Stunted Progress

Well, it's time to finally start posting.

When I was in college, I was a much heavier guy than I am now.  With soda or chocolate milk as my drink of choice, I ate all I could eat daily with our college cafeteria consisting of a buffet.  (All I could eat usually meant as much meat and dessert as I could take.) At the end of my college career, I was working in group homes, where one of the responsibilities was to cook food for everyone in the house.  It was there that I discovered my love of butter.  Every meal was filled with butter, salt, and garlic (still a great combination in moderation).

Right after graduating college, I was at 260 pounds.

Yep, that's me on the right

After graduating and meeting the love of my life, my health became a much more important focus in my life.  So I started making some changes to the way I ate.  I cut out soda, stopped eating until I was stuffed, and started adding healthier options to my diet.  The result of this was a loss of about 40 pounds in a year or so.

Taken in Metropolis, IL June, 2006 and June, 2007 on the road to Bonnaroo

Everyone poured out compliments, "I could hardly recognize you," "You're like a whole new man," "Hey sailor, lookin' for a good time?" well, not the last one.  The thing is, I didn't really notice as the weight was coming off.  I did nothing apart from changing how I ate, and then a year later, I started receiving all these comments.


I felt good about myself.  I no longer viewed myself as really fat, just somewhat fat (which is how I still view myself).  So after about a 1-2 year plateau at 220 pounds(ish), I decided it was time to keep going.  This time I would employ some tools, which would help with the process.

Tool #1 The Daily Plate
http://www.livestrong.com/thedailyplate/
This is basically a calorie counter, where you set a goal for how many calories per day you want to consume. As you eat things, you add them from their very extensive database of items (including calories as well as nutritional information) to your daily plate. This will tell you how much you've eaten. I've found keeping track to help exponentially. When I used this, I took one day a week off, where I could eat anything I wanted (Yay gluttony!) What's good about taking a day off is that it keeps your metabolism working, and allows you to not completely deprive yourself of treats (I love restaurants).

Tool #2 One Hundred Push Ups
http://hundredpushups.com/
Pushups are great because they strengthen your core, your arms, and your back. The stronger these things are, (the more muscle you have) the more calories you'll burn while resting. The premise of this program is to take you from as low as like 4 pushups to being able to complete 100 in one sitting (sitting? whatever you cal the pushup position).  This may sound like a gratuitous amount of pushups, but it is definitely achievable.

The combination of these 2 programs took me down to about 195 pounds over the course of another year, which was cause to update my driver's license.

Then, life happened.  I plateaued and stayed between 189 (the lowest I've ever been in my adult life) and 205.  I generally ate around the same things, but wasn't as intentional about tracking calories or whatnot.  However, I didn't gain a bunch of weight due to the below programs.

Tool #3 Couch To 5k
http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml
I signed up for track in 8th grade, to do the shot put, and I quit because they made me run.  My P.E. teachers accused me of being a smoker when I couldn't run half a mile (the most daunting task in the world).  Needless to say, running was something I was NOT interested in.  Then Jamie signed up for, trained for, and completed the Chicago Half Marathon.  This was such an exciting event, that I decided I wanted to try this running thing out to.  Enter Couch to 5k- A program that will take you from a complete non-runner to someone able to run a 5k (3.1 miles).   This is a very easy program to follow, and I strongly recommend everyone try to get to this running distance and keep it up; although I strongly discourage doing this with thick running shoes (more on this in future posts).

So on Halloween that year, I ran in my first 5k race, The Monster Dash in Chicago along the lake.  It was very challenging at the time and felt like such a long distance, but I completed it.  Then I decided, let's keep this running thing going.  It's fun; it's really good for my health and my mood; why don't I do a marathon?

Tool #4 Hal Higdon Marathon Training Programs
http://www.halhigdon.com/training/51135/Marathon-Training-Guide
Slowly building up my mileage, once I reached 6 miles, I began following Hal Hidgon's Novice 1 plan.  I signed up for the Illinois Marathon, and the rest is history.

A great way to map out runs, by the way is the below program:

Tool #4b Map My Run
http://www.mapmyrun.com/my_home/
Pairing this with Couch to 5k or a marathon training program works really well.  It allows you to log not only your miles, but your time as well, so you know how fast you generally run when you sign up for a race.

After completing the marathon, I tapered my mileage, but didn't change my diet, so for the past 2 years or so, I have been right around 200 pounds.  This is still an unhealthy weight for me, so I have a new plan.

Doing a 180
BMI (Body Mass Index) is one means of measuring whether you are at a healthy weight or not (It's not a great measure, because it doesn't account for percentage body fat, but it's better than nothing).  According to the BMI chart, my healthy weight is from  around 150 to around 185.  I have never been in this range, so I have decided to set a goal of getting down to 180 pounds and maintaining it (or re-evaluating that goal when I am there, probably switching to a percentage body fat metric).

I will be combining some of these above tools, and committing once again to only one day per week of not focusing on what I'm eating.  I plan to sign up for a half marathon in March (Rock & Roll in Lexington, KY), and a whole sometime next year (either the Illinois or the Chicago probably).  Last Friday, I was 200 pounds, yesterday, I was 194 pounds.  With Thanksgiving coming up this week, I am hoping to break even.

The goal is to be somewhere between these 2 fellows.

I'll keep you posted.

Have a great Thanksgiving.

A new beginning

Friends, family, strangers, and anyone else who may be interested, lend me your ears...well, your eyes and attention anyway.  After mulling over this idea for several months, I have decided the time has come to create a blog.

Some time ago, I created a bucket list of sorts comprised mainly of a bunch of silly things I'd like to achieve, like learning to ride a unicycle, cooking good Thai food, and running a marathon barefoot.  My original idea was to create a blog to chronicle this bucket list, and I joked that the intent of the bucket list was to become a modern-day Renaissance man.  The more I thought about this idea, the more I liked it, but the idea has grown a bit, and I've defined my intent of posting this journey a bit better.

I will be striving (and have been striving) to become a better Christian, husband, father, friend, artist, and really, person.  I will be working on this (in part) by partaking in tasks that I believe will improve my Physical life, my Spiritual life, my Intellectual life, and my Creative life.  As I begin, I may notice further areas of life that I have neglected, and I'm sure some of these areas will be easier to write about than others.  (As I write this, I also understand that many of the things I will be discussing cover all four of these spheres; for example, to me music is physical, spiritual, intellectual, and creative)

My goal is not to advertise to the world what I am doing; it is to invite you on the journey with me, to reach out for some accountability and encouragement, and to give me an opportunity to publicly work through my thoughts. I hope to spark conversations (online and in person), to inspire, and sometimes to make laugh.  (I will definitely still be trying to achieve some silly things.)

Below you will find excerpts from the original bucket list (some of them having been accomplished).

• Barefoot Marathon
• Record an EP
• Photo on Jones Soda bottle
• Brew my own beer
• Learn to ride a unicycle
• Learn to escape a straitjacket
• Shave with a straight razor
• Write a short story
• Write a one-act play
• Enter a Photography Contest
• Read Lord of the Rings
• Learn to speak Spanish
• Cook Cajun food
• Cook Turkish food
• Cook Indian food
• Cook Thai food
• Spend a day saying only positive things
• Spend a day in solitude in the wilderness without speaking
• Mountain climbing

As I progress, I realize that I will still be trying to achieve some of these one-off accomplishments, but there are many more ongoing goals that I will be working on that all relate to the four areas of life I will be focusing on.  A few examples below:

• Spiritual - Better my understanding of who God is and what he expects of me
• Physical - Improve my health by eating healthier and increasing my exercise (of course barefoot running)
• Creative - Write and perform better and more music
• Intellectual - Read thought-provoking books constantly, fiction and non-fiction

Although I realize it is impossible to "arrive", I strive to be continuously improving in these areas, and I officially invite you to join me.  I don't know if anyone is even remotely interested in what I have to say or what I am doing, but here goes...