Monday, January 29, 2007

Thinking Positive!


This blog thing!!! Man it has put some pressure eon me!

I have been a little Leary of writing, as you may have noticed, because I am really falling behind these days.

I am set at 404 lbs right now. That is a little better than the 425 I was a few weeks ago, but it is still taking years off of my life.

I have been going to therapy and discussing my weight. I have decided a few things I am putting into practice on the mental side. I am mentally tough, but I am also hard-headed.

After discussion with my wonderful therapist, Julie, I am going to take a pro-active approach to myself mentally and try and use positive imagery to get where I want to be.

This is going to replace a little of my “humor” side. Not is a bad way. I will still be funny as all get out, at least to me, but I am going to try and put ME in a more positive light.

I am going to change the name of this blog. I AM NOT CHANGING THE WEB DDRESS. I am going to change the name and I am looking for suggestions.

Here is what I have so far from friends I have told about this:

Tri-ing to be slim
Tri-ing to be healthy (boring)
Tri-ing to shrink that ass skinny man (not bad, but I would use butt!)

So there are a few. Please post comments of a new blog title you would like to see. If I use YOUR new blog name, I will send you a $50 gift certificate to Whole Foods Grocery or another healthy organic food store in your area. So put your first name and email so I can get in touch to send your winnings!

I want to thank my friend Rocketboy for not giving up on me.

I will beat this thing.

Monday, January 08, 2007

Find the good in everything!


Being sick has very few advantages . . .

As a child being sick had several advantages, staying home from school. That was a pretty good one. The teacher would send my homework home with my Dad (He was a teacher at my school when I was young), I would do it that night, in bed, with full pampering by my mom. Lay on the couch watching TV. I did miss my friends when I would find myself out sick and the worst part was when I was feeling better. See, I was a VERY active child and when I was feeling the slightest bit better I wanted to be out tearing up the neighborhood.

Today, not so many advantages. I miss work, but that only causes more work. I stay home, but no TV, I spend time doing work I can do from home. I play on the internet a little, but not as much fun when you are hacking up your mornings breakfast.

I find that as an adult, I don’t take a break when I BEGIN feeling sick. I wait until I am foaming at the mouth speaking in tongues sick! By then it is too late to do anything but, be sick, as I have been for about 8 days.

There are no advantages to being sick as an adult. I have found none. None that is, until today, but it in itself isn’t really an advantage.

When you’re an adult and sick the world doesn’t revolve around you as it did when we were kids. Grandma doesn’t drive over and stay the day with you while Mom and Dad are at work, or you don’t get the noodle soup prepared with tender loving hands, or the kiss on the forehead as the covers are being tucked in around your tiny body. No. None of that!

It is a dog eat dog world when you’re a sick adult. You fend for yourself. You’re lucky to get much empathy from anyone when you’re sick. I was couching up a lung as a client (who I love to death) was calling me a on my cell about selling his stock. He did wish me luck in feeling better after I took care of it for him.

However, the one advantage . . . Wait semi-advantage of being sick is the scale.

Now, I have been focusing on my diet and portions as well as NO FAST FOOD OR FRIED FOODS since I had a horrible experience on the scale before Christmas. It was a miserable finding and I felt lost in this new life I am creating. I weighed in at a whopping 423 lbs. The highest I have ever weighed in my life. Over 60 lbs more than I had weighed on October 22, the last time I recorded my weight.

I was dismal and depressed. I got back on the wagon and took the advice of a few friends and began daily goal setting. It has worked out well for me and it has helped me focus on the here and now more than a year out.

Then I became ill. I couldn’t eat, what I did eat didn’t always stay with me and I have been absolutely miserable, until this morning.
I woke, showered and decided to get on the scale.

397.5 lbs!

I realize I have lost some muscle weight by not doing ANYTHING over the past almost three weeks, but hey, I ain’t complaining.

Don’t worry, I am not going to stay sick to lose more weight. But if there was one advantage of this crud I have in my system right now, it is the fact that I have lost 25 lbs. over the past three weeks.

I contribute a portion of it to my daily focus and some to my sickness.

The good news is, I am back on the right track and NOW . . . NOW . . . NOW . . . I only have 50 more pounds to lose before I get to the weight I want to be for my Half Ironman in May!!!!!

Oh, I am also ready to be healthy again, this sick thing is for the birds. I am going to the doctor Monday. Maybe a shot in the rear-end will get me started!

Until next time, train hard and smart and move. Don’t sit around, move!

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

New Yers Resolution


Ask yourself this question; what is a resolution for 2007 I can set for myself, that I feel confident I can follow through with?

One more time.

What is a resolution for 2007 I can set for myself, that I feel confident I can follow through with?

Why do we set such un-attainable goals as our official New Years resolution?

“This year I will quit smoking!” said my uncle. His wife jokingly reminded him that he was still on that resolution from 1989.

I do it too. I set these high asp rational goals each year only to look back with slight guilt when I have failed . . . On January 3rd!

Here is how Wikipedia defines “New Years Resolution”

A New Year's resolution is a commitment that an individual makes to a project or a habit, often a lifestyle change that is generally interpreted as advantageous. The name comes from the fact that these commitments normally go into effect on New Year's Day and remain until the set goal has been achieved, although many resolutions go unachieved and are often broken fairly shortly after they are set.

Isn’t it ironic that even the definition states that many resolutions go unachieved and are often broken fairly shortly after they are set! It is in the darn definition! I assume, which I hate to do, that it s ok to set an unattainable goal since you know it is ok to not accomplish it?

Then why do we do it?

I personally think we do it with the best intentions and the worst intent. I also think we have to set a resolution and we know for sure that we will be asked numerous times “what is your new years resolution?”, therefore, WITH our best intentions we put forth a lofty goal which we have designed no intent of how to follow through.

Am I ruining the “New Years Resolution” feeling for you? Sorry if I am, that is not my intent, read on!

Let us lighten it up a bit here and look at the history of the “New Year Resolution” from Wikipedia.

The tradition of the New Year's Resolutions goes all the way back to 153 BC. Janus, a mythical king of early Rome was placed at the head of the calendar. (Source: "How to Achieve Your New Years Resolutions", GoalsGuy, ?. Retrieved on ?.)
With two faces, Janus could look back on past events and forward to the future. Janus became the ancient symbol for resolutions and many Romans looked for forgiveness from their enemies and also exchanged gifts before the beginning of each year.
The New Year has not always begun on January 1, and it doesn't begin on that date everywhere today. It begins on that date only for cultures that use a 365-day solar calendar. January 1 became the beginning of the New Year in 46 B.C., when Julius Caesar developed a calendar that would more accurately reflect the seasons than previous calendars had.
The Romans named the first month of the year after Janus, the god of beginnings and the guardian of doors and entrances. He was always depicted with two faces, one on the front of his head and one on the back. Thus he could look backward and forward at the same time. At midnight on December 31, the Romans imagined Janus looking back at the old year and forward to the new. The Romans began a tradition of exchanging gifts on New Year's Eve by giving one another branches from sacred trees for good fortune. Later, nuts or coins imprinted with the god Janus became more common New Year's gifts.
In the Middle Ages, Christians changed New Year's Day to December 25, the birth of Jesus. Then they changed it to March 25, a holiday called the Annunciation. In the sixteenth century, Pope Gregory XIII revised the Julian calendar, and the celebration of the New Year was returned to January 1.
The Julian and Gregorian calendars are solar calendars. Some cultures have lunar calendars, however. A year in a lunar calendar is less than 365 days because the months are based on the phases of the moon. The Chinese use a lunar calendar. Their new year begins at the time of the first full moon after the sun enters Aquarius--sometime between January 19 and February 21.
Although the date for New Year's Day is not the same in every culture, it is always a time for celebration and for customs to ensure good luck in the coming year.
All of that is quite interesting, but there is one paragraph that sets the tone for my resolution this year. Go back, if you will and read paragraph two, specifically the second and last sentence.
Forgiveness and exchange of gifts.




Now, I am not attempting to provide Hallmark with yet another major card giving holiday here, but I am suggesting that possibly this year we all take note of the doings of the Romans in 153 BC. Who knows if they were able to follow through with this act of goodness? On January 2, 154 BC there could have been the largest slaughter of a civilization at the hands of the Romans, but my point is that the intent is awesome!



It seems to me that the intent was goodness.



I want to stretch it to kindness, but I feel confident that the intent was at minimal, goodness. How difficult is it to be “good” to one another? Start fresh, put the past in the past. I am not saying be naïve and allow bad to come to you out of your kindness, but I am asking you this . . . Are you benefiting at all, in any way, even in the slightest, by not being good to EVERYONE you come into contact with on a daily basis?




I submit the answer is, no.



There is a commercial out right now. I don’t even know who the ad is for, but the theme is awesome. A guy is walking in a busy downtown area, a woman drops a baby’s toy out of the stroller and doesn’t notice it, the guy picks it up and puts it back in the stroller. Another guys sees this act of goodness and later in the day, lets a car pull in front of him at a horrendously busy intersection, another person sees this act of goodness, and she later pushes a guy out of harms way when a crate is about to fall on him, and another guy notices this, etc, etc. By the end of the commercial the first guy who picked up the child’s toy is pushing his own child down a sidewalk and a toy falls out of his child’s stroller and he doesn’t notice until a man picks it up and hands it to him.



OK, Chris, you’re talking about a commercial, and ad, trying to sell us something.
I say I am trying to sell you something. Be good to people this year. Not good, but EXTRA GOOD. Accept people for who they are, not their skin color, their hair color, the clothes they wear, or the size that they are. Find a way to go out of your way to be good to people for as long as you can this year and see how it affects you. You might be surprised.



If you really want to stretch it . . . Try being kind to everyone you come into contact with on a daily basis. How easy will that be to follow through on? Maybe not so easy. We all have our bad days, BUT if we remember our New Years Resolution and find a way to charge through our yuck in our own life, maybe we will brighten someone else’s day and in return they will brighten another individual’s day! Then our New Years Resolution has not only been “good” for us, but it has brought a positive light into other individuals year as well.



Do this. Write it down. Put it on your desk, tape it on your bathroom mirror, on your refrigerator:



Janus became the ancient symbol for resolutions and many Romans looked for forgiveness from their enemies and also exchanged gifts before the beginning of each year ~ And today I will be good to everyone I come into contact with, forgiving them and giving them my gift of kindness.

It will come back to you.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

01-01-2007

01-01-2007

I did well today, to a point.

I didn’t exercise at all. Not so good.

I ate VERY well and I finished my last meal at 5:30pm AND DIDN’T EAT AGAIN!

Woo Hoo!

01-02-2007

No Fried Foods, No Fast Food.

Finish last meal before 8:00pm.

Swim masters with Rocketboy tomorrow eve.