Its been a week, and trying to stick with it

So it’s been one week.  Seven days and I have been on this “diet” so to speak.  I guess this causes for a celebration, right.  Anyone who knows me, I have probably never tried a “diet” before for more than 24 hours, and that is not an exaggeration.  I grow sick of it; my steering wheel will pull to the side when passing a fast food place.  This week has not been one about sacrifice.  It has been more about trying new things, not having any reservations, and having a support network around me.  For the first time in a while I am saying, hey you know you have this wedding coming up shortly; maybe you should stop putting off this life changing experience, and do something for yourself.

So this is what I have learned in the past 7 days.  I have not gotten more motivated to work out yet surprisingly.  The tug I always felt to work out when younger has not arrived just yet.  I love avocados.  I never even purchased an avocado before, and Friday morning I found myself eating two of them after watching a YouTube video on how to open and eat one.  It was amazing.  Much like the Engine 2 movie said, I will learn to appreciate textures of foods, and tastes.  Sounds pretty funny when I first heard it, but I was crazing strawberries instead of ice cream by day 3.  Odd transformation.  I have weighed myself several times over the week.  It’s been quite the roller coaster.  I have not been hungry at all, I really haven’t curbed moderation at all, I am finding myself full off foods from plants, or other things.  I haven’t stopped drinking.  It was a tough week.  Between three UMass Lowell Hockey Eat playoff games, and a desire to unwind for a weekend, drinks flowed.  I just opted for a Coors Light, or Shawsheen Light or any other kind of light beer, as opposed to the stiffer, darker ones that I have learned to like later in life.   So I am drinking Almond Milk with my Coffee, I cooked Kale for the first time this week, bought salad at work a couple times, made a whole grain and rice with black bean recipe, and cooked an Israeli Morracon dish tonight with Couscous.  I have learned that I do not cook Kale well, and I drink 48 oz of vegetable juice and I feel great.  My energy levels have been 2x higher than normal I would say, I am not coming home from work in a pissy mood, I feel semi empowered and jubilant.  I tried to run outside tonight for the first time in over a week and I only lasted 2 miles.  It was rough.  The weather was 46 degrees and it was sunny out, but my legs felt heavy and I didn’t have a running energy to me.  I will have to learn to work on this. 

With all of this being said I am trying to do homework for my first time in a VERY long time tonight.  It is my first grad school class this Wednesday in almost 6 years, and I have first paper and homework assignments due.  I stayed home tonight to read and do the homework but I got distracted, and have forced myself into a corner where I must concentrate on this after work the next two days so I can start this school year off right.  I am ecitied to return to school.  I am annoyed to the high heavens that my company will not be paying for it, which I thought was my plan when I reapplied for admission into the program that I left 6 years ago, but the company had other plans for me.  So the $2110 before the book fee will be coming from my own pocket.  For this one class.  I have completed 2 classes in 2006, and will need another 10 classes to graduate from this school with the Masters degree that I set out to finish.  In the mean time I need to find a way to finically make it all work.  More to follow there. 

So time for the weigh in.  As I said, I have weighed myself Sunday night when I started this journey and now it is 7 days later.  After just having finished dinner, and watched a movie called the 5^th Quarter (which was quite good and I never heard of that story before) I can just imagine what it will read. 

So a week ago I was 208.6.  Tonight I am 203.0.  The lowest I weighed myself this week was 201.2 and I was astonished.  So I guess something is working, I wonder if I can actually start working our and running now that we have some longer days with the time change this weekend.  Additionally I am supposed to be running the New Bedford half marathon this weekend.  I haven’t run a race since I blew the worst marathon out of my ass in West Virginia in June of last year.  Should be exciting, considering I struggled with 2 miles today.  Off to do some more homework, Josh. 

Shopping was very diffrent

I let the carnivore get whatever she wanted.

A new approach, with greenly leaves?

So in very Josh like / blog fashion, I hit another rock bottom moment over the last few days.  Didn’t know someone could hit rock bottom that many times, oh my friend you don’t know me very well.  I went to get a new drivers license for the great state of Massachusetts, and I had them take two different pictures and my CHINS would not hide (wait until I get this license I will post a picture its amazing!).  Amazing, yes I said CHINS.  I have said to a couple people, violating all rules of P.C that I now have “more Chins than Chinatown” which some can be offended by a statement like that.  This is why I am not affiliated with my work, with anything else, nor running for an office by writing a blog.  They are my own thoughts.  If you don’t like my sense of humor your Mom probably didn’t like to give you hugs when growing up either.  Get over it, and then play in traffic. 

SO yeah I am 33 years old now.  My energy level sucks.  My motivation to get in shape is best summarized that it will be gone within 48 hours, no exaggeration, and it’s been that way for years now.  I don’t like the way my clothes fit.  I don’t like how I look in pictures.  I don’t feel healthy in any aspect of my life. 

This drill weekend in the Air National Guard we had to don and doff our chemical warfare gear for an upcoming exercise and inspection.  For those familiar with these get-ups they are quite cumbersome.  Heavy pants (to go over your existing military uniform) a heavy jacket, thick rubber boots, a gas mask, cotton gloves, rubber outer gloves and a hood.  Carry a belt with the gas mask case and a canteen full of water on yourself.  It’s aggravating to wear this stuff but we understand its part of our mission.  We have to be able to demonstrate that we can put them on in a quick fashion when a horn or alarm sounds that calls for something like that.  Well I struggled with it.  I may look like I wasn’t after all I have run thru this crapola since 1998.  I am familiar with the equipment, its nothing new.  Just as your lack of flexibility increases, to go along with their waistline, and then have a cardiovascular system that used to be in pretty damn good shape and I have successfully put it into the toilet in less than a year, well its mind blowing. 

So I read an acquaintances facebook when I got home from drill.  They mentioned this movie called “Forks over Knives” and I watched a preview for it, and thought, interesting.  I have never given anything like this a chance.  My good friend Courtney is a Vegan, and I make fun of her lifestyle more than I probably should.  Refer to the stuff she eats as sticks or twigs and berries.  But in actuality, she’s a phenomenal athlete, has unparalleled energy, and makes her lifestyle seem easy. 

Me, I am a guy who likes cream in his coffee, needs caffeine to drag me thru the day.  I like chocolate, I like the supersized anything, I like ranch dressing

Here are cold hard facts.  I get married in 82 days.  No way around it, I found the perfect woman for me, I know it’s going to be awesome, but I am going to be looking at the pictures of that day for the rest of my life.  If I cant stand my drivers license picture can imagine something like that?

I weighed 208.6 tonight.  The body fat was off the charts too, I don’t know how accurate a $30.00 scale is, but I know it’s not pretty. 

So something creepy about me, I have 4 photos on my phone I am not proud of.  Times I took a picture of the scale when weighing on it, to show the weight and the date.  I did this when I was at another “rock bottom” moment when I convinced myself I was going to get serious, get my head out of my ass, and make some changes.  Run, Bike, Whatever.  Become some ironman triathlete with rippled abs that wears no shirt to parties because he can.  In reality, I haven’t felt comfortable without a shirt probably since 2007 or so.  I find some way to blame it, on bad genes, I am too tale, big bones, whatever the case may be.  And then I let some stupid number convince me that I am healthy.  NO guy that’s has run ## number of marathons is fat?! Or, Can a fat person drop what they are doing and go bike for ## miles?  My head strong approach usually got the best of me, when I would not ease into some new training opportunity and like I said within 48 hours of embarking on this awesome journey, I fizzle out, found myself playing some videogame, drinking a few beers, polishing off a huge bowl of my favorite ice cream.  Yeah nice choice!  Comfort food for me is a list that probably could take a week to finish, so I will not attempt that.

This movie much like the documentary Food Inc I watched years ago I thought, oh man, I am going to make some changes.  Yet this time I have a tad more incentive. 

I am currently running probably .75x a week on average.  Yeah you read that right; I bet I “run every 10^th day at this point in my life.  And by run, my last run was a 10 minute walk on the treadmill, built up to 6 mph, where I was slugging along, cranked it up to 9 mph for about 45 seconds and then practically had a heart attack, hit the stop button, got off, and yelled at myself in the condominium elevator.  Healthy, right?  Were any changes made, um no not really. 

Anyways, I am tried, so I will wrap this up, and not even proof read it, because that’s how I feel.  SO I started off eating peanut butter and graham crackers when I started the documentary tonight.  Halfway thru I stopped (the people in this movie can not touch something like that for food), and dug to the back of the fridge to a can of 100% vegetable juice I purchased back in October I believe that I never touched.  I opened it, and proceeded to drink all 48 fluid ounces before the end of the movie.  The movie energized me, gave me some hope, made me feel like after 90 minutes of watching this I could make some changes in my life that would make my life a longer more enjoyable one, and make some crazy commitment.  So I am stating that I am going to try and follow this greens only / vegan like lifestyle for 2 months.  End it if I choose to on Cinco De Mayo, a couple weeks before the wedding.  I have nothing to lose, but sluggish actions, lack of motivation, a piss poor attitude often times, and about 40 lbs.  More to come. 

Josh