own lives. There are lots of great things out there to help them but it seems that there might be too many. In fact, there are so many that they start to become counterproductive. It becomes so confusing that people stop listening and become almost paralyzed with indecision about what is good and healthy and what is bad and unhealthy. I think that an incredible team has been assembled, quite by accident, around this journey. Dr. Peeke, Dr. Perricone, Eric Fleisman, Sunfare foods, Total vitamins to name a few and there are many more. They are all willing to help to develop realistic, sustainable life changes in health and wellness for everyday life.

All it takes is someone to get out there and pass the word along. Now who can we get to do that?? Someone willing to take the chance, willing to risk the hardships and tribulation, willing to weather the storm or haters and discontented… That is the trouble folks. Who is willing to do that? Am I? There are great benefits to being that person, peace of mind, satisfaction of returning good things to the world and pride in doing something when others fear to not try. But there is a great cost as well. What goes up must come down. What if people don’t care? What if I lose even more money? What if I get stranded in Amsterdam?....Ok well forget about that last one. But there are serious issues here. This is not a thing that you can start and just decide to walk away from. There are a lot of people that will be counting on the help and guidance offered by this organization and that will require a long-term commitment. It is a responsibility not to be entered into lightly.

If I choose that later then the next step is in further adventures at the FMW. In the works is a plan to continue walking, not simply to cover ground but instead to make people aware of the causes and cures of these terrible things. To have a health and wellness presentation in areas most afflicted by depression and obesity. To bring realistic heath and fitness information to people that would otherwise not have it. Currently, I am considering an offer to host me in a walk in England. This would be a combination of group walks, health fare and talks aimed at providing people with tools and motivation to empower people to embrace their own health and wellbeing; in short to be responsible for their own happiness.

So there I am! What should I do? Right now times are difficult and that makes decisions even more difficult and for that matter, critical. But I want to make the right one if I can so I pose the question to you. What would you do?

06 21 06

There has been a lot of things going on this last week or so but none exciting enough to make a journal entry about. A lot of hurry up and wait and even more decisions awaiting answers. It is all angst building stuff certainly, but nothing interesting enough to motivate me to bother you with. Instead, I decided to post a clip from an unfinished journal entry that I started right after I returned to San Diego.

As with most things that I write, I have to make a determination between what is journal and what is book and this one I decided was too sad and self absorbed to be either. But later, when I was reviewing it I decided that it was truthful and representative of the emotional state upon my return. Because of that I decided that I should have posted it anyway and therefore I am doing it now.

I have been home in San Diego for a couple of  weeks now and already I have spun around the emotional clock more times than I can count. I am here, where I belong, but here is not here anymore. I am getting tons of email that say things like: “you must be glad to be home.”, or “it must be great to get back to you life after all this time.” I appreciate the sentiment but I am not home. In fact I don’t have a home yet. Removed from my past life, by choice or otherwise, I struggle to find where my new life begins. I am back in San Diego where my family is but I am now on my own. Sadness is the inevitable companion in a situation like this and I am a little upset with myself that I didn’t see this all coming.

While still on the road I had to put the thoughts of this inevitable transition out of my mind to be able to continue with what I had started. It seemed that dwelling on my new found homelessness was not wise so I focused on the task at hand. Now that I am here in the middle of this new reality I find its process maddening, I am surrounded by such beauty but it seems that none of it is for me. It all appears to be there to please others and I happen to be getting a glimpse; but only a glimpse, I feel like I am on the outside of my own life looking in. For a long time I walked into and through other peoples realities being welcomed with open arms. Now that I have stumbled into my own I find myself more alone that ever before. Now I am a stranger.

I am terrified about where I go next. For a year it was always simple, east! Now the real life effort comes into play and “east” is not enough. Somehow I have started a journey whose finish is much farther that I could have anticipated or would have agreed to had I known.

Intellectually, I know that I am at a turning point in my life; people are telling me that this will be a difficult transition period and I can accept that they are correct. I try to remain optimistic but I pine for unrealistic things. First, there is my family. I would like, more than anything else, to be in the same house with them. But at the same time I know that if I were, I would feel trapped and overwhelmed because of the marital difficulties. I really believe that I can be a better father in this current situation, but my inclination is to think that to fade away would be more fitting. So while I pine for them to be closer I also plan for them to fade. I wonder if this is the same sort of conflict that my father faced when he left me. Truthfully, I don’t think that he put as much thought into it. I, on the other hand am overwhelmed by the absurdity of my situation, my desires and my reality. None seem to be in communication with the others and that leads invariably to being overwhelmed. I hope that there is more to being a father than feeling like I am not good enough and trying everyday to be what they need. I enjoy being with them more than anything else in my life and I dread when it is time to take them back home. Is this the life of a divorced Dad, excitement and discontent on a weekly visitation basis? It has all the makings of torture; outlawed for prisoners but apparently a requisite for Dads.

At the time that I am writing this I am sitting here in a Mexican restaurant, looking out on Adams Ave. watching people enjoy the beauty that I somehow feel undeserving of. Some I see are like me and some seem to be completely different, regardless all seem to be enjoying themselves. I have been on both sides of this glass and I don’t know how I got there in either case. Little separates people from their dreams other than their own reactions to the world around them. I know this but I don’t seem to know it. I can see the solution but most times it appears to be just beyond my grasp. And that has always been the thing that I felt separated me from the world at large even though I know that it is more common that not.

As I am watching, an attractive heavy set woman in gray skirt, from the apartment above the bookstore across the street, stops to chat with young men at café, very European in context but decidedly American in feel; thrown together, not well kept and surrounded by urban ting that has been polished in the middle. Oddly, I long for it, I long for any place that I would feel is my own. I wonder if they feel the same way inside as I do. Waiting to see something from them that would give me a reason to believe that we have a kinship, I quietly live my life right on the fringe of theirs. The only part that angers me is that I seemingly do this under my own steam. I am separated from what I desire by a thin veil of understanding and resolve. Without either, I am doomed to repeat the scenario day after day. It would seem that knowing this is the power to escape it but, apparently, there is another element yet unknown that holds me tightly bound. After a year of making new friends, freely walking into unfamiliar scenarios, I find myself paralyzed once again.

Chips and salsa and an out of place fruit plate that the waiter placed at my table without a single word. These are the things that I focus on now; the idea of the outside world temporarily fades as I enjoy my appetizer. Returning only in fleeting moments of sadness I return to the joy at hand and let the outside world go. . . for now.

06 30 06

I have been thinking a lot lately about some of the things that I have learned over the last year about myself and about obesity. This journey has been good for giving me a better understanding of myself and specifically my weight issues. I have tried to make the point repeatedly that the journey was not about the weight. I have also stated that the reason behind that statement is that there can be no real weightloss without addressing the underlay issued that caused the bad behavior. I am certain that trying to lose weight while ignoring its reason for being there is the reason that people Yo-yo on diets for years and years. Knowing this, I left home stating clearly that I did not want to get caught up in that behavior. I wanted to do something that I felt had the best chance of succeeding. It seems that this idea was not well received and people still wanted to make the walk the method for weightloss. Well I learned along the way that the walking would never be enough without self discovery and education. That is the thing that I have taken from it and even though I only lost half of my excess weight I am still very thrilled with the walk and the results. But there is still a way to go.

Over the past weeks I have endeavored to apply some of the new found understanding and self awareness to my everyday life. Even though things have been very unstable and uncertain for me personally I have fared well. I have really made significant strides in portion control, food quality and exercise but more importantly I have implemented a healthier lifestyle that allows me to make better choices. Being aware of my weaknesses, knowing my limitations and understanding the results of indulging either helps me on a daily basis to make better choices. But I also am aware that this is a growing process; Rome wasn’t built in a day and I didn’t get fat from eating one meal too many. This is a lifestyle problem created over many years of overindulgence and it is going to be fixed with the same time and dedication.

Now I am very enthusiastic that I am going to be able to lose the remaining weight and maintain the weightloss for the long run. But I have come to a realization that might shock some and cause others to email me with “I told you so”. I cannot do it alone. I thought for a long time that this is a solitary thing and that one had to do it alone. I rejected help from people because I felt that they could never understand the particulars of my life so how could they tell me what I needed to do to fix things. Well there is the error.

First off, I was right in that they could not possibly know what I have been through. But I was wrong in thinking that people could not help. People can only share their experiences and through that sharing you can find hope, solace and motivation. I have learned this because of the thousands of emails that I have received from you folks; amazing stories of recovery, failure as well as sincere concern and understanding. In both of my Yahoo group I read things that people share and am stunned sometimes at the brilliant resources that they provide freely to one another. I have learned a great deal just from listening in on their conversations and seeing that there is common ground regardless of the individual situations. Community helps, it appears.

So to that end I have started to talk with more people and listen to their stories, partially to learn, but mostly to try and lend support to them. This is not an individual battle. There is no reason to do it alone. So I wanted to say thanks to all those that send their amazing emails, graciously post help and encouragement for one another. The human compassion is sometimes overwhelming.

Secondly, even though we can get help from others there is a solitary element to weightloss and it is important to not forget this. Obviously, there are great groups like Overeaters Anonymous, Weight Watchers and TOPS, to name a few, but they all teach that each person has to accept responsibility for their weight and why they remain overweight. This is an important notion because it eventually leads to accepting responsibility for making the weightloss happen.

All of the great motivation, counseling and resources available will fail miserably if you just sign yourself over to them without taking charge of your own recovery. There is nothing to gain from any of the help available if you go into it thinking that the help itself will make you lose your weight. If you are not willing to take responsibility, accept the help and make the changes necessary in your lifestyle and be in charge of your own recovery then you are just wasting time. There is not a single thing out there that is going to do the work for you.

So in this regard you are very much alone and you need to find whatever it is within you that will cause you to get up and get out on the way to recovery.

This is what the walk was about for me, I needed to get over my weaknesses and rediscover my strengths. I wanted to find in myself something that would start the change. I did not know how to do it, but I knew how to not do it and sometimes that is enough to just get you out the door. I knew that continuing in my old life was a death sentence. I also knew that if I were to get involved in anything less that a life changing event; I would likely not do it.

Walking away from security and comfort was the only way for me and it has started something inside that continues to grow. Old habits are hard to break and people rarely change over night, but the change is occurring none the less; a little here and a little there, one thing at a time. One habit a day, subtle reminders, skipping one thing at dinner, passing on a soda here and there, drinking more water. These are the changes that become life altering when one is mindful of the overall goal of being healthier and smarter in the choices that we make about our lives. I stopped looking for that magic pill and instead look for the slow, steady, manageable change. This is how human change and we call it growth. That is more like the average human.

 I don’t know that everyone needs to go to such lengths as I did to figure this out, but if they do, then get to it because there is no time to waste.

California

07 05 06

Eventually all things come full circle.

I left my home 15 months ago on a journey of self understanding, to try and make right that which I felt was wrong. I wanted to have the opportunity to examine, through introspection, why I had put on almost two hundred pounds in fifteen years. But the other motivation was to break out of a negative rut lifestyle and find new meaning and resolution to life drama that I felt was holding me back. By most standards things were okay in my life, I had a great wife and two wonderful kids, I had a job and the family was not hungry. On the surface it was what I was always told was the way it should be. Just getting by was the way I was raised and the way it seemed most people existed. Taking time to enjoy life or to having time to yourself was not something people did.

It was all about working away at your lot, coming home after a long day to see the kids on their way to bed or most days, already there and then finding something to occupy your mind until it was time to go to sleep in preparation for the next days work. I accepted this idea for a long time, even embraced it to the point that I would argue with my wife about the importance of working such long hours, how it was going to pay off in the long run or that I was doing it for the family. But at the end of the day there was no reward. Inside I always knew that I was fooling myself and that I used work to insulate me from myself. At work I had something else to focus on and I never had to deal with the real me. The mind however knew differently; I was dealing with those things whether I was aware of it or not. I was self medicating with food, that’s obvious, but I was also self medicating with chaos, drama and my parasitic need of being needed.

There are a million reasons why I thought that I needed to break free of my old self and all were as valid then as they are now. It was a great idea and for the most part successful until some of my old habits started to creep in. I allow too many people with conflicting interests and motivation to become involved and this created an environment that was not conducive to growth. Well at least not in a positive way.

But all experience, good and bad, leads us along the path of life and if looked at in the right way can be constructive. This is exactly the intersection that usually gives me the trouble. Remembering to have a positive attitude and outlook even in the direst times is a difficult concept to understand, accept and especially to maintain. Wavering from a positive lifestyle is to be expected, the strength is in being able to fight to return to it even amongst the chaos and misdirection of modern life. I am admittedly in between the two today.

But I am making headway in the greater view because I am still on the path, despite the diversions along the way. And ultimately success is the cumulative of many days effort, more success than failures and the desire to live better.

I wanted to add a little bit of what I do to remind myself of the direction that I need to head in. I have to say that there is not point that you reach where upon all falls into place and you never need to work at being healthy again. I wish that there were. But the key to long-term success is being in charge of your own life. So take the following and try and apply it to your life, then after a while let me know how it affects you.

Disassociation in one of the key factors in obesity and where I believe that the most work need to be focused to find the strength to overcome your own self. (Cure the mind!)

So here is a helpful way to clear through the confusion and distraction and find the power to change.

            a. Write the five reasons why you should lose weight.

b. Pick a start date for your new lifestyle (time to mentally prepare for the lifestyle change)

c. Identify all the temptations in your way. Why you eat, when you eat and what is the mood when you eat.

d. What are alternatives things that might be a good substitute for those temptations?

e. Develop a support group or structure, enroll in something that will allow you to hear and share with others.

f. Understand that the average person is going to fail a few times before ultimately succeeding. One of Michael Jordan’s personal mantras is that he failed more that he succeeded but he tried more than he quit. You only need to succeed one time and all the failures before that success are simply the road traveled. As long as you are on the road you still have a chance; it starts and ends with you.

It is important to remember that relapse is a common problem - social situations, sadness, stress, life are always present and sooner or later the chocolate in the kitchen starts making sense - But whatever happens, never say that your effort is hopeless. Ultimately you become your own strength, faith that you will get there is essential but it does not take long to see the results of your efforts. Especially so mentally, the psychological affects of weight loss success are enormous and you will feel better with each little success and that flow over into other aspects of your life.

Finally,

Eat less, eat healthier and exercise.

07 07 06

Updates

I just spent a bit of my evening with my smarter half, TNT. I was whining and moaning and she will tell you that I sometimes do. So, as usual she gave me a little bit of a kick in the shorts. What does that mean, well nothing really, I just wanted to let you know that she does more than just keep the trolls in line. Some times she has to baby-sit me.

Well anyway, I was telling her that because I have been having a hard time getting back to the real I feel like I am going in circles sometimes. The journal is no exception to the rule so tonight I wanted to clarify something that I hope will give you a better idea of where things are right now. Every time I talk about doing this there are about five or six people that get themselves all in a twist, but sometimes it just needs to be done.

The Book

Right now the book is in limbo and we are working to get that fixed. The publisher, their ghostwriter and I are not able to come to an agreement on certain matters and we have agreed to release me from the contract. There are different versions why that is the case but I have agreed to not talk about that so I just have to leave it at a disagreement.

But the book is well underway and as soon as we can reach an agreeable release the process will start again. I hope that people are interested enough to wait for it, I think that the real story is well worth the wait.

The Movie

Right now the movie is working its way through several distributors, as is the process, I have been told. Pierre and David have both told me that is has been well received everywhere it was viewed and are very confident that it will make its way through the process quickly. It is just over two hours in length and if you have to ask, I am playing me, this is the culmination of over 400 hours of footage taken over the last year, all across the country; including the infamous mysterious Albuquerque miles. I will keep you up to date with it as I find out more.

The Website

Well this is the difficult one. The website is hosted by a great company called Red Dog Software. See their banner for a look at their services. This company came to me when I was having a lot of traffic volume problems and the fixed it all. Mary Couse is the person who really made my life a lot easier through her tireless efforts to get the site built, hosted and maintained. The website ultimately received more traffic then anyone anticipated and Red Dog had to scramble several times to keep it up. Even considering all of the trouble they still managed to provide a great service. The problem is that the site exceeded all expectations and that translates directly into cost. We are working together to try and find a way to get the site to pay for itself. To this point I have not had an advertiser on this site since Drinkables. So it is obvious that I am going to need to find advertisers to help defer the cost. So if you have suggestions on what type of advertisers would be appropriate, please let yourself be heard.

The continuation of the walk

Currently I am considering what I would like to do next with the fatmanwalking. There are several things being discussed and several high profile people interested. However, whatever I do needs to be approved by the Board of Governors; My Daughter Melanie and Son Marc. I need to make sure that I balance my time between them and the FMW appropriately and that is not as easy as it sounds.

My life

Well this is the most difficult of all things. I have made a lot of discoveries about myself and there have been a great deal of internal changes as a result. Unfortunately this means that I am in the middle of a difficult struggle between the old me and the new me. I know what I can easily do but I know what I would rather do. To take the latter requires taking a big chance and that is very frightening for a forty year old man. I feel sometimes like I am a kid starting out on life and then sometimes I feel like I am on the business end of a mid-life crisis and need a swift kick in the ass. But this is the transition, if there is one thing that I have learned over the last year is that nothing happens overnight. I am prepared for the long run. Right now I am learning to adapt to live as a divorced Dad and all that comes with that.

So that is the update until next time…

I have purposely not posted a journal here this last week and I could make up some excuse about being to busy but I won’t. I have had a sort of coming to terms this last week and I feel compelled to be honest about it instead of sugar-coating it so that I am not embarrassed. I left on the walk for the purpose of change and that I did a great deal of during the last year. But I think that any genuine change is going to take time, even though I have said it repeatedly I don’t know that I accepted it until this week.

Things have taken a down turn for me personally and had this happen before the walk it would have devastated me, today I am handling it rather well and not allowing it to adversely affect my eating. It seems that even though I am in the middle of one of the most difficult situations in my life I am hanging on well enough and not turning to food. That is an amazing thing and I appreciate its implications. But the deeper thing is the realization that I continually allow myself to get into these positions. Small successes aside, these situations are not conducive to healthy living and especially not to good mental health. And that, after all, is the issue and the most import thing to focus on. There can not be long term success if I am still nurturing the pain that causes me to over-indulge and self-medicate. So I did something this week that is completely outside of my character, I went to an Overeaters Anonymous meeting.  Along the walk I met hundreds of people with the same problems as I have and realized that there is something to be learned in expressing yourself and listening to others. It seemed to me that OA was the logical next step. That and my Doctor strongly suggested it.  So in the coming days I am going to talk more about real, honest personal issues and be completely honest even though some of those issues may be embarrassing.

I have written a lot in the past about delusion and dissociation regarding the link between being overweight and the behavior that causes it. I have mentioned my amazement with some of the things that I have heard people say about that subject, in fact most of these things I have said myself. So I have been thinking lately that this is a great subject to explore.

Recently I was given a link to a website of a guy who has decided that he is going to only eat what you would eat after having bariatric surgery. This really got me started thinking about how easy it is to pick a certain eating pattern but so difficult to maintain in real life situations. Why is that? Why is it that a person has to go to such drastic measures to control what we accept to be a voluntary act? Is it really that difficult to control eating? And more importantly, why is it that difficult?

I suspect that part of the problem is that when we make a decision to change we do that in the moment. It seems to me that commitment to that change occurs over time and there are so many moments when you are not mindful of the long term consequences and lose you commitment. This is sort of like breaking a hundred dollar bill, once done you tend to lose track of where the rest of the money went. It is easier to commit smaller sins (spending $10’S over $100’S) than it is the bigger ones. However, once you commit the big transgression the smaller ones seem trivial. So once you have violated your diet a small violation here or there does not seem to be that dig of a deal. However, the principal difference is that you are a storage facility for everything you consume and each violation translates into more weight, the small transgressions might seem insignificant at the time but collectively they amount to a lot.

This seems to be the more dangerous and unpredictable element to weightloss. The disconnect that is required to continue bad behavior, is something that appears to be present in most addictions. It is certainly a big part of my life. If is easy to “forget” to be good on a diet, simple to justify eating a little too much and it all adds up to maintaining the overweight. This is something that I have spoken about in some interviews and it never goes over well; but it is true in my case and that is the only subject that I am an expert on.

07 30 06

As you already know I have been doing a lot of thinking about my situation, my life up till this point and the opportunities that are ahead of me and I have concluded that these are great times. If I had to title this time in my life I thing I would pick; “Finding a new experience.” I like that title because it simply and eloquently describes my feeling about life at this point and more importantly, what is needed to continue the momentum.

I have been watching some of the others and bearing their slings and arrows because I was steadfast on my path and I knew that theirs would ultimately not bear out. I am certain that all we experience is both a result of our decisions and a matter of chance; right or wrong place at the right or wrong time sort of thing. I realized early on in this journey that my real problem was not the weight but the underlying issues that caused me to gain and then maintain the weight. It seems to make sense that ignoring those issues was a guarantee of failure over the long term, and this weight issue is all about long term.

So I decided that instead of focusing on the things that would keep people titillated or amused I would instead focus on the things that I believed truly mattered. The first would be at my folly would only suffice the short term goals, the latter chanced public disapproval and ridicule but would ultimately lead to long term success for me, and that is ultimately what this is all about. I understood that along with a responsibility to the website and journal I had a responsibility to myself and that required more substantial and dare I say it, long term efforts. So I focused on the emotional aspect of this dilemma and endured the drama from the un-entertained. It appears to me now to have been the better choice. I have made some substantial changes in my life that have brought about real, consistent and sustainable changes in my habits and by extension my life. I eat better, I eat less and I am on the road to permanent weightloss because of those efforts and I could not be more thrilled.

How I am going to string all this together you wonder; Simple, Finding new experiences, the title from the first paragraph. I sum it all up to doing things different that I have been doing them before. Not repeating the same behaviors and expecting different results. Sustaining extra weight on a human body is not about pills, or conditions it is about behavior. Simple mathematics when you boil it all down. Too much in equals too much on. So trying to adapt the bad behavior is not the answer, trying to change it is. Finding new experiences means looking at ones life honestly, critically and making real assessments of what causes us to not be where and how we want to be. Once done implementing changes that forces one to adapt and change, to become the desired way, to achieve the desired goal. Here is a great quote recently sent to me by Louie Rochon of www.rochonsculpture.artspan.com

"The greater part of human pain is unnecessary.  It is self created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life. The pain that you create now is always some form of nonacceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is."

Eckhart Tolle - 'Practicing The Power of Now.'

That really does sum it all up nicely and, when applied to our shared problem of being overweight, it illustrates that we are not what we eat as much as we are what we feel, which leads to what we eat.

As westerners we really don’t want to hear that we are weak or not completely in control, but that is the way things are, especially when we refuse to acknowledge those weaknesses, I like to say that the harder you hang onto a thing the more it has you captive.  I think that it is all about choice. If you remain overweight year after year after year, it is really a choice that you have made. Not that you decided to be overweight but that you decided to look for a shortcut to recovery. Instead of taking the long road of acceptance, self-assessment, taking responsibility and the taking back the control we look for something outside of us that will make it happen. The duality is mind boggling. We want to give up control in order to gain control. Like or not, that is my stance and I am sticking to it. I truly believe that the answer will be found down the road called cure the mind. All things start and end there so it makes sense that having an addiction to food, emotional eating (abuse) or anything else starts and ends there as well. This to me is the best weightloss program; find out who you are, why you are and what you need to do to get to who you want to be. I think that the best way to achieve this is by finding new experiences. Too turgid? Too quasi-Buddhist? Well OK I accept that, but being that doesn’t mean I am wrong.

California

08 09 06

Some interesting things have occurred lately that have been good for my growth and understanding but have been difficult for my brains automated response system. What I mean by this is that I realize that I am struggling with my weight because of lifestyle. I have grown (excuse the pun) into this body through a long time of bad behavior and lifestyle choices. So it seems to me that the thing to do is to change those behaviors, like I have said a million times before. But how do I do that? How does one change what has taken a lifetime to create?

Well recently I was having a conversation with someone that I respect a great deal and he said some things that really made me think about the root of behavior and how one changes it. Since this conversation I have been thinking about why I repeat the same behaviors expecting different results and then it occurred to me that the catalyst for change is change itself. I decided that for a period of time I would do the opposite of what my gut reaction was and this simple thing has produced some alarming results. Why would I do such a thing? Simple, my friend made a simple statement that made it clear to me what to do. It was uttered almost jokingly, but it was profound none the less, and has been resonating in my head ever since. He asked, “What brought you to where you are in your life today?” I answered, “My brain, me, who I am and what I have come to believe.” “Exactly!” he snapped and quickly shot back, “And how has that worked out for you so far?” . . . .Well not so good as it happens, I thought.

If you consider it carefully I think that you may conclude, as I did. That a person is the sum total of a thousand little decisions and a couple of hundred big ones made over a long period of time, the process and reasoning of which are lost to that same time. Therefore, how I live today is that the results of decisions that I have made along the way and the fact that I am not happy with who and where I am is obviously of my own doing.  For better illustration of this I refer to what I consider to be the greatest quote of all times. It is from the character K in Franz Kafka’s novel, The Castle. Being completely frustrated by his inability to see the person who had retained his services, he thought, “This is a fine setting for a fit of despair, If only I were here by accident instead of design.” (Paraphrased, please no emails) In that moment K had an epiphany that, even though it was the actions of another that was causing his frustration, it was his decision to be there and his insistence to stay there that ultimately determined his mental well being or lack of.

So I thought to myself, is this my “castle”? Is this my trap and am I the one holding me back? Of course, I am at the root of it all. I strongly feel that no matter what the circumstances of a person’s situation are, that person’s interpretation, or way of dealing with it, is what determines how they are affected by it. In simpler terms, the world is how you see it, if it is bad then that is how you have chosen to view it and the same is true if you decide to find the good in it and see the hope that can always be found.

Sometimes it takes drastic measures to awaken the part of you that has the strength to first, understand this and secondly have the resolve to see it through. This is why I am doing the exact opposite of what I would consider to be the right, safe thing. If I am to change behavior I have to first gain control over my decisions, then be able to see them through to their natural conclusion, accept their results and most importantly, learn how to see the right path the next time.

So, in conclusion. . .

Some of the closest people to me think that I have lost my mind, the ones that really know me think that I might have finally found it, but I know the truth. I have neither lost nor found anything, instead I am feeling it! I am feeling what it is to be me and feeling the power and strength of letting go. “If you don’t want to drown, let go of the stone” that is one of April’s favorite parables and it was just lying around this whole time. What else is just lying around to be seen when you clear away the nonsense?

08 18 06

I have a funny story about bureaucracy to tell you and it is a great teaser for the bigger and more important journal that I am going to post this weekend before Sunday night.

Today I was in the post office at the passport window, apparently you cannot do any sort of passport business without an appointment—who knew?—anyway not knowing such from the back of the line and without a sign to tell me otherwise, I waited. However, it turned out an appointment would have done me no good anyway; the bureaucracy was in high gear today.

I stood in this line for about 25 minutes while TWO people were helped, one was a woman in the wrong line—she wanted a package from Germany that for some reason she thought was coming to the passport office—and the other was a guy who could get down in some Russian, but English, uh, not so good.

However, the biggest delay was that the clerk at the passport window was pulling double duty answering the telephone.  So I waited, and I waited and I waited. Finally between the Russian guys broken English and three phone calls, the clerk managed to help him and the Russian waddled off as they sometimes do.

And I was next, yeah! Right after he handles this call...and that call...and that one too...

A finger waive from the clerk to let me know that he hasn’t forgotten me.

Finally, completely frustrated and spotting the phone number on the notice of “Appointments only” on the counter, I called him. That is right I called from the line. I figured it was my only chance.

He answers and I tell him what I need, he makes an APPOINTMENT for me, one where I hope he is not pulling phone duty, then he tells me what I need to bring...

Finger waive again, still hasn’t forgotten about me I am reassured.

Then he gets to the part of his long winded, overly complicated, unnecessarily over-informative spiel, where he is telling me where I need to bring when I come in for my appointment.

He tells me the address, “uh huh, uh huh”, I add.

He confirms that it is in fact a post office, “Post office you say!?”—remember I called him—“yes window eight,” I say.

Then after one final finger waive accompanied by a hand and face gesture—which I think meant that the caller was being overly talkative—he says, “It will just be another minute. Sir”

That’s OK I reply, I have you on the line, pointing at my phone.  

He smiles and goes back to the call and says, “Is there anything else that I can help you with, Sir?” Stunned, I say no, sir. Your proficiency is epic!

He says goodbye and hangs the phone up, turns and walks back to the window, and manages to get out, “Ok, now wha...?” before the phone rings again. He apologizes and picks up the phone;

“Hello?” apparently there is no answer. That is because he is looking directly at me right now.

“Hello?” he says as he turns and then I reply, Is this the passport office? “Yes sir, it is” he replies.

So you have passports? “Uh, yes sir we do.” He announces proudly. OK thanks I say and then I hang up.

When he returns to me the whole line behind me is giggling at the show and I don’t believe he ever realized what happened. I inquire about the location of the restroom; he looks at me in his puzzled way, amazed that I waited in line to find out where the bathroom was. Then he points the way and I leave.

The bigger question is...

What in the hell was I doing at the passport office?

Check in Sunday evening. In case you didn’t already know, it does not take much to amuse me.

08 20 06 - So it begins

The solution to all life’s great questions seems simple enough. It usually entails getting out there and doing something about something. But we still continue to have the problems despite this simplicity. Modern society has some great ails and, again, it seems that the solution for most of them are simple enough too. For example obesity and depression are on the rise; in fact, they are the majority of people now. If you watch any amount of television, the answer seems to be an easy one, in fact many different easy ones, but I think that it is even simpler than that; eat and live well, work toward your dreams and be responsible for the quality of your life.

Even knowing this our problems still exists and is growing; it seems that even something as easy as this eludes us. We are a microwave society looking for quick answers and even quicker results. Losing focus on the need for growth and development over time, we search for and covet the quick fix. Then the mission becomes spending considerable energy, recourses and time on finding the right quick fix. Oddly, the notion of “Eat well, exercise and drink lots of water” has become voodoo, but taking a fistful of pills or having life altering surgery seems sane and reasonable.

If I have learned nothing else over this last year I have learned that all great things come through effort and time and we seem to have forgotten this simple notion. We in the west have become slaves to our distribution networks, without which we would not be able to survive. I know that this is not going to be a popular notion, but that does not mean it’s wrong. As individuals we have lost our responsibility for our lives and live from one drama to the next while we wait for a fix all to bring us joy and contentment. It seems to me that all things are there for the taking, but only to those who are willing to see them for what they are and put out the effort to make them ours.

Why am I telling you all of this? Well that is simple. I am not finished with my journey to regain my life; I stopped short of my goal, distracted by the drama and a hefty shortcut. I am now ready to correct that mistake. My immediate focus has remained weight and depression, which seem to feed on one another, but the overall goal is clarity of thought and good mental health, which in my opinion is the main cure of both these things.

The idea.

I left my home last April on a misguided mission to find that which I had lost, (me) and lose that which I had found (weight and depression). I spent a great deal of time searching, listening, learning and experiencing great changes in my life but ultimately found myself off track because a shortcut presented itself. I was offered riches and fame at the cost of the integrity of my goals and unfortunately I took it. But life has a way of balancing itself out and my misstep would no go unanswered.

Through the last few months of the walk across the country I was pulled in many directions but towards my goal was not one of them, lost to the notion that I was being given something that I had not entirely earned I became more focused on that than on my intended goal of regaining my life. I won’t make that mistake again.

I have been home now for three months, recovering from broken bones in my feet, a broken pocketbook and the worst broken thing of all; my ego. I aim to remedy that.

 I will write over the next couple of weeks about what has gone on. The highs and the lows, being without food for days and being without a home; living a precarious balance of hand to mouth but through it all I could not force myself back to my old life. Because down that road I saw failure and I refused to go, I refused to just give in because I reached an arbitrary goal; I knew that the journey was not over. So I tried my best to figure out what I needed to do when I realized that life, God or maybe even the universe was trying to tell me the answer all along, go where the path leads. So to that end I have been busy getting rid of all my worldly possessions and preparing for the next leg of the journey, whatever that might be.

My ultimate goal still is weightloss but I know that, to achieve that simple task, I need to address some deeper issues, the issues that prevent me from attaining those goals over that last fifteen years of my life. I have lived a life of dissatisfaction and self imposed duty that has not been healthy for me, but searching for where it went wrong seems futile now, and choosing the right path from this point forward— is paramount.

During my walk across the country I was able to open up my soul. And as a result I met and learned from some great people. Additionally, I weathered difficult situations and got in touch with an inner strength and resolve that I had long since forgotten about. However, above all else, it was the kindness of strangers that made the most impact one me. I learned more about myself through the generosity of spirit during my short view into their lives than I had ever learned before. It seems that the remedy is to be humble and allow the world to guide you to the path, instead of trying to make the path roll out before you; I believe that the world is waiting.

What this all means is that I am not finished, I still have a lot of traveling to do, physically and spiritually. I am a much healthier and happier person today because of the first walk, but I am afraid that doing what I did opened doors in my mind that cannot be closed again. I have seen and experienced things that I cannot forget and the road calls at me still.

So I have decided that I am going to continue the wanderlust but in a different way. I was a little naïve about my first mission but this time I feel that I am smarter and better prepared. So this time I am going to do this in a way that is better for the soul, the psyche which in turn will guide the body. Cure the mind—body, mind and spirit!

I am going to leave San Diego and my destination will be east, that is it, just east and I will let the road dictate where and how I go. Guided by the idea of the book “The kindness of strangers” by Mike Macintyre, I am going to follow whatever path is laid before me; I will accept rides to where ever as well as the hospitality of people along the way. When such is not present I will continue to move forward by walking, I will camp when required and simply survive on God’s good humor until I reach my goal, which is to get completely around the globe, back to San Diego, on the kindness of strangers. I have faith that this is enough.

Along the way I am looking for certain things, one is my soul, another is who am I and do I have the fortitude to exist by such simple means, then the most profound is to find out what God is, to meet him on the road if such be the case. And finally the most obvious one is return home healthy, happy and wise, content to live the life that will be awaiting me then.

I am going to chronicle the journey along the way everyday this time, telling about the details, trials and tribulations, missteps and the kindness of strangers. I will also be researching for a couple of storylines that I want to explore and finally I will be filming myself and the people and places that I encounter in much greater detail than the first journey. There is no film crew this time, no book publisher and no puppet masters, just me, the world, whatever happens and you.

I asked a couple of months ago for the opinions of my “cyber counselors” and the response was overwhelming. Out of over 3000 responses the results were: 85% keep going, 6% the sky was falling, 4% hateful venom and 5% stay at home. The yea’s have it.

08 29 06 –The plan and how it will work

The plan—as all plans do—will undergo changes along the way. But this is it in a nutshell.

As I mentioned, the idea for this journey is to travel the globe without any solid plans, simply by chance and the kindness of strangers. What that means to me is that I would rely on the people that I meet along the way to help me get down the road never asking for help but accepting that which is offered, taking the path wherever it leads me as long as it is not backwards.

The kindness of strangers is a very powerful blessing that I was exposed to on the first walk; in fact that is when this idea actually occurred to me as I was continually amazed at the openness, generosity and genuine concern from the people that I met along the way. I have always had faith that this existed but had never really be exposed to it like I was last year. It is a life changing, life affirming experience.

But there are practical concerns that will force me to rely on a little more than just random kindness. Chief among them is that I have a family to support and that cannot be left to chance so I need to generate an income for them. Luckily I have an incredible advantage because of the great web readership base. Even now while things have been slow and uneventful I still get six to ten thousand visitors a day and my ranking is still within the top fifty thousand. Once things get underway and with your continued support that number will certainly swell again.

To ensure that growth I have several ideas to make the site even more interesting; I will be adding periodic guest input from some of the most sensible experts in weightloss, health and fitness, nutritional and wellness fields. Doing this will ensure a broad and comprehensive mix of information for the people who visit creating a healthy, informative resource website.

Along the way I will undoubtedly meet interesting people with fascinating stories to tell, those that are interested will be asked to write a journal about their stories and experiences giving additional points of view and a broader story to follow.

Also, I will be adding video and audio journals from interesting places to allow you to be even more involved in the journeys than ever before. A little bit of something for everyone. I believe that the added content, resources, interesting view points and interactivity will provide a place that will ultimately be a great source of motivation for all involved.

Certainly a journey should have goals attached to keep one focused and this time definitely has those. It has taken me some time and a lot of thought to decide what path I would like to pursue. But now, with them in mind, I have a new direction and purpose.

My short term goal with this journey is to see the world vagabond style while I still can, which is something that I have always dreamed about, in case you couldn’t tell I love being on a journey, seeing new places and meeting people.  

This time around I want to focus on telling the story in more detail so that I share the experiences and build a great collection of tales, adventures, pictures and friends along the way through words and images. I want to spend time meeting different people and sharing experiences with this global obesity epidemic and hopefully create some good changes in people as well as in myself. Learning and transferring that knowledge and experience to people who are looking for answers but are unable to go on a journey like mine. I have read your emails and I have heard loud and clear that deep in all of us is a seeker waiting to explore. Sharing mine with you is my contribution to that deep desire, I want to be that conduit for those that cannot follow those desires as I can.

But I am also looking to the future and my long term goal is to develop my writing, speaking and story-telling skills into a profession. Helping people brings great joy to me and I know now that to live well is to help others.

Through the website I hope to be able to parlay this temporary celebrity into a better, more life affirming career for me. It seems that the root of my trouble with weight and depression is from living a life that I have wanted no part of, I am referring to my old profession of being a business owner and manager. This journey has laid an opportunity at my feet and whether I am successful or I fail, I will know that at least I tried. I did not scare off when it was my time to take a chance.

My old career is something that I fell into and remained in for years because of my fear of trying and failing. In recent years I have found it more difficult to maintain an adequate level of proficiency in my occupation because the feeling of being trapped was screaming at me from deep inside.  The job demanded long hours, nights and weekends, which drove me to a state of general discontent with life and longing for a more intellectual pursuits. But because of the trap of working like that I never had time or opportunity to make a change, until I decided to just walk away. The walk across the U.S. may have started for the wrong reasons but it served its purpose opening my mind to skills that I did not know I had and opportunities that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. So in this case the ends do justify the means.

Now in this regard I am starting from a disadvantage because I am not a trained writer, in fact I dropped out of high school to join the Marines, opting for a GED instead. So even though my writing skills need some help my story-telling and interaction with people make up for a lot of the short comings, having said that I can tell you that I am fine with my style and in fact have accepted it as my signature. But to make it more streamlines this time around I have a friend, who is a great writer, helping me by editing content and how to tighten up the writing

Well now for the meat of the issue—I know that a lot of people are still wondering about the weight and believe me when I say that this is as big an issue for me now as it was when I started out last April. However, along the journey I learned a few things which I have shared here many times. Briefly, I now am certain that obesity issues begin in the mind and, without dealing with their roots; one is destined to be on an endless weightloss rollercoaster. Secondly, for a person to be obsessively and singularly focused on weightloss and not the other issues is to be disruptive to the natural balance of things and ultimately it will be detrimental to all the weight loss efforts.

To be clear, you cannot live your life trying to lose weight. Instead you must endeavor live your life happy; being happy makes you healthier mentally and that in turn will make you better able to stop repeating the bad behaviors. Without these bad behaviors running your life you will not rely on them for feeling good and then losing weight happens naturally. I don’t think that there is an alternative that is as sane, reasonable or easier than that.

For me the first step is to change my life, the biggest obstacle to that is that I am unhappy with the course that I have been on so naturally a course correction is due.

Finally I have learned that you cannot do this alone, we all need support and I am fortunate to have several great assets on my team, Eric the Trainer. Who has become much more than a trainer and advisor; he is a great friend, supporter and motivator whose help and training has been unparalleled. Check out his FitCall system to see what it is that he has to offer, it is free to try and you will see amazing results.

 He and I will be working on developing a FitCall program designed for the unique challenges of overweight people. Please show your support by visiting his site, www.ericthetrainer.com

And of course Dr. Pamela Peeke, whose help in that last part of the walk kept me on the road when I was so close to quitting. She came along at the perfect time, gave some wonderful advice, help and support and propped me back up, allowing me to finish what I had started. www.peekeperformance.com

And then of course GoLite, who helped educate and equip me mid journey making my burden lighter. Although they are not directly involved, there help and equipment still serves me well today. www.golite.com

Certainly there are others and I will mention them as we go along.

The emails about my family have been overwhelming. To me there is no greater gift than your family and I love mine dearly as does April and we strive to try and be the best parents and this is always part of the struggle. Changing my approach to life is important for ensuring that our kids are raised in the best possible environment. Certainly the divorce is difficult but I speak for April and I both when I say that we wished that there was a better way, but what we do is for their long-term benefit. But that does not mean throw your life away and just be there, children need more than parents that are just there. They need parents that teach, guide and nurture positive things, by lesson and example.

Sometimes parents have to make hard decisions that are for the greater good. In this case what I need to do is be a better, happier more well rounded person. And that can be achieved in many ways, I have chosen mine. This requires sacrifice from the entire family and we have discussed and accepted this together. If a single person in my family objected then I would not go.

So when does it all begin? That will be determined by a lot of factors, it could start right away or it could take a little bit of time to organize. I am ready to go but there are many countries involved and I am building a network of friends around that world that want to help in some way. I am setting up the infrastructure to allow a better communication, there are passport and visas requirements as well as working on setting up the additional web content because I really want this to be a much more interactive experience for the fans. This all takes some doing so be patient while I try and get it all together. I will keep you updated about the progress.

If you are interested in helping out in some way as a host, guide me along the way, help with the technical stuff, have me speak at your church or school or just walk a bit with me, please feel free to contact me through the Contact Us link on the website.

Any suggestions on places to visit, people to meet or advisories about certain areas would be greatly appreciated.

Finally, I have designed a new t-shirt iron on decal for additional support if you are interested, I will be posting that as soon as it is ready. All of these things will ensure that this journey happens and make you a part of it.

08 30 06

One of the things that some people fail to consider is that this is a one man show and that there are a lot of other things in my life that require my time. Sometimes I sit down to take care of things only to realize that I have forgotten about more than I have addressed. If the journal, website, groups and book weren’t enough I am living on my own for the first time in many years and surprised I haven’t burned the place down yet; I have family, friends and responsibilities that need time as well and, of course, they seem to all need it right now, this adds up to some very busy days.

I try to keep all informed sometimes doing better than at others—it seems simple enough but remember that you have the advantage of seeing all of this in a condensed block. If I were to delay my journaling sufficiently to allow for editing and spin I could come off as a perfect writer, father, man and a visionary of grand scale. But then this would not be what it is; a modern mans journey of understanding, redemption and search for a greater meaning and truth.

If this were polished you would sense the fake gleam and bolt. Since the unvarnished truth is what made you find your way here and keeps you interested we share this desire for our truth in common and thanks to the Internet we get to experience it together. This is truly a unique moment in time that we all can benefit from if we remember to not lose sight of the fact that this is a story that has yet to end. And, like life, sometimes it takes the benefit of hindsight to see what the real truth ultimately pans out to be.

When I write the journal I do so telling you how I feel at that moment without consideration of what I’ve said before or what I may say later, I do not review and I only edit for spelling, it seems to me that to do otherwise would be telling you what I want you to hear instead of telling the truth. But as you may have already determined, sometimes I am the first one to speak and the last one to hear—with my truth being more a result than a declaration, reaching me only in the end. This is such because when one is telling his inner thoughts and reviews the content it automatically changes from real to edited, so I think, speak and write as it occurs to me with an understanding that at some point in the future—if I am lucky—it will all come together. Now ask whether you want a tale or the truth and only time will tell if your answer is correct.

If this is not what you want from this site then I do apologize, but remember two things, one is that you are watching, not directing and two is that there is a great big Internet out there filled will all sorts of other things and you come to my site of your own volition.  To come here and argue that I am not doing something right is more a declaration of ones own feelings than a commentary on me, opinions aside, I have read more transference in the last year than I ever imagined was possible. But I graciously accept that as well because I have read terrible things from people only to find later that they have since changed, realizing who they were actually angry with. So in some small way I helped them by being an emotional lightening rod.

Yes, all of this is part of the journey, it may have started out a fat, desperate man, unhinged, looking for miracles, but now it never ends because each of you take something away from my site and into your world which in turn affects yourself and others for a time to come. That is a great gift and I thank you for it.

Finished in seven hundred words with only this cheat, how’s that for editing?

Over the last two weeks I have met some very interesting people, made a few new friends and even lost one. Sometimes it is difficult to see the value of something when you are too close to it and even more difficult when that thing is something intangible like friendship.

So I have been wondering about what holds friends together or makes us feel connected? Not a contract, not an agreement, just a feeling and sometimes that feeling is so subtle that its presence might not be felt until it’s gone. Friendships are especially difficult when life is in transition; as we change sensibilities and values friends change, and friendships can strengthen and grow or weaken and dissolve, either way, we continue on with our lives, sometimes we even find that the coming or going of a friend is key to life going on. It seems that both the good and the bad in a friendship happen right on cue as if guided.

But whatever becomes of friendships one has to appreciate the simplicity of how they are building blocks in the character of our lives; the good and bad alike shape who we are and for that each one must be greatly appreciated. I have learned that there are a lot of great people in the world; each one bringing something that will somehow enrich your life. I also have learned that being afraid to get out and meet them is a terrible injustice to oneself. This imbalance in life, the unhappiness, bitterness and anxiety eventually lead to a physical manifestation of that negativity. Drinking, drug use, overeating or a host of other bad and self destructive behaviors are created to cope with the feelings of loneliness, despair, hopelessness and a feeling of being disconnected from the world. Friends and family are the support system upon which we rely for helping to manage stress, deal with dilemma, learn coping skills and build confidence and, without such a structure, the road of life is much more difficult.

Even though these last few months have been difficult for me I have found comfort in friends and that has made things better than if I had tried to do it alone. To each of them I owe a debt of gratitude. To finally learn the value of friends after such a long time seems absurd. But if you really look at your life can you say that you appreciate the good people in it the way you should. Don’t we all have a friend or two that deserves a bit more than we give? Isn’t there someone in your life that can use a friend like you right now?  An extended hand during dark times is a great thing to see and that person will remember the gesture for a long time to come.

The interplay between people is such a delicate balance when one is trying to balance it. But it is a simple balance when people are just being kind for the sake of friendship and nothing more.

Now for the journal. . .

10/24/06

Thanks for the patience everyone. I am sorry for the delays and they do seem to be increasing lately. I find it difficult to write when I have nothing new to report, quite a few people email me and say that I should write about the day to day but to be honest it was boring the first time around and a second go around is not going to make it much more interesting. I am working the night shift right now which means that I sleep most of the functional day and my creative time in limited on top of everything else.  I find this very exhausting but necessary as it is helping me to get back on my feet.

There are interesting moments along the way, don’t get me wrong, but not the sort of things that I would feel compelled to write about. That has become increasingly true since I managed to kill my computer. I am at the library now writing this journal but the clock is ticking and the next user is eyeballing me at this very moment, wondering what in the hell I could be doing that is so important as to keep him from his email. But neither of us can complain because it is free after all.

There have been some exciting developments lately though, the biggest one being that first private screening of the movie “The fat man walking”. I flew to Dallas to attend the screening and I must admit that I was not so excited at the idea. Imagine seeing yourself on a big screen, you head bigger than your car, and all of your blunders, flaws and general mania out for all to see. But I was delightfully surprised at the film. You see, a year is a long time to be doing something and things are easily forgotten in the mix. There were parts of the movie that I genuinely did not remember, people that I would have thought that I had never met and glimpses into my life that I could have sworn had never occurred. It was an interesting two hours and at the end of it I felt as though my thinking, my “philosophizing” had come almost full circle. I realized that it is difficult to see ones life in terms of the right now without seeing all of the elements that created the person.

Not to say that there is merit in dwelling, certainly the opposite is true. Instead, I think that there is therapy is seeing yourself in a true light, flaws, shortcomings and all. So all in all I am proud of the movie, glad to have had the experience and thrilled to have it behind me.

The producer tells me that the movie was well received and the comments were almost entirely positive. This seemed to be what I felt after seeing the movie, during the question and answer period. People seemed to understand what the journey was about, feel my motivations for undertaking it and sympathizing with April and I both over the divorce afterwards, in short, they seemed to understand it better than I could have hoped. This has strengthened my resolve to let the story stand as it is, sans embellishments or exaggerations, detractors and “industry insiders” be damned. I may have had to sacrifice a huge book deal for a smaller one but my integrity remains intact. I can live with that.