Yeeeeees!

Been a great couple of days! I haven't nailed the night eating to my satisfaction, but it has improved substantially. I an also getting my groove on in law school.I am no longer feeling overwhelmed and stressed. aaaand my 80 pound back pack is great for my walking around campus twice before class and wearing my whole body out!

Kinda for you, probably more for me

So I have gotten many emails from followers of my blog who are concerned about me and asking to hear from me. I truly am sorry that I have fallen off the face of the earth. Also many have expressed concern. That was not unfounded at all! i have put back on 26 pounds from my low! I am coming back with all hopes that I can get back to gettin' as we say here in the south. I accept full responsibilty for my current set of circumstances. I was not mentally prepared for the craziness of law school and it was really truly gettting to me the first 2 to 3 weeks. and as in days of old, I sought my comfort in food. It is amazing that even though I was staying reasonably active and the food I sought comfort in was much healthier than my old eating habits, I am able to pack on the pounds pretty quickly! I was thinking about that on the way home the other day and I think I may have figured out what that is about. I think I just took off my weight too fast, and now that I am not really restricting my caloric intake so low, my body is like oh crap, lets get some fat back on here in case he does that again. So I am on a new mission. I am going to take those 26 pounds off AGAIN, and this time, rather than shooting for as much weight loss as possible each weigh in, I am going to shoot for 1 pound a week. I will get there by using my head at night, which is STILL my problem, and working out moderately, so that in real life, once I get the weight off, I can keep doing the same things that got it off, and my body won't have a freak out on me. What do ya'll think?

Thanks so much for all the emails. I would list ya'll individually but I am headed out the door for church, so I am once again rushed! Have a great sunday!

I Hate Him/Her and That Guy

We all know them. That friend that "can eat anything and never gain a pound!!" It has made us all mad at some point in time. I think the problem is, we only pay attention to what it is they are eating, and not the lifestyle they are living. When ever I was eating whatever I wanted, I was following that up with several hours of inactivity, more eating whatever I wanted, and you guessed it, more inactivity. What we aren't seeing the person we hate doing is not doing that! Up in the morning, jog for him/her. Home from work, get out in the yard and putter around. Opportunity for some cake, I will have a little, but that is it. I say that because I was that guy this week. I did not have a stellar eating week. It was not bad mind you, but it was not "Shaniac" style eating from earlier this year. And guess what? I have worked out every day but one this week, and I have not eaten after supper every day but two this week, and I lost 1.3 pounds!! See, that is the missing part of the equation we have all not seen in "them" before. Even moderate activity and moderate moderation ( funny sounding huh?) can get you where you want to go, even if it isn't at lightening speed.

Then I was "that guy" again at the park trail this morning. I shouldn't enjoy it as much as I do, but having been the other side, I can't help but smile a little. I was jogging at my favorite park this morning. I kept passing the same people on the 3/4 mile trail, and a fair portion of them were giving me the "look". It was hot and I was sweaty, but I just kept jogging and getting that "look". Haha, it was great! I highly recommend it folks. I really do!

I Had To Be There To Get To Here And Appreciate It

One thing I have come to realize here lately is that different areas of my life have all come together and intertwined rather than staying in their separate compartments. I can honestly say when I step back and survey my present and future and contrast it against my past, I can honestly say I am blessed to excess!! In my past, I was never in any good relationships with women, now I have the perfect wife! In the past I was working in a factory and making eeehhh money and killing myself slowly physically. Now I am a man with a bachelor's degree and headed off to law school, and I think in my heart I have a promising career in law ahead of me. I was well overweight (still not where I should be) but now I am a much thinner and more importantly healthier man. I had a job I hated, regardless of how good I was at it, but now, I have the best boss and a much better outlook on work. I mean looking at all this, how can I not say "Wow, I am loving my life!!" But here is the thing. Cheryl, my boss, made a comment on my Facebook post about her that she has been touched everyday by my "attitude of gratitude". And it dawned on me, I think I do have an attitude of gratitude. But I am not sure that if all the things I have now had not come by hard work and faith that God would bring me these things, I would have appreciated it nearly as much. I think that the journey, as hard as it may be, always makes the destination that much sweeter. It is hard to say that being obese, poor and lonely were blessings, but in reality, I think they were (although I am still technically financially poor). Because if everything had come easy to me, I would have never had the notion that all these new found blessings were such HUGE blessings, I would have just felt entitled. So,yeah, it isn't always about what is waiting on the other side, sometimes, it really is the climb that makes the man or woman.

Freedom

I have often marveled at the fact that I love to run so much now. I have pretty much always attributed it to the endorphin high that comes with pushing yourself further than you think you can go. And I do not discount that theory now, but I think I know what really causes my joy during and after a good run. It is the new found freedom.

As an obese person, you are so limited. Your overweight body is essentially a really small jail cell. Yeah you are mobile, but only in the most basic sense. You dropped that thing you were holding, it is a chore to bend down and get it. You need to get to the other side of that tight squeeze through, you are in fear of getting stuck or breaking whatever it is you are trying to get around. You are in a situation that might require you to scoot away quickly? You KNOW that you can't do that and have to pray for the best. I use to always worry that what if my family's safety depended on my physical prowess? I knew for a fact that apart from God's blessings, I was not going to be handy in that department. That was seriously one of my motivating factors. So yesterday, I was actually walking for exercise, but it turns out oddly enough, the steep hills on my block are easier to run up than to walk up. So I was and this feeling of freedom hit me. I could feel my muscles doing their job and actually was aware of the existence of my abs and obliques and how effortlessly they were moving and twisting!! My legs were almost thanking me for the opportunity to move fast. I had to imagine it was how a person who just spent 20 years in jail feels when that gate closes behind them on release day and they get to take off to wherever they desire! I still to this day am in awe when I sit in a restaurant booth without my belly touching the table, or when I don't walk past that item on the floor, but pick it up immediately, or when I just get up out of my recliner rather than rocking back and forth to get the momentum, and yes, when I RUN. A year ago, these were all just pipe dreams but today, today they are my REALITY!

A Break In The Heat!!

God was kind enough to throw the River Valley a bone yesterday and last night when I got home, it was in the 80's!! Here lately, I have been coming home to 106 degrees every night, and it has kept me penned up inside till about 9 at night! So when I pulled in the drive way, I had these dreams of getting supper over and heading outside for some working! Remember when you were a kid and something big was coming up and the day finally got there? How you were just busting at the seams to get going at whatever it was? I was like that yesterday. Kathy still had supper in the oven at 5:30 when I got home, so I rushed and got changed into clothes for working outside. Well supper was ready by then, so we sat down to eat. We also got Lauren for the night, so we did our bible study too after we ate. I was all ready to get to gettin' outside when Kathy held me up yet again and said she was going to cut my hair while it was cooler too!! By this time I was all sorts of bent out of shape! I told her my hair was fine but she stood her ground and shockingly, she won that round too! So FINALLY I got to head out and do some work and it was great. I got all the brush from the back yard cleaned up and in a pile, I got the picnic table moved back to its spot and the saw horses too. I clean up the messes the dogs and the kids had made in the back yard. I also finally got around to partially detailing my little truck. I have had it back since February and hadn't cleaned it up once, so it was in dire need. I was feeling pretty good about myself by the time I came in and sat down for the night. So cool that rather than constantly putting things off "till later", I am bursting at the seams to get things done nowadays!!

A Big Week!

I have a big week this week! I am finally a law student for real! In law school, you don't pick your classes the first year, they pick them for you and auto enroll you in the classes. I finally got enrolled yesterday and I am super uber excited! But even better than that, I have an anniversary tomorrow! Kathy has officially put up with me for 4 wonderful, beautiful, crazy years come tomorrow! I love her and can't believe she would do that, so I am going to cherish her even more tomorrow. And lastly, on Sunday, July 17th, it has been exactly a year since I took up arms and began to fight the battle with my fat butt!! I am excited that a year in, I have lost at least 87 pounds. Realistically, I would like to be back at 196 for my anniversary, but since that won't happen, I am going to be realistic in that 87 pounds gone is a huge deal!! I don't have to hide from a camera anymore, I don't wince every time I see myself in a mirror with no shirt on, I don't scope out restaurant booths for the one with the most room between the table and the seat,I don't sit down in a chair at another persons house and wonder if I may break it, I don't avoid bending over like the plague, I don't eat mindlessly for days on end and sit behind this computer screen for hours on end. I do wake up early every morning and get some coffee in me and then do some sort of exercise, whether cardio or weight training, I do have a new filter with regard to how much food is too much, I do have MUUUUCH better eating habits, to the point even when I am snacking too much, the quality of snacks far exceeds the quality of my old snacks! I have so much to be thankful for. I attribute it all to the fact that I asked God to show me the way, to put the desire in my heart to lose weight and get healthy because my family deserves the best me they can get and needs me to live a loooong time to take care of them. He answered my prayer and showed me Sean's blog. I took up blogging and dieting in earnest and look at me now!! Thank you Lord for all that you have done and thank you blogging world for helping Him out all these months by encouraging and inspiring me!