And Yet Another Change

So I was thinking about the fact I have been spotty on my blogging lately. I am not sure it is as big of a deal as I am making of it. I just have been busy and by the time I think of doing it, I am still busy or tired or something, something keeps me from doing it. And I think one of the things that is creating this feeling of guilt for not blogging every day is the fact that I put my day number on the post. So if I am not here for a couple of days, then it shows me that, then the guilty feelings set in. So, this morning, it hit me. I am not REQUIRED to put the day number on my post! So, I am going to stop doing it. I am still going to aspire to blog as often as possible, but if life gets in the way, well then I am not going to give myself a reason to feel guilty when I don't. There I feel like a weight has been lifted.

So, apart from Super Bowl Sunday's debacle, I have been doing great! Even in all the dang snow we have been having, I am cruising along! I am hopeful that my One-derland miracle happens tomorrow, but my instincts tell me I am not gonna see it tomorrow. I am pretty good at this guessing too. It won't be for lack of effort, as I have gone on to jogging in the morning and walking 2.25 miles at lunch, but my gut tells me my One-derland miracle will happen on February 25th. if it does happen tomorrow morning, I promise, you will hear about it. And not on blogger or Facebook, I mean you will literally hear me yell!

I was chillaxin' for a minute in my recliner the other day and kinda sorta fell asleep. I was laid out in my relaxed position and when I woke up, I saw this:

It really did hit me that I have made some amazing and crazy changes! I remember many days of making a joke of my huge belly by beating it like a bongo and proclaiming I was ripe, and all sorts of jokes. That belly, he isn't around anymore! It is something that you would think would be commonplace by now, but I have to admit, I am always in awe each time I realize the changes I have made. I think that is a key to being successful in maintenance mode. Keep on being thankful for the changes and never take them as "normal" now.

I am snowed and iced in for yet another day today. I have decided that I am going to assign myself projects today. First off, I am going to be getting my usual workout in this morning. Then I a going to take a second pass through my closet and get rid of even more clothes that don't fit me anymore as I have been slowly but surely picking up a few clothes here and there that fit me. I still have some shopping to do, but I will get there eventually. I am also going to work on the garage some today I think. I am going to have to figure out how to put my workout stuff out there cause Kathy wants our spare bedroom back now. And that is ok, I get that. But our garage is bad about being a catch all and my organizational skills are nearly non existent. but that is an advantage because that will give me something to work on today and if I am bad at it, it will take me awhile... haha.

Well I better get after the treadmill this morning. I really really look forward to being able to get outside for jogging when the weather warms up. I have even been planning routes to jog around my area when the time comes. I have lots of hills and stuff around here, so I should be able to get in some really good shape this spring and summer! Have a great day ya'll!

Day 208-209 Oh No He Di'n't, Oh Wait, He Did.... Dang IT!

So the best laid plans and all you know. I kinda decided to go against the plan for Super Bowl Sunday, take the chains completely off, and just do what I have always done for Super Bowl Sunday, to the tune of 6 peices of pizza, a few twice baked mini potatoes, and three, count'em folks, three cupcakes. Wanna know what I learned from all that? I don't eat like that anymore. Not only was it not fulfilling, it made me physically ill. It not only didn't make me want to go back to eating like a pig on crap food, it took me exactly the other way. I have had a brand new appreciation for the way I eat now and the way it makes me feel so much better. It was really, honestly and truly a joy to get back to my calorie counting today. I kid you not. I had this pain in my gut last night, it was just not cool. I felt tired and sluggish when I woke up this morning. The only saving grace was the endorphin high I got from this mornings jog. It was awesome-er than usual today. I also had a great walk at lunch. I got hard headed about the fact that the sun was out today and I was determined to walk outside at the park. Well I did it, and about lost all my extremities to frost bite..... and would do it all again baby! it was great! I got 2 1/4 miles jogging and 2 1/4 miles walking in today. And I have been lower than usual for my calorie count. Out of a negative, comes a positive. A brand new appreciation for all the things I have come to take for granted in this great journey!

Day Day 208 Where Did It GO?

I am a creature of habit, more so than anybody I have ever known. That fact has served me well in the past and that fact has screwed me in the past. I mean I got well over 300 pounds because I developed a habit of a heck of a lot of snacking on a heck of a lot of unhealthy food. But, in this new lifestyle, I have developed the habit of no more than 700 calories before 5 o clock, a morning workout every day but on of the week, I have to have in 80 of water by noon, etc etc. Now, one of my pre lifestyle change habits was to sit on the couch, watch tv, and often use my belly as a table for the drink I had, the bowl or plate that had whatever snack I had at the time, but most often, for the remote or my cell phone. I would sit there and just veg out, watch tv, and be a slob. So for the first time in quite some time, I actually sat on my couch and watched tv yesterday. I got involved in Top Shot, a show on the History Channel about these people that are well known shooters that are expected to use a variety of weapons on shooting challenges. Anyway, I got drawn in for a couple of hours yesterday, and Kathy wasn't feeling well so the couch was empty. I sat and watched tv and here is a memory for me for the rest of my lifetime! I was in my tv watching position, all relaxed, terrible posture, ready to veg, and I went to put the tv remote on my former "table" and it slid right down!!! I am sure that reading it is not as hilarious as experiencing it, but dang I laughed so hard. It fell right into my lap and for about 2 seconds, it stunned me!! I had no idea how to react then I laughed and laughed!

ON a much less funny note, I am dealing with some weird injury in my side/rib cage. I got it when I was pushing Lauren down the hill during the storm the other day. I fell over at the bottom of the hill and felt a tweeking sensation on my right just below the rib cage. It hurt a little, but it went away immediately. But, it has hung on and it effects me if I bend down or twist just right. I jogged with it yesterday and it did ok on level ground, but hurt on inclines. Not unbearable pain, but certainly let you know it is there pain. I hope to shake that pretty quick! I am thinking I am going to make this mornings and afternoons workouts just some moderately intense walking on the treadmill. Well I just looked at my weather bug and it says that it is 34 here. I may just bundle up and do some outside walking this morning. I haven't done a 5 miler in a couple or three weeks. That could be fun. I love the introspection time I get when I walk like that.

Today is the Super Bowl. I have to admit, I have not got the usual excitement I do for the game. I am not particularly invested in the game, don't really care who wins. This just isn't a sexy Super Bowl matchup. We are, in theory at least, going to the Hunters and celebrating. We are watching the weather real close to see how that shakes out. The weather folks are saying sleet and snow and they live around 20 miles away, so if the road conditions look too bad, we may be watching at home! I hope not because we bought a huge batch of cupcakes and I would hate to be looking at those for as long as it would take to get rid of them! I hope everyone has a great Super Bowl Sunday and that you enjoy yourself without causing feeling so guilt!! as for me, I will have a hamburger, some sausage balls and maybe possibly a cup cake, but I will definitely be keeping this coming Friday on my mind. I need me to be pulling into One-derland baby, and that train is on the express track!!!

Day 207 I Had "One of Those Days"

I had "one of those days". Now before I expound upon that, I want to make a bet that every person reading this automatically is thinking that I had a bad day, a frustrating day or has somehow assumed that there is a negative connotation to those words I have in quotation marks. One thing I have learned along this long and winding road, you have to learn to redefine things and how your perceive them. For example, I now can look at a plate of food that would have seemed to me to be an intermediate amount of food, and think it is a lot of food now. I can now think about a Burger King Number 1, and think, wow, that is so not good. I can now be 15 minutes into a good jog and think "ok, just 15 more minutes till I am done". These are great things to realize. And that is the basis for my claim that "I had one of those days" in this post. It was one of those days where I can see that all the hardships and difficulties that I endured in the beginning, the going against my "instincts" and changing my eating behaviors, my activity levels, and my attitudes towards both are really starting to show off in spades the huge amount of benefits that come from making the huge changes needed to be successful in this journey we have all taken on. For example, I had a great jog. Seriously, it was so satisfying. Apart from having to do it on the treadmill, it was heavenly. I have been working on jogging on an incline for 2 miles straight, no stopping or turning down the speed or incline. Yesterday, I did it! I went 5 mph on a 4 incline for a full 2 miles!! I also had just a phenomenal eating day. On target all day long. I also had some non-regimented activity by going out and pushing Lauren up and down the big hill in her "sled" which was really a laundry basket. It was fun and certainly not something I could have done 7 months ago. Just saying. I also got to wear my size 34 pants yesterday!! I am shocked that the reality is I could eventually be a size 32!! To keep adding, I also got a second workout in, although at much less intensity, because as I have talked about, I am in major push mode to try to get to One-derland!! I hit a weight loss workout on the treadmill, albeit one of the easier ones, just to make sure I was in a decent calorie deficit for the day. All of these things, everyone of them, were only distant hopes on July 16, 2010. Stuff I dreamed of happening one day, was only marginally confident that I would be able to achieve. Seriously folks, it is all worth it to get to this point! And having "one of those days" also helps me look even further into the future. Like for example, I have lost good deal of weight, that is a know factor to ya'll. but I am having skin pooling issues on my belly. ONe thing I have noticed though is that as I keep jogging and my abs begin to get in better shape, that skin pooling is getting better. In fact, I can barely even get two hand fulls now like I could a month ago. I think what is happening is that as my ab wall tightens, it just keeps pulling my skin up and in with it. Plus I drink tons of water and that keeps your skin more supple, rather than saggy. So now I am dreaming of next year this time, my skin starting to look more normal and the possibility of a shirtless appearance in summer 2012!!!!

Well I have a little girl that is dying to get some snow man making and snow bike riding in today, so I better get off here and see what needs to be done before we get out there and freeze our hineys off.

Day 206 Winter Dreams of Spring and Summer Themes

So it seems that most of the Continental US is having some contact with winter weather this week. And I have to be honest, I am not a fan. I am an Arkansan for those who don't know that already, and this is not my cup o' tea folks. I am used to much milder winters. In fact, I can recall a decade of not ever getting a significant amount of snow during any of those winters. And I was ok with that. So yesterday, I found myself day dreaming at work. I had this vision of me on a State Park trail on a warm spring day, me and my girls headed up a mountain or hanging out by a waterfall with a picnic, and not dreading that I will not have enough energy to finish this hike or be dog tired the rest of the day. Or me and my crew with the Fredrick crew at Beaver Lake camping and swimming and fishing, and me not thinking about the fact that I am the fattest guy around. I also was thinking about me and Kathy and Lauren at Silver Dollar City and me in those amusement park ride lines with nary a thought in my head about will I fit? Quite frankly, I am so looking forward to this summer. So much so that it is often the one thing that keeps me motivated to do winter workouts. I have talked about it before, my talent in life is my vision to realize this moment is temporary, that as much as it may suck right now, it will be over at some point,and I focus on making it to that point. It is how I got through a lot of football practices, it is how I get through a lot of winter treadmill workouts. Just keep focus on the future and off of now. I will realize the benefits of what is sucking right now, in the spring and summer of 2011!!!! I started my journey in July of 2010 and I saw so many benefits before the weather turned cold, but I have imagine that I will be seeing so many more this spring and summer than i could ever imagine. I mean wow, I will be jogging on beautiful park trails, I will be swimming, maybe even with no shirt, in gorgeous lakes. I will be getting to do yard work, without getting winded 5 minutes in. I will get to graduate, and this graduation picture, I will be at least a hundred pounds thinner than in my Associates Degree graduation picture! How fun will that be? Come on spring and summer 2011!!

Day 205 Huh, How Did That Happen?

Man I am going stir crazy! We have been snowed in for two days now. Well a day and a half. We got out last night and drove to town to check on the roads and they look a lot better now. I love that I am going back to work tomorrow! I am not good with days off. I was already going stir crazy by Tuesday afternoon to be honest. I was never more glad to have a treadmill than I was the past two days! I have kept it up my workouts, to the point that I am so sore and worn out that I am glad to have Thursday off for the first time in quite some time. I have really been pushing myself for the last week since my weigh in. I am determined to be either below 200 or so close that the next weigh in is below 200 no matter what!

So our stir craziness and trip to town wound up with us going to eat at our favorite little Mexican restaurant, La Fiesta. We have eaten here many times and we love the place. They serve some comida excellente mis amigos! (Like my bi-lingualism?) But, don't flip out on me thinking I have fallen off the wagon, cause I am about to reveal an NSV that I didn't even realize was an NSV until tonight, even though it has been going on for awhile now. I know that most Mexican restaurants offer their "meals", consisting of an entre, the rice and beans and prolly some guac or pico and some salad with sour cream. I don't order those anymore. It turns out, they have a la carte people! Guess who has ordered a la carte the last 5 or 6 times I have been there? Did you guess yet? Oh,that a be a me!! The last few times I ordered a beef taco and a side of pico de gallo. Last night I went for the fajita quesadilla and a side of pico de gallo. It was delicious and the whole thing I over guesstimated to be around 600 calories! I am also so proud that I have adopted the habit of 5 chips with salsa, rather than mindlessly eating them until the food gets to the table. It is huge for me to know I am there in my journey. I think that if I could share one thing with the people that are just getting started, it would be that although it is hard in the beginning, if you keep your focus, and really start sticking to your guns with the changes you want to make, it no longer is a struggle, it is how you live, and the challenge is taken out of it. I am not a skinny person, in fact, I will always be a fat guy. But I have taken on the habits that us fat guys have admired in skinny people for so long, and that makes me happy. 5 chips and salsa? not a challenge anymore, a habit. Ordering a la carte, just another day. But on the other side of the spectrum? Thanksgiving dinner, man I am stuffed. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Thank you Jesus for all that food. Now back to the regularly scheduled program. As we all know, the Super Bowl is this weekend, and I am going to my friend Jason's house to watch the game and partake in a Super Bowl party which will include sausage balls and grilled hamburgers. And I will not listen to death metal and psyche myself up to "do battle" with my choices. I will go, I will enjoy in moderation, and I will wake up Monday and get right back on the treadmill, make all my usual food choices, and keep on keeping on, just like skinny folks do. So newbies, that is what you have to look forward to if you play this right. You keep climbing that hill, I will see you on the other side, okay?


Okay, this part is an edit added on after I posted above. I realized that I had not updated my ticker on the bottom for my last two weigh ins, so I went ahead and did that right quick like. I like the weight numbers obviously, but holy crap, I just saw my BMI starting and current numbers!! I started at a 45 and am now down to a 31? really? how frikkin' cool is that? I got a bit of an adrenaline rush when I saw that number! Holy smokes I am pumped!

Day 202-204 My Mission.... And I Choose To Take It!

Dang this is getting out of hand folks! My daily blogging has slipped and I have to admit, it is not something I like. I love to blog. Just seems like life keeps getting in the way lately. But to be honest, I am not putting a high enough priority on it either. I could have blogged yesterday but I didn't because I have become kinda complacent. Not in the exercise or eating phases of my journey, but just on the blogging aspect. I have been busier in general in my life, I don't deny that, but still, it takes 15 minutes of my day and I enjoy it, so I need to focus.

So one thing I have not mentioned in my last few blogs, and I have no idea why, is the fact that there is a a growing population of size large shirts and size 34 pants in this household! I have been picking up some tshirts and what not that are reasonably priced here lately. I am falling in love with Old Navy clothes now that i can wear them! It is such a rush to go into a store like that and know I can find something.....wait.... let me rephrase that. I should be able to find something. I have experienced a weird phenomena lately while clothes shopping. I used to be so hopeful that I would be able to find 3X shirts in places like Old Navy, and before this grand and wonderful journey began, I was accusing Wal Mart of being prejudiced against fat people all the sudden because their 3X clothes were becoming harder and harder to find. Now, I have to admit, it is hard to find the large clothes at Wal Mart! I saw a shirt I loved yesterday, thought it was pretty hot looking. it was 8 bucks so I was going to get it! Seriously, two mediums, 4 XL's and even 2 3X's!!! but no larges! dammit Jim! so no new shirt for Shane. But I do have some of those new breathable tshirts from Old Navy that I picked up last week! again, love those things!

I have a mission as the title says. I am, at last weigh in, at 205 pounds. In the past, it has been possible for me to lose as much as 8 pounds, with some good effort on my part, in two weeks. I have committed myself to making real efforts to try to get 6 pounds off before my next weigh in on February 11th. Now, I am realistic that my weight loss has slowed lately as I am in better shape and closer to a normal weight ( not close, just closer!) One thing I have changed up is that I started jogging first thing in the morning at home, rather than walking at Wal Mart before work. Somehow, that translated into me not walking at lunch like i used to, mostly due to sore muscles and partly due to laziness on my part. So I am committed to returning to my lunchtime workouts too. I also have abandoned my initiative to up my calories to 1800 calories a day. For some reason, 1500 calories a day has become my comfort zone. I know it is three hundred more calories, but it seemed I was having to FIND WAYS to get there, and it was not comfortable for me. I have began to be a bit more flexible in terms of if I get to 1600 for the day, I am ok with it, but I refuse to shoot for getting to 1800 if I am not close for the day. I am however a little concerned with a new habit I have formed. I am letting myself get a small snack right before I go to bed, like an 80 calorie cheese stick or maybe a banana or something like that. I would rather not do that. It is too permissive for my comfort. There I talked about it, that should make it a lot easier for me to deal with now! Wait, I got off my train of thought there.... haha. So anyway, I hope to get below 200 pounds on February 11th, but I also realize that it may not happen, so the Plan B in all this is that if I do not get there on the 11th, then I want to be close enough to it that the February 25th weigh in will see Shane in One-derland!!! Now I didn't ever talk about this, but back during my walks in Wal Mart during the mornings, I would often get this premonition that February had a special surprise for me in this journey. Now that the numbers are more clear, I believe that One-derland was what I was channeling! Is that weird sounding?