11-25-10 Thanksgiving weigh in

I woke up so excited to do my weigh in. I felt like this was going to be a big number because I have been feeling so much better as the week went on. I am breathing better, moving a little better, I was so excited. After all it is Thanksgiving, today has to be good right? Well, I only lost two more pounds. I was in shock, I felt a bit defeated. I was angry and on the verge of tears, because I have been really struggling this week, it felt like I really did a lot this week.

So after I calmed down, a vision of Mike Tyson popped into my head. It was his fight with Buster Douglas. This fight was the first real challenge Mike faced as a champion. I believe this was the one fight that really broke his spirit, because he never fought the same after that. This was the only time some one stood up to Mike and took his punches long enough to wear him down, then once he was winded he was easy to defeat. Mike trained to knock people out, not to fight a 13 round match.

Then, another vision came to mind. My mother's tenacious fight for providing a home for her kids. The best lesson I have learned from my mother, was to never stop working towards your goals. As a single mother of four, all she wanted, and all she talked about was getting her own home for all of us. Her fight lasted until we were all out of the house, but she finally, just recently, bought her first, all her own, house. This victory is making me cry even now. Because, no one will ever know like me and my siblings, what she went through to achieve that house. We are each, in our own way an example of that tenacity. I started working when I was 11, had my own production company when I was 16, and nearly achieved everything I wanted to in my dreams of making it in the music and film industry. My sister Ariana, is so strong and has never not known how to make it all work, usually with three jobs, but still. My brother has a fiery intellect and will never let his path be disrupted. He is wise and vigilant. Then there is Kaela, who is, against my every effort to stop her due to over-protectiveness, in the Phillipeans right now, pursuing God's mission calling on her life. She is truly an inspiration to us all, always.

My mother fought for a decade and a half at a job that did not appreciate her, and that she was way better then, through debilitating illnesses that where very disruptive to every aspect of her life, and with no help other than from the kids that she was fighting to protect. So it occurred to me. Am I going to let this "only two pounds" be a Buster Douglas moment, or a moment of triumph. I did still loose two pounds after all. I am at 523.8 and I started at 534. I also know that water retention can cause an 8 pound variance in your scale results, so either way I am still loosing real fat now.

You see Mike, even though he was a champion, he was never really challenged, he never had the tribulation-born tenacity to last out that fight. He proved to be a tin cup champion, and his Achilles heel was simply that lack of real trial. I see this "only two pounds" as Gods reminder that I have to approach this as the real challenge it is going to be. I have to see the true path in-front of me. I will struggle, I will get sick at times, I will want to scream and through fits. But I will never give up! I will buy my house one day, furnish it the way I want to, paint it and call it my own, I will show the tenacity that I have to do this. I love you Mom, I love you all, Happy Thanksgiving. Thankful and humbled by your support, and always hoping to inspire, James.