What Do You Do Well?

No matter who you are, there is something that you do well, in at least one aspect of your life if not many aspects of your life. For example, I have the ability to see beyond the here and now when I am on a journey to get somewhere. All the years I spent in school, it would have been very easy to make the excuses, like I am too old, I can't be a husband, father, full time employee and a full time student. What I chose to do instead was to steel my jaw, and I would get my degree plan out every couple of weeks and note all the check marks I had made when I completed the courses. Just seeing that I was making progress helped me see the bigger picture; that one day I would have them all checked off. Along the same vein, I am able to produce a second wind in those journeys because I always without fail divide any task into two halves. I work my butt off in the first half to get to the halfway point, then I rejoice in my second wind while working my butt of in the second half, because I am over halfway done!

With that in mind, I am starting anew in my weight loss journey. And using the what do I do well question led me to come up with a plan to get me going, keeping in mind that one of my other talents is adapt and overcome when plan A isn't going as well as hoped. I am good at making plans that have structure and definitiveness. That is why I was so successful in my last bid to lose weight. I took time each morning to say "today, I do X." So each morning, or even the night before, I am going to plan for the next day. INcluding what exercise activity I am going to do, and what my calorie goal will be for that day.

I am also going to use visual aids (think degree plan example above) this time, though very basic. I have a yellow legal tablet that is the master copy of my daily calorie count, listing all my food and its caloric value with a tally at the end. I have a white dry erase board that I am filling out each day. Which leads me to the next aspect of my plan. I am now going to be dieting in 10 day increments. See above my I can do anything to half way, and get a second wind at the halfway point. I am on day 5 of the current block of dieting days, and as promised, I am excited to work my butt off being successful for the second half of the stint. My definitive goal is to always stay under 2,000 net calories for the day. At the end of the day, after my evening snack, I tally up my calorie count and write it on the board for that day, so that when I start the next day's board, I can see that I succeeded the day before, and it motivates me for the rest of the day.

That is pretty much it for now. I may add some stuff and I may subtract some stuff along the way, but at least I am being INTENTIONAL in my weight loss effort, rather than ABSTRACT.

The Inner Turmoil/ How Do I Make This Time A Happy Ending?

I come to you today completely aggravated, disgusted, sad, defeated and any number of negative emotions. I am in another stop and start and stop cycle in my efforts to regain that fire in my belly (no pun intended) to get myself back on track to lower weight and better health. It is possible I am over-thinking it, but I set out this time trying to do something different. I am sure we have all heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. When I decided to fire up this time, I thought to myself " I put a lot of energy and time and effort into the 100 pound loss. When I hit 196, I just decided I needed a break from all the effort." I also debated the point that maybe losing 100 pounds in 10-11 months was too quick and that made it easier to put it back on.

With all that in mind, my thought process was to put a little less emphasis on number crunching, and to try to take off the weight a little slower than last time. I also decided to not use a scale to track progress, but to pick out clothes and use them as goals to reach. It seemed like was doing a pretty good job for awhile. But I stand here today, having to admit that the lack of structure may not have been the best way to get me going. I have once again began an inner debate about going back to being OCD on calories and exercise. But history tells us that hasn't worked out.
So the ultimate question winds up being, what do I need to do to be successful? Can I make the OCD route work by just being mindful of where I am and how to get either to the next checkpoint, and when the goal is reached, to stay there?

Any thoughts on this ?

The Belt Notch Story

Probably one of my favorite stories of all my weight loss stories. I think we can all relate to the belt struggles. When your current belt notch isn't quite fitting, as in too loose. But the next notch is pushing it for too tight. So you are stuck in between. I had that issue a couple of weeks ago. At some point I just gave up and went to the next notch and dealt with the "too tight" problems. Friday was a crazy morning. I had cranky kids, it was cold, and I had court to get to an needed to look over my files before I left for court. So I am walking in the back door of the office and I realize my pants are starting to slide down. I immediately thought "crap, I put my belt in the wrong notch." Guess what. I did not! I have to admit I have been living on that rush for the past couple of day.

On the running front, I still haven't gotten my speed up to where I want to be. But I have gotten my average minutes per mile down significantly over the past two weeks! And I managed to up my distance in 30 minutes (obviously the two are related but I wanted to say both... haha) I am hoping that before the end of the Run for God Couch to 5K, I am actually running a competitive 5k time!!

One loss, One win

With the holiday season upon us, I was reminded of one demon that I had yet to address since I have been back on track. The Free Food Demon!! I went to the courthouse the other night to watch the returns and kinda hobknob with my local folks. The circuit clerk's office had put out quite a spread for the event! And despite the fact I had just come from supper, guess who partook of the food anyway. Not saying I stuffed myself like a turkey, but in reality, I probably should have just bypassed it all together. But the rationalist/"economist" in us always says "but it is FREE FOOD!" So now comes the prayers for help to defeat that particular demon.

On to the wins category. Remember that goal shirt that I have probably made everybody sick of hearing about. I am wearing it right now. That's right, goal shirt #1 is now in the wardrobe rotation!! I also picked out goal shirt #2 this morning. And in order to celebrate? Not a trip to Furrs, but a run up in Mike Myers Park!! 'cause that is how I roll!

Kick the Ice or Pick It Up?

Had what I would call a dumb epiphone. I was getting ice out of the ice maker the other day. As often happens, a piece of ice made a break for freedom. now here was the whoa moment. I bent down and picked it up I mediately. Historically, I would have taken a second to debate "pick it up or kick it under the refrigerator?" On this day, I realized I had become a "pick it up" guy!! I like that guy!

Exorcising A Buffet Demon

Oh that heaven we know as a buffet bar! Remember all those days of just getting giddy when you pulled into your favorite buffet (for me it was chinese buffets and pizza buffets) cause you knew it was fixin' to be ON!! I don't have to cook it, I don't have to pick one thing only, and they just keep bringing out your favorite dishes!! Aaaaahh.

I have recently been trying to get a handle on my eating by just being aware of the dangers ahead of time, and most importantly, praying that Jesus remind me He is by my side to push me out of the way of danger zones! So about three weeks ago, I told my daughter to choose where she wanted to eat and as always she chose our favorite local chinese restaurant, Vincents. I am the guy who never actually piles my food up on a plate, because of all things, I don't like my things to touch on my plate. Figure that one out. So my plates never have a lot of food on them. I just used to get 4-5 plates. I am proud to announce that on that day, I got one. Flash forward to yesterday. My buddy Jeff whom I have been running with lately, pops his head in my office and says come to lunch with me. I said sure. We wind up at the 2nd best local pizza buffet. Know what I did? I had a plate with a salad and then a plate with 2 slices of pepperoni pizza (smaller slices at that). I walked out from a potentially dangerous situation with my head held high and my heart thankful. I never really felt any urge yesterday to throw caution to the wind and just get after that buffet. That old familiar tug just wasn't there. And I even had a good rationalization available to me. We were going on a run in a couple of hours, I could have just called it carb loading.

I am thinking my buffet demon is exorcised. I know my snack demon is up against the ropes too. I am consistently eating fruit and carrots with hummus as my snack now. And sometimes not even that. Slowly but surely, I seem to be transforming rather than modifying.

Sooooo Close!!

I been saying soooooo close here lately. I tried on my goal shirt this past Friday. Soooooo close to fitting like I want it to. I made it a goal to get my running intervals to a 5 mph average. I am averaging 12:30 a mile on the run intervals, so I am sooooo close. I vowed to be a smart eater all three days of our Texas trip. I had too much shrimp on Saturday night. I was sooooo close.

The best part is, I was also soooooo far away. Soooo far away from what all of that would have looked like 6 months ago. I didn't even have a real goal regarding getting into smaller clothes. I wasn't running but maybe once or twice a month. And I wasn't putting any REAL effort into curbing my bad eating habits. All of those were on my mind, but none of them were in my life! So long story short, being so close was not a loss, but a major major win!!

Far too often, I think that we set out with goals, and if we don't meet them exactly, we only focus on the fact that we didn't get to the finish line like we wanted to. But in reality, if you shot for 5 pounds lost in a month, but only lost 3, so frikkin' what? You lost 3 pounds dude/dudette! It is 3 pounds less than you weighed last month! It is progress. Learn to celebrate, not deflate!!

I am now resetting my goals to the exact same thing, just giving myself two weeks to get them accomplished. And if in two weeks, I am still a little off on the shirt, as long as it is a bit looser than it was Friday, sweet! If I am averaging 12:15 a mile on run intervals, awesome. I moved forward and will be soooooo close to the end goal.