It's an EVERYDAY thing!

Well it’s been a couple weeks since I started this blog and I figure it’s about time to update. The first week or so wasn’t very good. I worked out twice, and tried to watch what I ate but it wasn’t something I did everyday. I’ve come to realize that I must make correct decisions EVERYDAY.

My father has a saying, as cliché as it may sound, “Not to decide IS to decide”. And oh how it applies to changing your life. As human beings we establish our life into a lot of little habits. We have eating habits, sleeping habits, excersize habit, work habits, etc. And it’s these habits that ultimately dictate where we end up. I ended up at 285lbs because I habitually didn’t work out. I can’t say I habitually ate badly because I didn’t. I’d grab the occasional unhealthy snack, but I’d rarely eat fast food, fried foods or high fat foods. But when you move as much as a snail in molasses in January, you’re not going to lose any weight. Well I’ve had to break my habits. Breaking habits is something that requires you to make an active decision every day. I’ve gotten on the elliptical or did a lot of yard work over the weekend or have gone for very vigorous “walks” at night. But the key has been to do something EVERYDAY. It’s too easy to fall into the old habits. I look at where I’ve been and say to myself “is this what I want?” And luckily, it only takes 30minutes to and hour a day to change this. But that’s a new habit. Once I get into the habit of a work out a day, I’ll be on the path to making myself be more of who I feel I should be.

Where does all this lead, well my goal for myself is 200 pounds. That’s a healthy me. Is it ideal, no. 180’s is my ideal weight, but 200 is the number where I’m active and don’t feel my weight. My blood pressure will be lower on it’s own. My knees wont take the pounding they’re taking now, my back won’t be carrying and 80lb weight. Bottom line is, I’ll be healthy and active. So how long will it take. Well I weight myself every Tuesday. This morning I weighted 277 lbs. By being much more active, I’ve dropped 8 pounds. I have another 77 pounds to go. Needless to say I’m seeing this as a journey. At this rate, I’ll hit my goal in 6 months. Most people see 6 months as a long time away, but considering it took me 15 years to be this heavy, 6 months isn’t that bad.

The Decision.

The Decision

They say the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Why does this step seem to be such a large one. I'm a 37 year old man who has, as they say, "let himself go". Now this didn't happen overnight, or even over the last couple years. This all started when I was done with school and started working.

All through my school years, I was pretty fit. I didn't have a six pack, it was more like a 2 or 4 pack. I was very active, playing sports both for teams and also for fun. I look back and say I was your average active kid. I made a big mistake and started smoking, I can't even tell you why but I did. So how is this relevant to my current body shape of a one BIG pack? Because I quit smoking....good....and replaced it with eating....bad, while having my activity level drop to nothing because I was working a desk job 13 hours a day.

So I started my 20's by gaining 80 pounds. I weighed 185 and shot up to 265. Over the next 15 years I've fluctuated from 220 to my current weight of 285. So this is the beginning of my journey. To change not just my weight but my life. I feel my weight every day. When I bend down to pick something, when I roll out of bed with a sore back. I feel it in every aspect of my life. I feel like I've FINALLY come to the point where the pain of being fat > the pain of losing weight.

So how am I going to transform myself. Simple. DECISIONS. You make hundreds of decisions a day. Most by habit. You don't even think about the decision on a cognitive level. You simply do something a certain way because you've always done it that way. Well for me, this is going to be a major focus on the decisions I make. When I'm at work and it's a little slow. I need to decide to not grab a snack to get me through the boredom. I need to pick water over soda, juice or coffee. I need to decide that I'm going to spend the next 30 minutes exercising. These are just a few of the decisions I'm going to have to make.

I hope you enjoy following along with my journey. Maybe someone will read this and it'll inspire them to change their decision making process. But in reality, this isn't about me trying to improve the world. This is about me improving myself. This is about me finding the person I was before. This is about me being a better father to my kids and husband to my wife.