 When they're unhappy, they try to find other people that they can feel like they're better than. You are less than me, therefore my life is better. Even though it's not, because you're unhappy and that's why you feel the need to do that. If people are happy, they don't go out trying to make other people feel unhappy or less than or judged or criticized. Okay, so I actually, believe it or not, after an 18 hour work day yesterday, I am kind of sort of catching up with my workload and I'm feeling kind of good about it. So I'm finally working out for the first time in three weeks. I'm also fully vaccinated. So that means I can start going to the gym again. So I think I'm gonna start going to crunch again. It'll probably be a combination of working out from home and working out at the gym time depending. And so I'm very excited about that and I'm very excited about the prospect of me finally losing weight. I was 202 pounds the other day, the other night. And so I just had to let it go, let it go and just embrace my weight as it is. I mean, it's not like I'm like crazy overweight. I'm, you know, like got a huge problem to worry about but I just feel like a bit of a fraud and a fake when I'm supposed to be a fitness influencer and I'm a bodybuilder and I'm repping myself as that. And I'm like slowly gaining weight and like, you know, just not getting up off my ass to do stuff. So now I can. But I figured as I'm getting ready to work out, I'm talking really fast because I had pre-workout. So normally I have a problem speaking at a normal pace without having to edit out all the silences in between. Anyway, I wanted to share like let's start, let's start my weight loss journey now. Let's start the fitness journey now. Now that I'm vaccinated, I'm ready. I have the gym accessible and I've got some things figured out and I'm starting to feel like I'm getting like a hold on my life and the anxiety that I was struggling with for so long. Mind you, it's still there but it's a little bit more under control now. And one of the really important things that I learned that I kind of experimented with and then realized, oh, like that makes a difference, a really big difference in my anxiety level and how I feel about myself and my life. And so I'm working multiple different jobs and projects and commitments. And basically what was happening, not only with my professional life and my passions and my hobbies but also my health too was that I was putting myself last. I was putting myself at the bottom of the list. So it was like I gotta go to my 40 hour a week. I gotta go to my 40 hour a week work job and I gotta do this project and that thing and I gotta go through like peppermint stuff and work out pep talks and work out black queer town hall and all this other stuff. And then if I happen to get to my stuff at the very end, great, but chances were in fact that I often didn't get to my own stuff. And so I wouldn't even open emails until like a week later that were my own emails. Obviously if you guys follow me on Instagram, you notice I have been posting nearly as much because of that. And so one day randomly it just kind of pops into my head. I was like, why don't I do my stuff first and then wait and do everything else? And I did and then I felt really good afterwards. And I was like, whoa, I feel a sense of like contentment. Like why do I feel that way? What's going on? And then I realized, oh, like me putting myself last all the time was telling myself I'm not important. I'm not worth like my time, you know, everyone else has reservation on my time and my energy first because they're all more important. And so I was diminishing myself and I was diminishing my flame and my spark and my passion. And so that was really bringing me down and I was starting to feel this sense of depression almost along with the anxiety. And so that was a really big realization that I made. So lesson learned, but you know, it's easier to have new thoughts than it is to have new habits. So it's gonna take time to really put that into practice and make sure that I really like guard and fight for my time and my space and getting the things I need to do for me. So for those of you who maybe feel like you're in a similar position as I am with all these commitments, whether it's kids or your spouse or family or like a loved one, someone's sick, what have you, make time. There is always time. You can find one hour, two hours for just you and the things that you care about. It makes a big difference. You put in a little bit of effort and you get a lot of return for that when it comes to nourishing yourself. Anyway, that was a huge tangent, but it's what is really finally got me to a point where I feel capable to start my fitness journey which you all can join me on. And if you are also wanting to lose weight because pandemic Miss Rona packed it on for you, well, do it with me and like let's learn stuff together and talk about it and whatever workshop it. Okay, so anxiety under control. Another thing I want to share is that this really helped me is a lot of it has to do with diet, especially when you don't have time, you don't have the energy and especially when you have access to things like Grubhub, DoorDash, Postmates, Uber Eats, it goes on and on and on, right? The options are out there. The problem is those options are generally not the healthiest and sometimes they even seem healthy but they have a lot of calories in it. So I recommend a meal prepping, but again, that implies that you have the time to do it like a day to prep all your meals for the week. If you don't have time to meal prep, there are so many services now that do it for you and if you don't have a lot of money, you can avoid like the big box retailers that do this and just go to a local, like find someone locally through a referral or something like that. Like I have friends who I know for a long time we're doing meals for five bucks a meal. Like that's great, that's cheaper than fast food nowadays. So anyway, I found one, it's called Factor 75. I'm not sponsored. It's nothing, they gave me, they didn't ask me to do anything. They didn't imply that they want me to do anything. I just am sharing it because I think it's valuable. But this is, these are the meals, see? And they're labeled on the side. Each one, they all have a two and a half minute cooking time. So this one, here, I'll bring it out of the fridge. This one is Taco Bowl. Come on, focus, there we go. Taco Bowl, this is what it looks like. Got little compartments, there you go. Okay, so you have little compartments and this is like some type of sour cream. I think it might have some like herbs in it or something like that, jalapenos. And this is Taco Bowl. So it's got meat, cheese, some veggies and stuff like that. Anyway, the reason why I bring this up is because this meal right here is 580 calories. That's pretty dang good for something with cheese and jalapenos and something that's called a Taco Bowl. 580 calories is hard to beat. And it leaves me feeling satiated after. I don't feel like I'm, I'm like, I'm hungry. I gotta wait till the next meal time. But I'm not full either. And so it's just the right amount of calories for me. You can definitely find meals that are gonna be healthier and are gonna be less calories. But in my experience, people who diet really, really hard tend to crash really, really hard. So if you can find something that's a healthy balance of tastes good is, you know, gonna make you feel like satisfied, some cheese and things like that. But also kind of cuts back on the calories too. Then that's like the perfect balance so that you can diet without feeling like you're dieting, if you know what I mean. Okay. So that's my tip for today. And then I got like in between meals, some apples and bananas. And I've got trail mix and things like that. Some cute little cuties. I love those with the sea lists. They're so good. Got my Peloton to do cardio. Oh, you probably can't see it with this light in the back. There's my little cardio station. And then I've got my bench. Hey, it's really bright in here. Let's turn down the brightness. Okay. This is my little workout corner, my bench. The back will fold up if I need it. You can also do decline, incline, all of that. And then I've got these weights that I bought on Amazon that are adjustable. I can take off different size plates and adjust the weights. It's a little bit cumbersome. It's a little bit, you know, annoying to have to constantly change it after every exercise. It's not as easy as the ones that are like, you just press a couple of buttons and then it like adjusts the weights for you. I would have gotten that also by Bowflex, but they were completely out. And it was during the pandemic you got to wait 10 weeks until we have it restocked and I just didn't want to do that. So yeah, that's what I had at home. And then I'm going to start going to the gym. Yeah, I say that with reluctance. Let me, let's talk about that for a second. Let's not make me a silhouette though. Up the brightness. So yes, I was out walking dookie this morning and I ran into my buddy Carl and he was walking his new baby Gus and he has been going to the gym cause he goes to crunches as long as like, have you been? And I said, no, I haven't really gone. Although I'm vaccinated. Honestly, I'm kind of embarrassed to show my face there because it's a relatively small pool of people and we all know each other and we all see each other in our progress and all of that. And, you know, I'm used to being like the leanest, most cut, you know, in shape guy, one of the top guys there. Obviously, if I'm a competitive bodybuilder, I should be. And so to show up and be 30 pounds over my normal weight is, is hard for me to deal with. It's ego, it's embarrassment, you know, it's all that crap, but I just need to get over it. So to ease into it, I'm going to try to go as early as I can. The gym opens at five a.m. Which means I would have to get up at like four, four 30 a.m. Which means I have to go to bed early enough. And so I'm going to try to do that so that I can get like an hour of working out in before I start work in the morning. Cause I work from home Tuesday through Thursday so I can do that. And Saturday and Sunday, I can do that as well. I'm in the office on Mondays and Fridays. Now that you know my full work schedule, at least with that one job. So that's the plan. That's what I'm going to do. And I'm going to continue to check in with you guys with my journey. I'll be posting stuff to my Instagram story too. Those of you who follow me on Instagram probably were used to me like almost every day posting a selfie in my Instagram story of you know, like post workout at the gym. So I'll probably start doing that again. I won't be showing as much tummy in the beginning until I lose some of that fat. Look at this. Look at this gut. Oh yeah. That's me storing away fat for life that I don't actually need. So I need to get rid of it. And even today, like my agent reached out to me and she said, hey, like there's this fitness brand on social media that like wants to hire you to do a shoot in a month. And I'm like, and I had to turn it down. I had to say honestly, Annette, I don't want to misrepresent the agency. I don't want to show up. And then I can try my best to diet and get into shape in the next month. But there's no way I'm going to be in the shape that they're expecting me to be in from my photos. So if I show up on that day and then they're upset because they're paying a bunch of money to have a fitness model and I show up and I look kind of like I do now, they're not going to be happy and that's going to look bad on Annette. So she's really sweet about it. She's always very supportive. She says I'm always, I always look perfect just the way I am. But that's like her mom hat. But at the same time, I have to think about, you know, professionally and the agency that doesn't work. So anyway, that's another reason because I'm missing out on, you know, potential paid opportunities. And who doesn't want a paid opportunity? Anyway, oh, oh, I almost forgot. Bo and I, Bo's my boyfriend. If you watched my last video, well, I don't know if it's my last video by the time this is posted. If you watched the last video of me talking in my apartment, then you saw a quick little glimpse of him. But we are moving in together into a two bedroom. Previously I said that I'm waiting to, you know, find out how the approval process goes because I don't want to jinx it. I don't want to ruin it. There's a lot of back and forth in trying to get things verified and stuff. Well, we got approved. So I'm beyond stoked. I want to share it with you so bad because this place is so cool. I'm like, I want to move there right now. But until I sign my name on that little dotted line of the lease, I still don't want to jinx it because that's how excited I am. And that's how like, ugh. So I'm going to wait, I'm going to wait. But once I sign my name on that line, I will share it with you. I'm so excited. There's going to be so many amazing vlogging opportunities there. The place is so cool. All right, I'm done. All right guys, so here is the comment of the day. It was made by Colin Francois. He posted this comment under HIV diagnosis, coping and dealing. He wrote, just happened to me. I'm trying to forgive myself for not being responsible but God, I feel horrible all the time now. Not from the disease, but from the guilt and shame. Ain't that the truth? Colin, I feel for you buddy. And I have to say, everyone has this come to Jesus moment where you're diagnosed and you have a steep learning curve usually most people don't know enough about HIV and what it means. And so here you are trying to grapple with the medical implications of having this chronic disease that is incurable. And at the same time, there's the social implications that are put on us, the stigma as it were that tries to tell us that our value is less than because we acquired this virus and that's a bunch of hooey. As I said before, HIV is just another form of life, trying to live, trying to do its thing and we have put all this meaning onto it that if you have HIV, well, you were careless or you deserve it by virtue of being gay, by virtue of being a slut, by virtue of doing drugs or what have you. It's like, none of that is real, none of that matters. None of that is significant. It's all a bunch of bullshit. And that's the bullshit that other people put on you because why? Because they're unhappy human beings and they suck to put it mildly. People suck and when they're unhappy, they try to find other people that they can feel like they're better than. You are less than me, therefore my life is better even though it's not because you're unhappy and that's why you feel the need to do that. If people are happy, they don't go out trying to make other people feel unhappy or less than or judged or criticized, right? If you're happy and you're at peace, then you wanna uplift everybody around you. You want everyone to feel what you're feeling. Society has allowed this group of negative, unhappy, self-hating people to determine what our value is, how insane is, like what kind of hellscape are we living in where that is the reality? But it is, it's the truth and it's changeable. We have the power over that. We have the ability to stop this feed that's incoming before it gets into our brain, before it gets into our heart, before it gets into our soul and say, nope, not today, I do not accept, I reject this. This is not true for me. It does not vibrate on the frequency that I vibrate on. It is worthless noise. And so I know it's easier said than done, but believe it, keep telling yourself it and act in ways that are going to reaffirm to you that you are valuable. One of the easiest things that you can do for yourself to affirm to yourself that you are a valued human being, you are not less than, is to take your medicine every day. Easy, right? You are taking care of your health. You are reinvigorating your body and your immune system. You are bringing yourself back to life. Ooh, lots of crime going on in Citizen. You're bringing yourself back to life, literally by taking this life-saving medication. You're keeping HIV in its place. It's allowed to be there a little bit. It can hang out, but she can't do anything worse than that. And that's it. And you can't give it to anybody else once you become undetectable. So this is a great opportunity for you to go inward to do some introspection, find out, really talk to your inner child, your inner self, and be like, what am I missing in my life that allows me to be influenced by the opinions and the thoughts of other people? What am I missing? What can I fill in there? Where do I find the love in myself for myself so that that barrier is insurpassable by destructive energy, right? It's a little woo-woo, I know, but it's hard to give you an X, Y, Z. This is what you gotta do to find your self worth. It's a different journey for everybody, but the important part is that you have the intention of doing it, of making that a priority in your life. Once you make the intention, the steps kind of will appear as you take them, if that makes any sense. So anyway, that's my word of advice. That's the quote of the day. Colin Francois, thank you so much for sharing. So, so, so, so, so many people are going through the exact same thing as you. So at the end of the day, you are not alone. We are a community, we are in it together, we are stronger together, and we are gonna get through this. Not only, we are gonna thrive through this. Peace, guys. Cheers.