If I am to find a way to manage my mental health - i.e. find a way to cope with and treat ADHD, I think it is important to have a positive attitude. Having a positive attitude comes with good self-esteem. Years of failures and struggles and frustration in part due to ADHD will lead to low self-esteem.
For many years now - probably since I ditched my bicycle and learned to drive a 4-cylinder internal combustion engine powered automobile (A.K.A. a car), my weight has slowly crept up. I used to be a skinny kid. Then in high school I was a wiry kid. And in the first couple of years of university I was a slightly muscled, thin guy. Then I worked as a butcher for a couple of years in summers and in the year I was put on probation and told to take a year off university. I worked out at a gym and ate meat each day. I remember getting to 200 pounds and was happy - bulk and great strength was required when hoisting sides of beef about a very slippery floor in the shop.
Then that weight became more tipped to the side of fat, as opposed to Herculean man-strength and Sean Conneryesque Mr. Universe tone (the fun thing about a blog is that you don't have to have it peer reviewed or authenticated by any authority).
In 2003, when I was married, I weighed about 220 lbs. My suit was ill-fitting, or at least I was ill-fitted to my suit. I had more chins than an Argentinian, United Kingdom, French, French Canadian or Portuguese toast (Chin Chin).
My Body Mass Index calculation suggested that I would no longer be overweight once I reduced my weight to 184 lbs. Yeah right. That seemed a little outlandish. In November I decided to stop drinking for good. Not that I was reeling drunk all the time, but I was certainly having a few too many drinks on the weekends, and this helped me forget (a) what had happened previously and (b) what was to happen to me - and thus was a nice temporary relief. So I stopped. No twitching, or spasms or shrieks of agony. Just stopped. And I think for all the lack of those calories I began to shrink.
Around the same time I decided to stop drinking the 6 to 10 cans of full calorie Coke that I was drinking to (in retrospect) self-medicate my ADHD and help me focus. I switched to Diet Pepsi. Diet Coke tastes like barely-fizzy diluted cat piss. Diet Pepsi is nicer. And so I shrank more. Then I decided to replace each breakfast with 2% milk with Slim-Fast powder mix - which is really just milk powder, sugar and some Aspartame - and vitamins. Then I stopped snacking during the day.
The longer I've been on this calorie-reduced diet, the less I get urges to binge on food.
So here is my progress since then (graph below) - I want to go down to 180 lbs and stop there. I think I would like my upper range to be 185 lbs.
My point of this rambling post? Well, I feel proud of having done this. I'm not doing this for beauty reasons (despite my Sean Conneryesque appearance), but because I'm nearly 40 and I don't want to be putting extra weight on my heart and joints. I want to be a positive example to my little boy. And I want to be around for a long time.
And doing something I take pride in, makes me feel proud. And feeling proud increases my self-esteem.
Cheers,
Mungo
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