6 MONTH UPDATE: The 365 BHJ Fitness Regime
Holy shit, man!
It’s been a month since my last update and angry people are still calling me names and yelling at me. They say I’m a heartless prick who needs to be nicer. So they make fun of me, call me names, and yell at me. Which, well, yeah, you know.
Damn. I fucked up pretty good. Since most of the world is either overweight or obese, I lost most of my readers.
Sigh.
Looks like it’s just us healthy, beautiful people.
Hey! Let’s take off our shirts and eat some fruit.
*
A stab at a maxim. If a guy named Black Hockey Jesus writes a blog and has enough juice to make you seethe with anger, to write entire blog posts about him, or to leave long detailed comments about all your medical problems that won’t permit you to work out (so FUCK you, Black Hockey Jesus sniff sniff), then—I’m sorry but—you are broke the fuck down. Go find a mirror or a shrink or I don’t know what. But you need something to fix your broke ass.
Pause. Angry people. Why’d you get so angry? Because I’m a cruel prick? Oh come on. You can do better than that. Why’d you get so angry? Excuse me? Come again. Why? Why’d you get so angry? My blog? Or your mirror? My blog? Or what you have hidden in your cupboards, behind the nuts and raisins?
Who you mad at?
Poke.
Poke poke poke.
*
Not a single person argued with my main argument: that obesity should be faced with the courage to change, that seeking the serenity to accept obesity was misguided wisdom. You know what pissed people off? The form of my delivery. I was mean. Not a very nice guy. Which is another way of saying that my message wasn’t sweet and sugary and dripping with high fructose corn syrup.
Oh my. Hold that thought. Now we’re getting somewhere.
*
Today, I’m halfway through a year of conducting a stupid experiment begun on a New Year’s whim—to run at least a mile a day and see what happens. I’ve repeatedly told you that I’m not a fitness expert. In fact, anyone you ask will tell you NOT to do what I’m doing.
Which was part of the experiment’s appeal. I wanted to do something hard and extraordinary. The theme of this whole project has been an exploration of discomfort. It hasn’t felt very good. Yesterday, I ran 10K in 106 degrees. It didn’t feel very good. If you’ve been keeping track of my monthly updates, you will have noted the development of some negative ideas about comfort and self-love. When will we have done with these tenacious desires? To always feel so good and nice and comfortable, loving ourselves, because we deserve it. It’s a fucking illness. And it’s so culturally prevalent, we’re so intoxicated with unquestioned love for ourselves—regardless of our pathetic conditions—that the suggestion to get off our asses and do something hard sounds cruel. It hurts our feelings. Our poor, poor feelings.
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I don’t want to do easy things. The sole end of my life is not the pursuit of feeling good. I am not a simplistic, one-sided, nice man. Don’t like it? Go read the fucking comics.
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I ran 160 miles in June, bringing my 2010 total to 1081 miles. My mileage took a hit in June because of a trip to Hawaii, my struggle to adjust to the summer’s soaring temperatures, and repeated all night surges of writing as my novel neared completion.
Oh yeah. Forgot to tell you. It’s finished. My book. After 270 pages and 78,000 words, the first draft - it's finished.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Reader Comments (49)
If you ever start being nice on your blog I'm going to start swearing on mine.
Bravo. On the 6 month mark, on the completion of the novel, on holding true to being you. The haters need to go look into their tub of Ben and Jerry's and dig deep to figure out where the anger is inside of them, that's where it is and projecting it upon others does nothing but contribute to the ills of the world and to their expanding waistlines.
xoxo
Congratulations. On all fronts.
I can't wait to read that fucking novel.
Wow - finished. I wonder how hard that felt compared to yesterday's run. Or maybe it was a story inside you clawing to get out.
Running is good because it's hard.
Like a lot of things.
You didn't lose me.
I was just invoking the spirit of my scotch-protestant great-grandmother and then I come over here and see this:
"To always feel so good and nice and comfortable, loving ourselves, because we deserve it. It’s a fucking illness..."
OH MY GOD SHE FOLLOWED ME.
Also, congratulations on the end of one gulag and the beginning of the other. Not many people finish writing a novel. That in itself is a test of mettle. Have fun editing - that's my favourite part. But I'm dealing with pirates, and pirates like to slash and burn. Still. You've got the tough part over with. Except the waiting. The waiting's not easy either. That's when you start your next one.
You may have lost some readers, but you must have gaines a few. Me included.
I love your blog.
OMG! It's done! Congrats, BHJ! Knowing it will be a good read and so impatient to do so! Not touching the other subject only to tell you your dally commitment is awe inspiring.
daily, or maybe it could be dally..you chose!
Go you! Over 1,000 miles in 6 months is amazing and a completed first book draft is even more so.
Well. You are a prick. You know that, right?
This one time I sat for a million years or ten minutes or something (I was really, really wasted, I don't fucking know) and said the word 'book' over and over, curving my lips around the bee, stubbing my tongue on the kay, just liiiiiiiking it a whole-whole lot.
There aren't very many things that make the transition from being fried to being sober while still maintaining their level of wonderful. Saying the word 'book' is one of the things that hangs in there.
Congratulations on your first draft.
I really would have thought you'd have gained a lot of readers?
Congratulations on finishing your book.
Not everyone who wrote an entire blog post about the question of fat acceptance was angry.
Some of us just threw it out there to see what people thought.
After all the "fuck yous" you got from (and gave to) my readers you should be proud.
You made people think - sometimes in anger, but think nonetheless.
Not to mention, you like to be a shit stirrer and you definitely succeeded.
yayuh.
Congrats on both accomplishments. I started running right around your last running update. Not because of it but right around the same time. But it does inspire me.
Well, as a formerly obsese and now just overweight but working towards average person here's my take. The acceptance part has to do with loving yourself. Cause I'm pretty sure I didn't like myself when I was eating as much as I did. Then the next step is working towards getting healthy, whatever that is for you.
I realize obesity in America is a far more complex argument than that - but that's my personal experience with it.
Just yesterday I heard a snippit of a commercial on the tv at my mom's house - it was some woman saying, "Shouldn't moving be easy??" and it stopped me in my tracks. Because why should moving be easy? That doesn't even make any sense!
Anything worth doing *shouldn't* be easy. It can be enjoyable, to be sure, but easy? Why? Why should it be easy? You have to struggle to grow, to develop, to reach the next level of whatever it is you're trying to do. If it was all easy, why would you bother to do it at all?
I've been on a food documentary kick lately - in the past week or so, I've watched Food, Inc., Super Size Me and King Corn. If you haven't already, I highly suggest them to anyone curious about what it is we, as a society, are putting into our bodies and what the "food" we eat does to our bodies. Maybe, armed with a little bit of information on what it is we're doing to our bodies to become a nation of obese people, fewer will feel so angry about what you're saying. Maybe, instead of doing what's easy - for instance, stopping by McDonalds on their way home from work - they'll choose to take the harder route and eat foods that nourish their bodies instead of take them closer to the grave, one bite at a time.
I know a lot of people thought you were an asshole, based on that post. But here's the thing: complacency isn't going to get us anywhere. Maybe all that anger made a few people take a good hard look at the choices they're making. Anger can take you places, once you get past the initial defensiveness. That post was pure BHJ: it wasn't a side of you your readers hadn't seen. But your message goes right to the heart of an issue that many people choose to ignore, and you put it right up in their faces where they HAD TO LOOK AT IT. Scary shit, for some.
You didn't lose me. Not at all.
I don't want to be sugary and nice, but I don't know how else to explain the inspiration you've been to me.
Seriously.
I'm over weight, and I was unhappy with myself. I saw the need to change and started to make those changes around the same time you started to run everyday.
Every day when I do the workout I've chosen, and I get to the point that I want to quit, I think about your posts, and I remind myself to ignore myself, to embrace the discomfort of change.
echo the sentiment that if you started being nice i would stop reading.
honesty is beautiful even (or especially?) when it hurts. does it have to be mean? sometimes, yes. yes it does.
I think that if the nice-veil got dropped over your blog, besides the random poetry, I'd have little reason to read. I like that you're you and you don't feel that you need to apologize for it. As far as the book goes, I'm going to need to know when I can read it and when you'll be autographing it for me. Then I'll put it right next to Chuck Palahniuk, which you can take as an insult or compliment.
The thing you wrote about fat people wasn't applicable to me. I am naturally thin, can pretty much eat whatever the hell I want whenever I want. Lucky bitch, right?
Yet, that post WAS about me. I'm a recovering alcoholic and junkie ... clean ten years this year.
Your post wasn't about food. It was about all the underlying shit - it could have been about watching porn. Shopping. Going to the gym. Anything humans can do to excess, take us out of ourselves, destroying ourselves in the process. Most of us need to wake the fuck up, me included.
Keep poking, man.
If you wrote something all sugary and nice about anything other than Lucy (el Diabla?) I'd be checking your basement for pods. Looking forward to the book.
This reminds me of my mother's story about trying to read The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck in the 70's. She read the first line: "Life is difficult." Then she shouted, "You're goddam right it is!", and she shut the book and threw it away.
So it is with the motivation to change or be honest. Just keep moving.
I developed plantar fascitis, probably thanks to some new shoes that turned out to be gifts from satan. This means I have to live vicariously through your pain since I won't be running for awhile. So, keep running, monkey! make it hurt! Make it hurt real bad!
Congratulations on the first draft.
You came across like an asshole. I happen to like assholes, and I don't want my truths sugar-coated. I do try to avoid judging people. Even if I think their ideas are misguided or stupid. Mind you, this doesn't stop me from telling people their ideas are stupid. And these people with the stupid ideas get very defensive. Like it's a personal attack.
I'm learning that I can catch more flies with honey. xx
Congratulations on the first draft of your book. And of running every day for six months. That's thrilling, I'm sure. I sort of wish that I could do something so difficult but instead I'm taking care of my daughter who has had seizures every single day for fifteen years, almost exactly. If I'd only run a mile for every one of those seizures, I'd be incredibly fit and thin now, too, and that would be something, anyway.
Congradulations on your book. Hope it is the first of many more to come.
Keep up the running, but be careful of doing harm to the body ( you know you are getting close to "over the Hill").
Above all be happy.
Dad(Bill)
Me and my big fat ass keep missing the part where we are supposed to stop reading and run off to eat cookies. Instead, I'm going to keep coming here to be motivated by your running and shirtlessness and fruit eating and honesty.
Congrats on all fronts. From someone who defaults to comfort, you're my hero.
Oh. I'm conflicted. I'm dying to congratulate you on the amazing achievement of FINISHING A NOVEL!!! but somehow after the punchy tone of this post I feel I'm not qualified to because I haven't lost enough weight or written enough this year :(
I hate myself for loving you.
yay for your book! comfort is way overrated.
You DO have a very complicated relationship with love, Black Hockey Jesus. Maybe your novel is all about that?
I drove 160 miles in June. But I walked to the car and around stores and stuff, sometimes up driveways (garage sales). And of course, I'm always shirtless and eating fruit. I like to make my pecs do that up and down thing, too. That burns calories.
What is the point of going over to those sites and telling people to fuck off then coming here and writing about their anger? That makes absolutely no sense to me. Not that it has to.
Congratulations on your book. Wishing you a publisher.
Not sure what doesn't make sense. Someone called me an asshole so I told them to get fucked. Over here I made fun of them because I think they're idiots. What's the question?
Running in the oppressive heat is what separates us from the rational.
Congrats on finishing your first draft! And congrats on sticking with it for 6 months. I like this post. It's amazing that people don't stop to think about WHY they're mad when something *makes* them mad. People don't often want to feel responsible for their anger...YOU made me mad. You mean man!
Right after I read your post, I went on to read this one, about body compassion: http://theorganicsister.com/2010/07/body-compassion/. The juxtaposition made me laugh. I wonder what a love child between you & the Organic Sister would be like. Probably schizophrenic. Poor kid. Probably better for everyone if that never comes to fruition. I hope your knees hold out. My dad was an addictive runner until his knees went. He could never find anything else he liked as much. I'm musing on the battling ideas of discomfort and compassion. I think there's a place where they overlap. Maybe it's curiosity? Maybe it's detachment? Whatever it is, it's interesting. I like the two posts side by side better than I'd like either one alone. There's some place in which they're both true at the same time, and I like trying to find that place.
Congrats on finishing the book and the 1000+ miles. That rocks.
BHJ! BHJ! BHJ!
That is all.
When I finished my book, I pretty much felt like I could do anything.
Except run a marathon. Because every time I sign up for one of those, I get new shoes, make a training schedule, and promptly get pregnant. And I already have like eleventy twenty kid. Or three. Whatever.
Congrats, bro.:)
I'm really looking forward to the book.. hope we can get it down here in Australia...
and thanks to your blog every time i feel like quitting i push myself more.. and every time i want to eat more and feel full and satisfied I stop myself and suggest to my girlfriend we go and have sex on the kitchen table... and because of this I am totally winning the little weight loss comp i have going with my cousins - so i've sent them here to read this because all they want to do is eat drive thru! I hope they made it here and get MOVING........
i've been back 3 times to read this post. is it wrong that i laughed many many times during the 1st half of it? you say it just, so, WELL.
& go you! the running, the writing, (this post) I for one can't wait to have that book in my grubby mitts.
You know what makes a lot of chronically sick people angry? Their sickness, you superior twit.
Anyway, by your logic, your anger over their calling you mean stems from the fact that you wish you weren't sucj an asshole.
POKE.
Didn't lose me even though most of that post applied directly to me. I hate sugar sweet coating and soothing sweetness. Kick me in the teeth. I take it as a challenge and that's what so many of us really need. Not comfort. Challenge.
Love the post and the writing. Looking forward to the novel as well.
Oh SHIT!!! It has obviously been WAY too long since I've come by for a look-see. (It's not just you, I've barely been on the internet, what with all the babies and diapers and barefoot & pregnant crap.) And look what I find. A RUNNER. You know, when I met my husband, his main hobby was NAPPING. A few years ago he got bit by that running bug and now all he wants to do is RUN!!! So now he's all "physically fit" and "in-shape" and he's looking at me and saying, "why don't we go running TOGETHER?" Hells NO!!! I wasn't a runner when he married me, and I sure ain't a runner now. (He wants me to start packing his lunches for him, too, to which I've replied, "you should've thought of that BEFORE you picked me. Make a wiser choice next time.") And now YOU'RE running. ACK! I"m totally surrounded!!! I'm not a total bump on a log - I'll Zumba from morning to night if I could, but you are NOT going to convince me to RUN!!! OK, now that I"ve made myself clear.... carry on.
woot, congrats on the novel! *want*