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