Under 100 Days to the Election. This is About to Get Real.

Last week did not bring a large amount of weight loss. Actually, last week came with the gain of one pound. Its not like I don’t have excuses. I know you don’t want to hear them, but I practiced them, so you have to read them: It was Kim’s birthday week. We bought a cake. I cooked a big birthday dinner. We had friends over for a whiskey tasting. It was national tequila day. We spent a day on the lake. Last week had days that ended in y. I have more, but you get the idea.

I have over 100 pounds I need to lose…again. That is really defeating to say. I have done it four times in my life. Once in high school. After the end of football season my senior year I decided to just kill it. I hardly ate and I worked out all the time. By the time graduation rolled around I was almost half the person I started out as that year. The second time was the year Kim and I got married. I could not let her look better than me in the wedding pics! She still did, but I was at a decent weight. The third time was when I started this blog in 2006. I decided I wanted to run a marathon, so I lost 145 pounds or so (380 to 235)  ran a couple of marathons and did a couple triathlons. Most recently, I worked with a doctor in Arkansas and lost about 110 pounds back in 2014. I was able to keep it off the longest, but it came back. Not as high, but still unhealthy.

I mentioned last week, I was reading a book by Dr. Nick Yphantides. It chronicles his journey of going from 467 pounds to his ideal weight over a baseball season, Seriously, he quit his job, bought a van and went to every major league park over an entire baseball season drinking only protein shakes to lose weight. What is so interesting about his story, is that he has kept the weight off ever since, we are talking almost 20 years. He admits he had to do something drastic to stay engaged because he had so much to lose, but he also started formulating the plan to keep it off from the very start. Do you know studies suggest that only 5 to 10% of people who lose over a 100 pounds keep it off for more than a year!

I can’t quit my job and I could not see a baseball game right now if I wanted to. However, I do have a doctor friend to help make sure I don’t kill myself and I can stop eating solid food and stop drinking calories of any kind and only drink protein shakes and water to lose weight. I have aligned my time frame with the election. I started a couple days ago. It was 100 days until the election. As anyone who knows me well knows, I have at least 100 days of crazy in me.

The election time frame works well for me symbolically. I realized our country was not made up of the people I thought it was, and I realized our systems were not always good. I lamented this realization and I daily lament the difference between what I thought leadership looked like and what has been rewarded. I use food to cope with or distract me from that at times, and it got really bad after 2016.

Finally, letting you know this is a little scary for me. I may see you; you may come over. It is really hard to tell people you are going to do something and then not do it. I guess that is why I am putting it in writing. No bourbon, no Big Green Egg steaks, brisket, or butt until the election. As crazy as it sounds, at this point, it is better than the alternative to me. I will celebrate on election night, hopefully in more ways than one.

Week One, Kind of Good, Kind of Bad

How disappointed can one reasonably be with losing three pounds? That is how disappointed I am today. Yes, I am happy I lost some weight, but I feel like my effort was greater than three pounds worth of reward received.

I do appreciate the notes and texts of encouragement over the week, the great suggestion for a really cool food tracker, offers to join workouts, and general support. It is going to take a lot to reach my goal by 12/20/2020 and I know my greatest weakness is the ability to justify not missing out on something (usually an event, or get together) that usually involves food that I should limit or try to avoid.

I pulled a book out this weekend that I read way back in 2006 called, My Big Fat Greek Diet. It is the story a physician who weighed in at 467 pounds and decided to do something about it. He quit his job, sold his house, and spent the entire summer crisscrossing the country to see baseball in every MLB ballpark while only drinking protein shakes. It worked for him. It reminded me that sometimes big change is easier than incremental change and that if he was able make it on liquid alone for almost 9 months, I should be able to kick it up a notch on the will power.

I went for a couple of walks last week but missed my goal of exercising three times for 30 minutes. I ate really well early in the week and eliminated alcohol early in the week, but alas, the weekend came and I was able to justify eating and drinking too much. I was on track to lose at least 6 pounds and had at one point during the week but the week did not end well.

Here is to getting on track and staying there this week.

12/20/2020 Is Coming.....and I Need a Little Help.

This blog has not seen any action in a long, long time. Some of these older posts are hard to read. I evidently did not put a high value on proofreading. That said, I feel the need to utilize it again for two reasons. One, it chronicles the most success I have ever had at getting healthy, and two, I made a commitment back on December 20, 2019 to be much healthier by December 20, 2020. I have failed miserably on my own to this point and thought the accountability of the blog might help get my rear in gear.

I have to be honest with you. Sometimes I like being bigger than most people. I have been rewarded for it at times. The first time I remember was when I had my regional television debut on the Bozo Show, live from the KAIT 8 studios in Jonesboro, Arkansas. I was selected to play the “Pop the Balloon” game. I was pitted against a scrawny little kid. We had to run to get a balloon, bring it back and pop it. We needed to do this three times to win. Sure, he beat me to the balloon, but when he got it back to the bench, he kept bouncing off the balloon as he attempted to sit on it to pop it. This was no problem for me. I popped those three balloons before he popped one and walked away with an official Bozo Show backpack. The big guy wins! In high school, it was beneficial on the football field, I was hard to move and I could knock people over. As an adult, I can usually drink more than anyone I go out with and never get hungover. Being large has its advantages.

I have not been invited to a balloon popping contest in awhile and now I would get charged with assault for running at people to knock them over, and my liver doesn’t really care how big I am, it is the same size as yours and needs a break. Living large has really lost its advantages. It even has disadvantages, like, getting out of breath walking upstairs, not looking good in skinny jeans, and fear that I may die of a heart attack when I go to bed to name a few. That is why I am committing to you (my accountability partner) that I am going to get much healthier than I am currently by 12/20/2020. I believe I can lose an average of 10 pounds a month between now and then. I will weigh each week and let you know how I do. You can ask me when you see me or message me and ask how it is going. I am committing to at least 30 minutes of exercise at least three times a week, it may go up, but I am starting small. You can ask me about that as well.

You may be thinking, I really don’t want to be your accountability partner here, I understand that, you could just be here for my political insight and witty banter. That is cool, but I have found, especially through this pandemic, that I do best in community. I want to share my goal with you and know that some weeks will be good news and we can celebrate together and some weeks may not be as good and I need to let you know that as well. This is not a highlight reel; this is a journey and I am inviting you to come along.