In the Words of My Dad ... "You need to reduce"

There's this thing that I call the "Raymundo" curse.  What is it?  Well it's the fact that once you reach a certain point, the weight gain starts and that sexy body that everyone loved through high school is no longer there.  I think the curse hit me when I was a sophomore in high school ... so it came a little early for me, at least that's when it started.

It's happened to other family members, but there have been those fortunate enough to stay away from the curse completely, while others have been able to battle their way back from that curse.  

During college years I was able to maintain and keep to my 180-190 pound range.  With little to no working out I was able to maintain this for a few years ... but it snowballed from there.  With my mother passing away one of my many defense mechanisms came up ... it was to eat.  The amount of weight I had gained in the months after her death I'm not really sure of, but all I know was that when there was food, I was there too, so food was never lonely when I was around.  Even if I just ate, I'd welcome more food to come my way.

This weight gain continued until I hit about 235 ... yeah you read that number right!  I was 235 for the good part of the middle of 2008.  Usually when I go through tragic moments in my life that will increase so easily, but in September I was actually able to get away from the curse!  Triumph, for once in my life!

Going through a break up I found myself unable to eat.  Yes, this is a true story, for those of you who know me, this is extremely hard to believe but I really couldn't eat, no matter how much I wanted to.  Whenever I would be around food and wanted to eat, after two bites at most I started to feel nausiated to the point of not eating anymore.  This got really bad where I was only able to eat two spoon fulls of rice and ulam a day for about a month.  A crash diet in the worst of ways, and unvoluntary too.  

There were parties going on where the most I could do was smell the food, what a tragic time where I wasn't able to enjoy in the many feasts that were going on.  Even a short trip to California didn't fix it for me, I wasn't able to eat that wonderful Caliornia goodness.  Jack in the Box and Royal Mandarin definitely missed me.

In the span of about a month and a half I was able to lose 35 pounds.  Almost one pound a day ... and I was still alright physically, no dizziness or fainting.  I dropped to 200 pounds for the first time in a long time.  Here I was content to keep this weight and maybe I could go a little bit lower!?  Do I dare try and was it too much to do?!

After the regular meals started again I was actually able to maintain the 200 pound mark.  My clothes fit me better, I had less of a gut when I sat down, I started to turn some heads on the street (ya know the deal!), I started to play sports again and I wasn't winded running up the stairs on the subway!  Definitely an improvement from where I was healthwise.  I even joined three or four different volleyball leagues and it did me well.  The lowest I got was about 195 but it would usually stay at the 200 pound marker.

Introduce Holy Week 2009 ... here is where the Raymundo curse decided to hit me hard.  It was more of Lent 2009 than just the Holy Week.  The weeks leading up to Holy Week I was going out and eating food that I really had no business eating, you can tell from the reviews on my blog.  I wasn't reviewing salad places, they were burger joints, chinese food, and whatever else you can think of that would make you smile from the pure unhealthiness of the food.  I thought it had peaked when I went to Cherry Valley ... but I was wrong, so wrong.  The trip to Cali was supposed to be a spiritual one, and it was, but the curse took hold of me.  The only day from that week long trip that I didn't eat a burger was during Good Friday, but the other days were filled with burgers, chinese food, hot dogs, ice cream, soda, more burgers and chinese food.  It was just filled and so was my stomach.  

The weight that I gained was invisible to me until I got back to NY.  Here I am going through vidoes from the trip and I see myself on Easter Sunday huge as a ball!  I did weigh myself when I got back home, but it said that I was only 209 pounds ... so about a nine pound trip to Cali, not bad I thought.  I'll just play some more volleyball and eat less.  But how can you eat less with a tray of Salt and Pepper Chicken Wings in the fridge!?!?!?  How I ask!?  It's not as great as when you have it fresh, but it's still good!  Crack chicken is crack chicken to an addict.

Today was another losing day for a diet, I thought I would start today by just eating soup and rice.  That quickly turned into another fantasy, it turned into a foodfest for me.  First breakfast that my dad cooked, then Ikea for more food ... here is where we actually loaded up on food and came a wake up call.  Walking through Ikea, there was a scale on the floor (I believe that this scale was put there by God Himself to tell me to stop eating so much), I confidently walk on the scale waiting for the 210 to come around ... and around it came, and went.  It kept on going ... up to 220 pounds.  I'm not sure if this was wrong or not ... but my dad tried it out and he said it was wrong because it was ten pounds over what he knows his weight to be.  But with that explanation ... he was with me the whole trip so him gaining ten pounds is not out of the question whatsoever!  That was not the end of the day as I tried to eat soup and rice for dinner ... but the chicken just called my name so loudly that resistance was futile.  

Here I sit, shirtless and typing away seeing my belly come up again and my moobs (man boobs) and stomach forming sort of what would look like a chubby bear with big cheaks.  The Raymundo curse has his me a number of times already and I think that Dudoy is next on it's list.  I hope it moves on already from me and goes to him so that I can "start" my diet again.  I don't have a magic number that I want to hit but I do want to go under the 200 that I was just a few short weeks ago.  The summer if coming up and I don't want to be sexy ... I just want to be sexier because everyone already knows that I am sexy. 

Diet here I come to fight off the Raymundo curse, I'm just not sure if the diet can win.  I hope it doesn't take another tragic event in my life for me to lose the weight and win the fight.  So ... I need to reduce.

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