I think I am going to write this in two parts. If you are here to track my weight loss journey and progress and don’t really give a shit about what crazy shit floats around in my head then we’ll just knock that out here so you don’t have to read any more than you need to read. I’ll tell you when you can just click off me and check your Instagram or Bumble account. It’s cool cause this definitely has a therapy session in the making written all over it and I write this for me and no one else.
So the journey….
If you’ve followed along on IG this week or Snap, I’ve been hitting it. Followed my meal plan all week… and yes I had pizza for dinner on Sunday night and a cider and I ain’t ashamed of it. That Santucci’s was the bomb. I got on the scale on Tuesday and was like WHAT THE FUCK! And then by Wednesday my body was readjusting quickly and getting me to where it should be. I posted something for the gym this week that there was 14 weeks till Memorial Day and to get your ass in here.. I followed my own advice trying to pump my cardio up. I really want a strong treadmill at home in the actual living room or want to do something in the basement with a big screen and just some cardio stuff. Anything that’s down there now is really junk. I just don’t have it in me to take it all apart and trash it. But as tired as I am with the new puppy I did what I was supposed to do in the gym and in the kitchen.. (Yah I know I ate the pizza and again, it was fucking delicious).
I am down 6 pounds in the last two weeks even with the up and down of the scale, my body, feeling like poo, not sleeping. I’ll take it. Can’t stop, won’t stop. 44 to go!
The other stuff (So this is where some of you might want to check out, go watch something on Netflix)
This is hard for me to write about, I am sorry it it is a little cryptic, but if you just breathe it in it will make sense. I promise. I know a lot of people. I’ve been in the spot light for over 22 years. I can’t walk through a mall or down the boardwalk without people stopping me, telling me their thoughts about the band, where they’ve seen me and ask when we will be wherever again. It used to bug me but especially after our 20th anniversary party I have embraced it more and more. I would have never been where I am without those people and it’s a true blessing.
I live a public life and I chose that life, I put myself out there. Being an overweight kid out of college and getting the opportunity to sing in a band was pretty much a dream come true. I write this blog, to hold myself accountable but to also give others who might be fighting hope. To let them know that no one is unwanted, no one is alone, that every should be hopeful. It’s taken me a long time to come out of a darkness that I was pushed into with lies, deceit and 2 faced cowards that let me fall. 10 years ago I walked through hell and I came out into the light. But even finding the light and the good guys won… I still lost, there was no recovery from falsehood, there was only so much bouncing back that a soul can do. I lived in darkness for a long time. I lived in the shadows. I suffered. My family suffered because even though I should have walked tall I was lost.
I committed suicide. I was still breathing. But I checked out of life. My soul was dead and all those who fought with me, were there for me, screamed in my defense, could only stand there and watch me die. That was the start of the 100lb weight gain and my suicide of the soul… After a few years of anger, why me and bone crippling heartache, I woke up one day and tried to live in the present. I have Stay Alive tattooed on my wrist or a few reasons, but it’s there to remind me to keep living.
But….
that doesn’t come without a lot of post-traumatic stress that was diagnosed after an on stage fist fight and lots of Wellbutrin that I totally hated, didn’t me and didn’t help my weight loss much ether. I was okay. I’m okay. But this week a friend had to drag me back into hell so that they could sleep better at night and I’ve been awake for two nights now. I wanted to go to sleep so badly and never wake up because I see how happy I was and how hard I worked and then had my life stripped from me and even duck tape wasn’t putting my broken heart together. It’s still in pieces. There I was 10 years later defending myself again…. To someone who was supposed to love me…. Someone who called me friend…
Didn’t they see the hundreds of people who came to see me for my birthday? New Years?
Didn’t they see me run around like a maniac, hugging, high fiving and greeting people who would do anything for me if I asked and barely know me? I built that on goodness.
Didn’t they realize how hard it is for me to let people in?
They had questions. A friend would have already known the answers.
I know people always comment on how many friends I have and people who know me and like me… and I usually play it off and that I am an asshole so who knows in the end… But I wouldn’t have been anywhere near as successful as I have been in a hard and brutal business if I wasn’t the real thing… there is a reason the band is called Bigg Romeo and it’s not the heat that I’m packing… it’s that I genuinely love people and would do anything for most. The band for all intentions and purposes was named after me.
I keep my inner circle tight, the people I bring into my home, around my family few… That’s the real me in the end.. I am not fake by any means and I don’t let too many people see me with my defenses down….
I was having such a decent week and moving on with my bad self. But it did remind me that you can win, you can be pure, tell the truth and in the end come out a big, fat loser. We can’t believe everything we hear, but I don’t hate anyone for the breath that was stolen from me.
Here is what you have to understand if you are still reading and going WTF right about now…. This is my blog, this is my story…. And next week I’ll go back to the feel good stuff you are used to.
We are all the heroes in our own story without really ever realizing that we are probably the bad guys in someone else’s.
But in the end…. “You wouldn’t even recognize me anymore, not that you knew me back then……”
I am still standing. I am still here. My heart although bruised and broken is still full of love. I love and I am loved back. My family is still here and would walk through fire for me and I would for them as well.
I am not going anywhere. I will be okay.
Be. More. Kind.
Franco