Don't even think about it!

An epiphany hit me on the treadmill today. The reason for the thought that brought on the epiphany is that I went off my beaten path yesterday. I was feeling poorly healthwise, just didn't have any getty-up-go on me. I had been well on plan for the three days prior and this week I have stepped up my working out since I am in week 3. I started thinking maybe I am just running low on fuel, since burning fat is not an efficient process. Maybe I just didn't have enough to keep me going. So I went ahead and took the reins off for lunch and had a half dozen tacos. Well that is pretty much always a terrible idea for me, letting go that it. I can rationalize anything like I said a few days ago. well after that I did start feeling a bit more energetic, so then I had some cereal too and then I really perked up. Finally, at Life Group last night, I just went with the flow and had a couple of plates AND some pie!

I know for sure that all of ya'll will get this next line. So since I screwed up the plan last night, and came to my senses this morning, my first thought was "ok, let's counter yesterday's idiocy with some under eating today! That should even things out! Makes sense right? Wroooooong!! So as I am running and trying to keep myself from thinking about how tired I am, it dawns on me. It is all about habits and routines. If I want to eat consistently well, then I need to eat consistently period. So now if you decided to that retribution for yesterday's sins is in order for today, not only have you not stuck to the good eating habits and routines for one day, now you have gone off habit and routine for two days for trying to under eat to counter the over eating! Duuuuuur! Not only that, if you fail to stick to that plan for the day, you have set yourself up for two days of failure in a row, and a huge hit to your resolve is sure to follow.

So although yesterday was not disaster, it was a step off the path for me. But, if the path is where I want to be, my job is to practice being on the path each day. So although my instinct is to try to eat less today to even out, I am going to stick to my guns and eat on plan, putting yesterday's transgression back in the box for yesterday. Each 24 hour cycle is separate from each other. Don't worry about yesterday, it happened. Work on today. Make it a good day. Make that habit and routine stick TODAY. String enough of those good days together and you can't help but have success! But don't try to go retroactive on any yesterday, ever.

So I am back to concentrating on my goals for TODAY. Yesterday is powerless over me. Today, I will succeed.

Success!

Well if today is any measure, the steps I talked about yesterday to make sure I am not going to fall into rationalization mode are going to be successful. The only one I failed on was getting something to eat before I went to work out this morning. I even got up late and still made it to the gym in my window! Lauren played a big part in the success of the morning. She was willing to work with me and get her hind end up before I left. And I stopped after my workout and got us a garage door clicker, and have already programmed it to work with our garage door opener! God is good, amen! I know it is my job to do the stuff, but He sure helps motivate me when I am lacking in ability or slacking in general!

I am also very thankful for my LiveStrong food tracking app on my iPod. I used to write everything down manually and had to Google my food calories all day. This app lets me search all that stuff out and track it in a convenient one stop shop. It also takes the math function out of it, telling me how many calories I have left for the day. I also like the fact I can track my activity for the day and see about how many calories I burned. My big thing is to create a calorie deficit every 24 hour cycle. This app makes it so much easier to handle all the information for doing that in one fell swoop!

How are ya'll using technology to achieve your goals?

Our old friend, Rationalization

Good fine day to my bloggy friends. I am riding an endorphin high this morning. School starts back in a week and so this week, one of my goals is to get in the habit of getting around in the morning so that I can get Lauren up and started and then get out the door to the gym so I can get a work out in, get home and showered and then get out the door for my first class of the day on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. I don't have to be in class until 11 on those days, so my goal is to get up at 5, coffee made and drank by 5:45, then get Lauren started on waking up and getting out of bed. My goal is out the door no later than 6:15. Get to the gym by 6:30. Weights lifted, running/biking/whatever cardio I feel necessary that day done by 7:45, back to the house by 8 and showered and out the door to Fayetteville by 9 is the goal.

All this is doable, but I need to take steps to make it happen as seamlessly as possible. Why you ask? Because I am the king of rationalization. If I want to find a way to not do something, I can attach a very convincing argument as to why it is impossible for me to do the necessary activity in a second! I am working on that, but until I am better at it, I am taking some steps to try to cut my old buddy rationalization off at the pass.

1. I am getting Lauren an alarm clock. a real alarm clock, not the joke of an alarm clock she has that stops going off after 1 minute and isn't loud enough to annoy you out of bed EVER. I am going to set it for 5:45 and when it goes off, I will go assist it at first. But once I get Lauren coherent enough to realize she needs to be getting around, I need to jet.

2. I am going to make a new habit of laying out the clothes I will be wearing to the gym and to school the night before. This will take 10 minutes off my morning almost immediately.

3. We recently got our garage door fixed and it works splendidly! However, now the remotes do not. Add to that that I have a great deal of fitness equipment I am not using in the garage and I have a cramped garage area. I mention this because part of my plan to stay on track is that I want to use my garage for what it was meant, to park cars in! It is the winter and that means the very real possibility of frost on the windows in the morning. If I was to have a vehicle parked in the garage, as well as a garage door remote, well then I would save myself the time I would need to get a car ready to go first thing in the morning since it is warm and frost free right from the start.

4. I think I need to find something easy to reheat and chow down on before I head to the gym. My new found and awesome habit of not eating after supper is great, but it makes me wake up HONGRY!! in the morning. I need something to make my belly not be griping at me, but also that will not get me acidy in the morning. This will be a work in progress I am sure for sometime.

5. A little help from the Big Guy upstairs is being requested to help me keep a good attitude about my soon to be busy schedule again. One of the things I think about regularly when I am busy and going 100 mph is all the days I was sitting in my 1 bedroom apartment, watching tv, surfing the net and wishing I had a life. I credit my loneliness and lack of a life with making me so dang fat to begin with. Eating was the one joy I had and I developed an unhealthy relationship wit food because of my non hectic schedule. So this crazy life is by far better than the old one! I just have to keep remembering that God has blessed me with a wonderful family and many great opportunities that requre a lot of hard work and perserverance, but in the end I will be able to glorify His name with the opportunities these tasks will afford me!

Sorry this blog is a bit less rah rah than usual. I wanted to get these thought down in black and white and make them real so that I take positive steps to make them happen. That is another lesson I learn. Thoughts and wants are just arbitrary until they are written down, then they become real and that usually motivates us to do something about them. Why do you think list making is such an effective tool?

Hope everybody has a great day!

As Promised....

As I said I would, here is the link to my wife Kathy's new weight loss blog. Please follow her and encourage her along in her journey!

http://kathy-one-day.blogspot.com/

That Sucked

Had such a great day yesterday. Ran a 5k AND went to the gym after that, kept my calories down, felt good all day. I even was good after supper, with no urge to snack. But then..... I fell asleep on the couch watching the debates. I had a bit of a nagging hunger when I woke up. It was around 10ish. If I was a smart man, I would have hightailed it to bed, but I am not sure I have a brain in my head to be honest. I decided that I was going to have a quick peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk, which opened that door. I then had another pb sandwich and a glass of milk, then a fiber bar, then a couple of pieces of lunch meat and a slice of cheese! Not a huge binge I know, but still! So that happened and it sucked. But today, I will learn from that. Today I will stay on course, today I will do the right thing. The idea in all this is that for 5 of 7 days, I did not eat after supper. That is a 70% success rate. Now this week, I shoot for 100% success rate.

So on to more positive stuff. I am big on realizing you are blessed. The problem most people have with that is that people only consider blessings the big things in life. I got me a new car! I am so blessed. I just graduated and got a new job! I am so blessed. You get the picture. The thing is, those big blessings are few and far between. So that leaves room for getting down on yourself or on relationships or the world. I personally have come to find that if you are thankful for the small things, you don't really have that problem. For example, the whole episode that made me think about this topic was that I went to visit my mom for a few minutes early this morning. Well as I said before, I ran a 5k that I only had a week to prepare for yesterday. I had some very tired legs after that, and fully expected to be sore as all get out today. Well, on the walk back, I couldn't help but notice that I was not only not sore, but I was walking with exceptional ease and fluidity. At the outset of all this bidness, I had trouble walking around the block once. Now, even after running a race the day before that was 3 miles and I was not really trained for, I still can walk easily! That is so huge to me. I remember how embarassed I was the first time I decided to walk the block and couldn't even make a second lap because my back and legs were too tired. Now, look at me!

I urge each of you to adopt this habit. Don't just focus on big stuff as being your blessings. If you are lucky enough to catch a green light that you figured you woudn't, realize that is blessing. If you have a non-hectic day at work, realize that is a blessing. If you have a family get together and not one cross word is spoken, blessing. Blessings are all around us, we just have to see them.

Yeeeaaaah Baby!

I am pretty pumped. I ran my 5k this morning and I didn't suck. I ran one in November and my time was 33 minutes and change. Today, 31 minutes and less change. I only got to train for one week, so I am not gonna get mad at myself. i am working back to the 20's baby!

I am also going all high tech on my calorie tracking. LiveStrong has a great app that has a big database for calorie values and calories burned values for your activities. I have been doing a good job since I started tracking again. It really makes you think everytime you put food in your mouth for sure.

So I guess the point in this post is to say, I am back! Watch out 2012, I see a lower 5k time, a likely 10k and a possible 1/2 marathon in my future! I also see a scale number of 190 or who knows, maybe lower! It's on!

Oh by the way, Kathy started her a blog! I am so excited! She has a friend that has lost 135 pounds and part of her process was blogging, so Kathy's ears perked up. Looking forward to seeing her progess! I will try to find the link to it and put it on here next post. See ya'll.

I'll Do It Later

So many things got the "I'll do it later" from me when I was 300+ lbs. Everything from the piece of paper I walked by in the floor to the trip I needed to take out to my truck to get something I needed from it to, and this one was most important, losing weight. When you are severely overweight, it is a chore to do everything! Seriously. If it weren't for the addiction to eating, I would have put off getting up to go to the kitchen for overeating! I have put some weight back on, to be specific, 38 pounds worth of weight from my lowest weight. I am not proud of it, I am not happy with myself, but most importantly, I am not defeated. This weight loss journey is something I am strapped with for the rest of my life. Partially because I am genetically challenged, but I think moreso because I let my body think it was ok to be so fat, that is its norm. So even though I have not been eating anything like I used to eat before I began this journey, my body did not learn that it was ok to be skinny. when the exercise stopped happening and the strict dieting laxed, my body began to make fat again. I have not done any research about this recently, but it seems I read somewhere that you are born with X amount of fat cells, but if you become obese, then your body creates more fat cells for storage of exess fat. Those cells never go away and are looking to be as full as they once were again. I could be mistaken, if I am someone correct me. But I think that is the challenge I face. I will always for the rest of my life have to battle with those fat cells seeking to be refilled.

One thing mentally that is getting to me is that I swore when I got to Onederland, I would never leave again. I let myself down on that oath, big time. But I am not beating myself up. ONe thing in life I have learned in my almost 40 years is that the most valuable learning comes from failure. I am moving forward and setting a goal, which is one of the things I think knocked me off track was not having a set goal. I am looking to get to 190 this year. HOwever, my approach will be different than before. I am not going to seek to race to 190, but rather I am going to practice new habits that are maintainable without exerting too much pressure on me. I don't necessarily need to run 3 miles everyday, I don't necessarily need to restrict my calorie intake to 1,500 a day, I don't necessarily need to lose 2 pounds a week. In fact, all those things may have been part of the reason I am gaining back so easily. I theoririze that my body reacted to such dramatic weight loss as tragic, and once I loosened my grip on all those things, started trying to get back to status quo from the past. so this time around, no excessive exercise, no excessive calorie restriction ( but yes I will limit caloric intake ya'll) and if I go a week with a 1/2 pound loss, then so be it. I am also adding weight training, so that I can have an active day without running. All these plans together should help me become a Onederlander again sometime this year.

So come on blog land. Join me in 2012 and let's get to gettin'!! I will see you in ONderland by December!!

2012 is rolling!

Yeah we are 5 days in to 2012, but it has been a great 5 days! I have ate well and exercised well on all 5 days. I am pretty happy with myself at the moment. I am running a 5k this Saturday that I am worried I will not do well in. I got sick the last week of 2011 and did not get myself in good running shape. I had some weird sinus thing that wound up making me have to get a shot that cost $168 and a high powered antibiotic and a thing I stick in my nose and squirt to get my sinus cavities all cleared. So when I was trying to run, I would literally feel like I was going to faceplant the whole time. So I have been trying to ramp up my running a litle at a time this week and not being too happy with my endurance. My plan for the week was to do good cardio Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and go light today, then take tommorrow off to rest my legs. I got to the gym today and I honestly and truly had every intention of walking on the treadmill. And I did start off walking. But there is just some weird thing in me now. If I am not walking with Kathy, I can't just walk for exercise anymore. I HAVE to run. It is not even optional now. So I said ok, I will run for a mile. Well the mile got there, and I was feeling pretty good, so I said ok, I will finish this song running. And the song finished and I was at like 1. 88 miles. So I said ok, how about I get up to 2 miles then stop. Then two miles came and there was a good song on that had me all pumped up, so I said ok after this song. But then it was 2.3 miles I had gone, so I said it would be stupid not to get to 2.5 miles since I am so close. Long story short, this trend kept up until I hit the 3 mile mark. I have to admit, I am in awe of how much different my mind set is now than it was on July 17, 2010. I would have used every excuse I could to get off that treadmill then, and today, I used every excuse I could to stay on it! That is good good stuff folks.

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year Bloggers! I am being forced to write this blog by my friend Carrie! I was commenting on the wagon I fell off of and talking about how I have been working out this year and have not had an evening snacking problem (Praise the Lord!) since the new year began. I am also trying to boot my Diet Moutain Dew addiction too. I was on day 3 until I asked my wife to get me one on the way home tonight! But between evening snacking and diet soda, I will take the latter.

I am excited that I have a gym memebership now! I love to show up and work out and the thing that makes me go is that there are other folks there, and I am a competitive person! I am sticking to my plan to take the weight I have gained back off slowly and make more manageable and maintainable habit changes. I am not only running now but I have been lifting weights as well so that should make at least some difference. I look forward to seeing what this year brings, starting with my first weigh in this Friday!

I also got a Ninja for Christmas, so I am learning to make smoothies, or at least I tried to today. I have some more work to do, but if it could save me 3.50 a trip to the gym, then that would be a good thing, I am pretty sure.

Hope everyone had a great NYE and is off to a roaring start for 2012.