No Promises

Wow......so it's coming up on 2 years now that I started writing this thing and here I sit...same computer...same keyboard, same view out on the back yard, and same ME. Still the same father, with two little girls (bigger now), a beautiful wife (pregnant now, fingers crossed for a boy), that wants to do better. It's a feeling that never goes away. That always feeling just a little bit uncomfortable with how you look. My self confidence still kept in check by my self image. It's eerie to look back on the posts that I wrote that long ago and see how much of it still holds true. The more things change the more they stay the same, right? I sort of feel like I was just paying lip service to everyone that was reading. It's like deep down I knew that "Hey, you're still you, even when you write all these fancy words. You're still going to give up the chase at some point, right? Isn't that what you've always done?" I know I know...........crappy attitude, but pretty much right on.
I never wanted to be that guy. The one that starts a blog only to drift away unnoticed a few months later. I figured this writing and people reading would bring me back, you know, keep me motivated and accountable. In the end it didn't, and I'm bummed about that when I think about it, because there were a lot of good people that I was keeping up with that I'm sure are gone now. It really was neat to gain a little glimpse into each of their lives, and to share a little of mine. Well all I can say is that I hope they all succeeded in their quests for fitness, and that hopefully this will be my last hoorah. The one that starts the snowball at the top of the mountain, just the tiny spec that will continue to roll down the hill of life picking up speed and......where am I going with this. Bad analogy, the snowball gets bigger and bigger, when I just want to get smaller and smaller.
See what happens when you don't post in 2 years, you ramble. What brought this on is that I started P90X today, and I'm excited. I'm pretty sure that 90% of the world has completed their first rotation of this workout series, but better late than never is what I always say. I'm going to try to chronicle my little journey here. No promises, but we'll see. UNTIL NEXT TIME......

The Fork

I guess all is not well here. It's not like I'm not making any strides because I know I am, but it's almost like I'm spinning my wheels. I'm not putting together the whole package. My workouts have been great and taxing, but my eating has been sporadic at best. It's not overly difficult to find where to point the finger.

The problem is that putting together the entire package is what it takes to be successful. Yes there will be hiccups here and there, that's just life, but they MUST be kept to a minimum. Diet is the hardest part of this for me. I know that it's 90% of the battle. I think about it constantly. Honestly I feel like a walking contradiction. I workout hard to burn the calories, then I go F it up by eating the wrong stuff. How is it that I can make this decision to lose weight, and the go and consciously sabotage it. If you read thru my past posts, you'll see that I've gone in circles about 10 times. I'm up and then down, on a streak of doing well, then ruining it. To say that I'm sick of it is an understatement to the 10th degree. It's maddening. My stomach is all in knots right now. I think that the worst kind of disappointment must be when you disappoint yourself. There's no one else to place the blame on. There's no excuse that is worthy of being said. It all boils down to simple choices. No, I haven't broken this promise to myself yet because I've vowed not to this time, but I've really got to figure out how to do this right.

As I sit here and write I wonder what I'd say if I'd read this on one of your blogs. "We all go thru these times, but at least you've admitted where the fault lies. Now change your choices and start putting it all together. Who knows how far that'll take you." OR "Stop being such a pansy about all of this and just make the choices you know you're supposed to be making." OR "Wow, it looks like you've tried EVERYTHING, but apparently nothing works for you huh? Might as well quit, you're obviously just big boned."

I'm fast approaching 3 months on this journey, and I'm barely better for it. I won't kid you or myself with any bold statements of what I'm going to do to fix this. When I finally do make the right changes I'll let you know what they were. Who knows, maybe one of these days I'll figure out that it takes something other than the path of least resistance to get results.

Head Down, Blinders On....

Weight (last night) - 265 lbs

That's where I'm at right now. I haven't blogged in almost a week so I felt like I should say something, but honestly right now I don't have much to report. I'm doing well, and the workouts are going good. I still feel like I need to push my body a little harder when I'm doing the weights, but the cardio sessions have been great. Last night I did 22 min of HIIT on the elliptical at level 12 - - 45 sec at or above 75 rpm / 45 around 60 rpm - - which worked great for the heart rate. Then I moved on to the Stair Climber (with the actual rotating steps, whatever that thing is called) for 30 mins @ level 5 on the "Fat Burner Plus" program. So apparently, not only did I burn some fat, I also added a little something extra on top of it. Whatever it was, I walked away from the gym happy with that session. I don't know about all of you, but I calculate the intensity of my workout (especially cardio) based on the dampness of my shirt when I leave. I know it's not the most scientific approach, but that's how I know that I pushed myself outside my comfort level. When my 30 mins were up on the Super Rotating Step Machine, the screen flashed "GOAL ATTAINED"!! Unfortunately I hadn't dropped 70 lbs in that half hour, but it still felt good to see that phrase. One day my ultimate weight loss goal will be attained, and I know that that machine will be a big part of why.

Have a great day!!! Talk to you all soon!

Drawing Inspiration

For most of us inspiration isn't much of a problem. It's all around us. I'm inspired by all of your hard work which is obviously paying off. My daughters and wife inspire me to do better. I see someone with a body that I'd like to have, and again I'm inspired. With that being said, there is one way that I, for whatever reason, rarely draw inspiration..........thru music. Not that I don't appreciate what goes into writing the lyrics to a song, quite the contrary actually, but I just don't often take the words and apply them to a certain aspect of my life. Anyways where I'm going with this is that I guess I'm going to take a page out of Gene's book and quote a portion of a song that for some reason is inspiring me. The song is called "Prayer of the Refugee" by a band called Rise Against. The second verse has been stuck in my head for a while now, it goes:

"We are the angry and the desperate, the hungry and the cold.

We are the ones that kept quiet, and always did what we were told."

"But we've been sweating while you slept so calm in the safety of your home,

we've been pulling out the nails that hold up everything you've known."

I've thought about why this particular verse inspires me into action. I feel like represents the person inside of me, my alter ego maybe. I've recently started getting up very early (4:30 this morning!!) to do my workouts, so the third line gets me going in the morning. It makes me realize that there are MANY people out there working to better themselves while I sleep, and I want to be one of those people. And the last line makes me think of all the bad habits that I'm in the process of breaking, "pulling out the nails that hold up everything I've known" so that I can build a new lifestyle.

So there it is. Counting this morning I've worked out 4 times since Sunday so I'm definitely on the right track. The key is to continue when I start seeing results, not to get complacent. My eating has been spot on with the exception of a little indulgence at lunch yesterday. I think that I'm going to start posting a weekly weigh in similar to what Brian does so that I can see my progress. I weigh myself more often than that, but not every day so a weekly or 5 day average might be tough to come by until I can invest in a quality scale for home. I'll start doing it on Mondays.

I hope this finds you all doing well. Keep workin'............I'll talk to you later :)~

Pickin' up steam

So far......so good. I've decided to have a short memory with this whole journey. It's kind of like the saying "what have you done for me lately". I think that's just the attitude that I need to have. I can't get too caught up in how well I'm doing. On the same token, I've got to let it go if I don't make a solid choice, and not let it derail my goals. I've done it before, but not this time. This time I've made the commitment. There will be no resting on my laurels. My body is my temple, right? Isn't that what they say? Boy have I missed the boat on that one for the last 28 and a half years. I've always been jealous of how the guys that are lean and ripped look. My reaction has always been, "ha, must be nice". Well.....yeah, I bet it is nice, but I kid myself by thinking that they didn't have to work hard to look like that. While I'm going to get Taco Bell for dinner on Sunday, they're at home preparing their meals for the week. Not anymore ladies and gents, now it's my turn to work.

It's amazing the satisfaction just one day of great choices can give someone, isn't it. Maybe satisfaction isn't the right word, the.....confidence to do it again, the.......reassurance that you CAN succeed, the.....positive energy, maybe those define it better. You just feel soooo good about it. I just want to keep putting those days together, stacked one on top of another, building the foundation for what I want my body to be. I've had 4 days of good choices now, so like I said, I'm picking up steam. The little 'suicidal' snowball (as Rob so kindly referred to it) is moving along nicely so far.

Time to get the little ones ready for bed. I'll keep you posted ;)

Step One.....Take 2

At the end of my very first post I said that I thought that I'd just taken the first step of the marathon to weight loss. In a way that was true. By starting to blog, and by meeting and learning about all of your journey's, I believe I did take a big step forward. However, in the time between then and now, I've accomplished exactly nothing. Zip, zero, zilch. The desire to lose weight has been there (it's always there), but in looking at why I'm still where I'm at, the answer is obvious, the commitment to do what is necessary to achieve what I desire has been lacking. I feel like a hypocrite, I've talked the talk, and have not even come close to walking the walk. I won't rehash what I just talked about in my last post, but that is going to change.

I've read The Phoenix Theory post from Billy's blog over and over. To be honest, after the first time thru I thought that, if that's how you have to feel to loose weight then I'm shit out of luck. I don't have a traumatic experience to start me off. I do have my "before pictures", which are eye opening, but not . I'm also not an angry person. It takes a lot to piss me off. I guess I'm a glass half full guy. So, if I don't have a traumatic event to put the ball in motion, and I don't have anger to feed the fire, then how do I maintain the drive. For me it's going to be a choice. A decision where there are no other alternatives. For awhile now I been that little snowball sitting at the top of the mountain waiting for a nudge to get me rolling. SOMEBODY PUSH ME!!! ;) actually you don't need to, I just jumped! (don't ask me how a snowball jumps :)

Off and rolling..............until next time.

A Year Will Come and Go Regardless....

......will I be better or worse? I really like that quote. It motivates me. It puts things in perspective. It gives me hope. It's also too long term for me. It's the light at the end of the tunnel that is still pitch black right now. It's the finish line of the marathon, a picture when I close my eyes, but not tangible yet. Although it's not my profession, procrastination is probably my main hobby. Not that it's anything to be proud of, nor is it anything new with me, but it is what it is. Give me a year to accomplish something, and I'll take the first 9 months off because "I have PLENTY of time to achieve this goal". I've set short term goals, but failed to follow up with the steps necessary to reach them. For me it's a constant battle of being proactive or putting it off for later. So far on this journey, unfortunately the latter concept has been the overwhelming winner.

Another quote that Billy recently put on his blog was something like "If you can't keep a promise to yourself, what kind of person does that make you??" I wasn't as big of a fan of this one. My initial reaction was almost anger, which is ridiculous because it's not like the quote was meant in an antagonistic way. The only way that quote could make anyone angry would be if the person reading it had broken a promise to themself, and therefore took offense to the comment........uhhhhh, CHECK :). The quote applys to me so how do I answer? I guess I don't know what kind of person that makes me. Someone who doesn't follow thru or a person with a motivation problem. Whatever I am, I know that this is a characteristic that I'd like to start bending in the right direction. Along with being more fit and healthy, I have plenty of other things that could use some working on. A big one is following thru on the things that I say that I'm going to do. Of course, this goal applies to many different aspects of my life and not just the weight loss. Like many other things with me though, this isn't something that I just realized. It's not like it's an new problem. I'm not much into New Years resolutions (mostly because I don't see them thru.......hmmmm), but I think this year I'm going to try, no not try.......I AM, going to follow up on them.

So here they are....I'm going to be more diligent in doing the things that need to be done WHEN they need to be done, not later. Whether it's getting to the gym, eating healthy, fixing something at the house, helping my wife with the household chores, joining a ToastMaster group, or seeking out other ways to help advance my professional life, whatever it may be, I am going to be proactive. Given, this is a repeat of a PROMISE that I've made to myself (and others) plenty of times, but this time I'm going to keep it. I still don't know what kind of person it'll make me when I DO keep a promise to myself, but I don't think I'd be too far off by saying that I'll be happier and more proud of the person I am.

Now on to this whole blogging thing. It's sad for me to say that I haven't posted in almost 3 weeks. That's not the way I wanted it to be. In one of my earlier posts I commented on some of the links that everyone has on their page to someone elses page that's gone dormant. I said that I didn't want to be one of those people who started with the best of intentions and then taperd off. I also said that no matter what "Happy, Sad, Good, or Bad" that I'd let you know how I was doing, and I haven't done that lately. It's hard for me because the last thing I want to do is waste someone else's time. The best thing about the Coalition, at least for me, is that everyone reads everyone else's posts and takes the time to comment, encourage, console, motivate, etc. In my mind, if I'm posting, and people are taking the time to read and comment, but I'm not following up on my end of the bargain, then I'm wasting everyone's time. I don't want this to just be words. As we all know, it's so easy to write or say, but not do.....hence "easier said than done". If I write something I want it to be something that I'm going to adhere to. I was all gung ho about Tuck's Big Challenge, for like the first week, then had a bad weekend and it all fell apart. By letting it fall apart, it made me feel like the enthusiasm that I had, and the things that I'd written about how excited I was and how it was going to help further motivate me to stay on track were all just lip service.

Anyways, I've taken up enough of your time.......I'll write more soon. I hope you all had a great holiday.