call it what you will..I choose now.

Now.

I am done being overweight.
So I choose now.
I have knocked my calories back to 1400 and am doing two workouts a day...
one in the morning and one in the evening.
I will deal with moderation when I get to my goal.
Till then, screw moderation.
It seems to be code for f*cking off.

This was day 2.
You know what...it's a lot more motivating when  you are moving forward..
Then it is when you are going in circles trying to talk yourself out of commiting because
you quote, "want to be able to do this the rest of your life."

Do what..
maintain mediocrity?
I can 'do this the rest of my life' when I get to goal weight.

People can call it crazy, or extreme or whatever..
Call it what you will.
I choose to do the hard work now.
I choose to suffer in the short run so I can win in the long run.

as Mohammed Ali once said:

"I don’t count my sit-ups. I only start counting when it starts hurting. When I feel pain, that’s when I start counting, because that’s when it really counts."

When you push past where  you are now, and push through the pain..You realize that all that time you have sat at a certain point...you were capable of so much more. 
I am better than where I am now. I am capable of more.

I choose now.

Chris out.

Want to lose weight? Try simple

Hey guys...
As I have said before,  I am back on track and moving forward..will post my next loss on September 1rst.

As you all know, I started out morbidly obese. 

I lost weight for the first few months by limiting my calories to 1800 calories and walking a mile a day.

Too simple?

No dissection of calories and carbs and proteins and the benefits of weight lifting etc.

No.

Because when and if you are morbidly obese...the idea of eating salads, yogurt...attending a gym where most of the women are the size of your thigh holds all the appeal of an interrogation by the stazi. 

I saw two ladies this week who were well over 400 pounds.

One was in her car in the parking lot of the px on post.

She was eating a big mac and a extra large soda..

Her body squeezed  behind the steering wheel, it was cutting into her stomach.

She looked miserable.

I remember sitting in my car and eating.

And feeling a temporary relief accompanied with shame and misery.

You get to the point where you feel hopeless..

That it's 'too late'.

She had that look.

The look of the condemned.

I wanted to say something..but knew if I had been in her position, it would have just made me feel humiliated and hurt.

So I didn't say anything.

The second lady was walking to her car after getting off her shift from Charlie's steakery.

Watching her walk across the parking lot slowly...I remembered that pain shooting up through the bottom of my feet...

How every step felt like a red hot poker..

And I was about 150 pounds less than this lady when I started.

the pain she was in...I can't even conceive.

When you are that big...and you have that large of a hill to climb.

Don't worry about the details.

Start simple.

Stick to it..
And in a month or two if you feel you need to eliminate something..or add something...do it then.

When you have success under your belt and you are beginning to have faith in yourself again.

Till then keep it simple.
And know that it is possible.
You are not condemned to spend the rest of your life in pain.

Just commit and begin.
Hugs,
Chris

The number one way to avoid regret

I have been doing very well for the last month. I have been controlling my food, I have been exercising and I have lost four pounds.  That is good. 
I have also been listening to one of my favorite motivational speeches over and over and over again.
It's by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
 It's a speech which contains his rules for success...
And every time I listen to it, there is one rule that makes me tear up.
Every.Single.Time.
It's rule number 5.

Work your butt off...

Live leaving no stone unturned.

Live
Leaving
No
Stone
Unturned.

That's it, isn't it?

That is where nearly everything we ever regret has come from.

It isn't failure.

It's what we have failed to even attempt.
And if it is a failure, it's the lack of effort in the try.

Who regrets giving it their all and falling short?

I have never heard a person say: "Boy, do I regret giving it my all."

I HAVE heard people say..."If only I'd have tried harder."
or
"If only I hadn't  quit when I did...I might have made something of myself."

Whether it was the military.
or college
or a run.
or a marriage.

Or a more recent, personal example...

I have made a good friend who is an optimist.
I have always considered myself a 'realist'.

Well, we were at a water park...waiting in line for a water slide.
It was a very popular water slide..and when they closed it down because of lightening-
a bunch of people left (realists most likely).
Leaving us very near the front of the line.

We waited...and waited...for nearly 30 minutes.
The storm didn't look like it was going anywhere.
I advised us to leave and look for a different ride.
She wanted to stay, so we stayed..along with 5 kids.

In 15 minutes it opened..and we were at the front of the line.

How many times had I done that to myself?
Told myself that I was being realistic...when in reality I was simply quitting?

That little nagging voice in the back of my head...
saying...
"Did you really give it all you had?"

IF you have that voice and you can't give a declarative YES!...you didn't.

Because when you have given it all you have...you KNOW.

When you leave everything right there.
you know.

When you have lived leaving no stone unturned...

tried every avenue..

Gone to muscle failure.

Gone after your dream.

Gotten to the end of your rope, wove more rope...then got to the end of that rope as well...In an attempt to save your family, your business or your own life.
You know.

The tragedy is not giving it all you have and failing..

The tragedy is  failing to try, and then attempting to excuse it,
 and in the end knowing, ultimately, that you have failed only yourself.

Live leaving no stone unturned
and regret will just be a word in a dictionary.
Not your reality.

That is what I am doing.
Chris out.

Chick fil A and freedom of speech...a guest post

I have been pondering this story from it's inception....Since it doesn't really affect me directly I went to my friend M. To discuss this...and we found ourselves in agreement. She agreed to write a post for my blog regarding the issue....So here goes....


Citizens in Mountain View, California have filed a zoning challenge to keep Chick-Fil-A from building a restaurant in their town because the head honcho of the company does not support gay marriage. While the zoning challenge is not likely to be upheld, the people responsible for said challenge claim they did so to make a point; they wanted to protect their town from a "bunch of bigots."

Really?

This company does not discriminate from hiring gay workers, they don't refuse to serve gay customers. The head of the company simply believes that marriage should be defined as being between a man and a woman. This is his personal opinion, it's not some kind of official decree. Yes, it's a family-owned company and the majority of his family agrees with his stance on this issue. The company did put out the following statement:

Going forward, our intent is to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena...[we] treat every person with honor, dignity and respect -- regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender.

As a lesbian, I do not understand why the LGBT community is so up-in-arms over this. He said nothing derogatory or hateful about us. He's not preaching our eternal damnation or suggesting that we are in some way detracting from the morality of the world. He defined a single word based on his belief system. To be honest, I actually applaud him for having the integrity to give his honest answer to a direct question.

Frankly, this also felt very much like a set up to grab headlines. Why just ask Mr. Cathy for his opinion? Why not Wendy Thomas, the head of McDonald's, Burger King, Subway, etc.? I'm pretty sure I can guess what Colonel Sander's position would've been back in the day, yet there's no call to boycott KFC. I'll bet that none of these other executives will give an honest answer one way or the other to this question after this fiasco. This was an unfair, underhanded ploy, I think, to garner attention to this issue.


The thing is, I believe we still have free speech in this country. We are all for having this right when we agree with what people say. However, when someone presents an opinion that dissents from our own, we suddenly want them to shut up and drop off the face of the earth. We berate them and name-call and unfriend them on Facebook or whatever. What ever happened to listening to someone's opinion, stating your own, and being able to agree to disagree? Why is everything suddenly an all or nothing proposition?

This boycotting of Chick-Fil-A reminds me of when I was a kid and playing football on the playground. Of course, as kids do, there'd be a disagreement of some sort amongst the kids playing, so the kid who brought the ball would have a fit, grab the ball, and go home. This boycott screams the same immature, knee-jerk reaction to me. Moreover, I think it hurt our position more than it helped. The LGBT boycott has led to a backlash among conservative politicians (Mike Huckabee, for one) who are calling for conservatives to rush off and eat at Chick-Fil-A in support of the president's position. We had a chance to take the high road and we blew it.

Don't get me wrong, I do not agree with Dan Cathy's position on this issue. I am a firm believer that all Americans should have the same rights and privileges under the law—that there should not be special rules that give or remove rights for different segments of the population. I simply believe that condemning a man and raising an uproar to boycott a company because someone voiced a rather benign opinion under suspicious circumstances is ridiculous.

Top 5 MOST ANNOYING COMMERCIALS watched while working out...

5.) Alli:



) The poop it out pill....eat all the fat you want...POOP IT OUT.  lololololol....At least this blocks something.....however, they are not guaranteeing you will make it to the toilet on time. Use at your own risk...and at 60 bucks a bottle....wouldn't you be better off simply not eating all that fat? 


4.) The fullbar:


  Eat a fullbar...you'll be full.   That's the theory....at 160 calories you are supposed to eat this thing and then you'll eat less...otherwise known as the 'drink a cup of water' theory. Fat people didn't get fat because they didn't feel full...they get fat because they ignore full signals and overeat.  So your full bar is full of crap

3.) The Total Gym:
 
The total gym....IN JUST A FEW MINUTES A DAY...Now I love chuck. He's a great guy...but if I hear..one more time...that I can get fit in a few minutes a day while slogging through my 5 zillionth 60 minute workout..knowing all the info there is about formerly obese people needing at least 1 hour a day, 6 days a week to maintain their loss...my head will explode. Nuff said.

2.) Sensa
Besides the obnoxious flailing and the ridiculous assertion that you shake it on any available piece of shit and inhale it and you'll lose weight....when are they going to stop selling magical dieting fairy dust! This product nearly was number 1 but was beaten by a nose by....



1.) The 'smart for life' cookie diet.
 

What complete and utter shit. That's all. This one made me the angriest. After 3 years of trying to eat healthy and exercise...watching these people sell non food to obese people by implying that they can eat all the cookies (for life!?)  they want and lose weight is disgusting. It is condescending.

  How about an amalgam of all of these products...whaduya say?! So Grab a fullbar, then 20 minutes later you can pull out a cookie..sprinkle sensa on it, eat as many as you want and then hop on the total gym for a vigorous 20 minute workout...then sit back and watch those pounds fall off.

Chris out.

The end of struggle, the beginning of victory

So.
I had a very interesting thought a few days ago..
(and since I am not blathering on daily....I had time to let this thought sit and simmer...making it boil down to it's essential ingredients...always a good thing.)
Anywhoozle.
My thought was this:
Once I hit goal weight, then what?
I know it seems I have answered this question many times before.
And I have.
But never to my satisfaction.
Then I'll be healthy.
Then I'll look good in jeans.
Then I will have proved I won't be fat forever.
etc.

I don't know if any of you have watched Chariots of Fire.
Good movie.
Good points were made in that movie.
The best point made was when one man achieved his life dream and then uttered the words "Now what."
And I kind of answered this question a few months back when I alluded to minimum standards.
That health was not an ending...it was a beginning.
But I didn't answer the beginning of what...
Because I didn't really know what.
For so long...my fight with my weight consumed all my energy.
It was, in and of itself, the only thing I could see.
because the battle seemed to be insurmountable..I  had to surmount it to see that it wasn't insurmountable.
Some people expect good things.
I am not one of those people.

And when I got within sight of a goal line...I realized it wasn't a goal line..but more a brick wall of nothing.
Then what.
All my life I have known how to fight.
Because I have had to fight just to survive....not win...
I don't know what it means to win.
To me it meant..pick another struggle because till now, that is all it has been.
First my childhood...then the military...then the first years of my marriage...then my weight and all sorts of crap...
Maybe this is what people do who have been abused.
They can never accept good things.
They can't seem to accept that it may be a starting point to something wonderful.
What happens when you get control of your weight, your body and your mind.
What happens when you heal yourself mentally at the age of 38?
What happens when your marriage is happy and you are financially stable?
When your kids are happy and healthy and you have free time.
You have assets.
You have ability.
This is it.
This is my chance to figure out what I would have done at 18 if I had been 'normal'.

I realized my battle is no longer my weight.
I have realized it is no longer really even a battle..
now it's  a journey.
And I am capable of doing what I want to do.
I want to do my art.
I have no impediments but my own mind.
My mind is the only obstacle to further success in life.
What or who I should be as was shown to me can  be taken right off my interior mental map and replaced by
WHO I WANT TO BE NOW.
I am going to allow myself to win.

I lost another pound this week.
165.
I wasn't even that on point...which I will be this week.
Each day is a new day.
Have a great night guys.

Making today THE day everything changed.....

I had quite a realization today.
It has come at some expense...mostly of time and energy.
My house is clean.
This seems a small thing..
But for years..YEARS...I have struggled to clean my house.
I wafted around on a never ending tide of clutter.
I would get one room clean..
then another would fall apart.
well...a while back I decided I couldn't live like this anymore.
And I got it clean.
I won't go into all the details, but my house is entirely organized and clean from baseboards to cupboards...from closets to bookshelves.
What changed?
I have the same number of kids, and a husband, and a dog.
I changed.
I decided.
And I did it.
I have talked many times about how something flipped or switched or snapped inside of me On May 4th, 2009.
For the first two years, I went on the supposition that it was the sudden realization that I was fat that caused the big change. That my brain snapped to and from then on out I just knew what I had to do...
That it was some mystical outside force that propelled me...and that kept me going UNTIL...

Until I went back to Michigan.
I had a crappy childhood.  I had a growing fear inside of me...a fear of being vulnerable.
A Fear I allowed to derail me till a few months ago.
BUT  During that year following that trip back home, Whenever I tried to get on track..(mostly by hanging on for dear life by continuuing to exercise and trying to count calories or fighting the urge to binge away the knot in my stomach)...I kept losing. I got down to 148 lbs.  Then my fear began to make me lose sleep.  Then I began to have more bad days than good days.
And then I got to the point where I thought..."hey, I don't look bad...I'll just keep exercising till I feel like climbing back on that losing weight wagon'.....

But here's the thing.
I didn't feel like climbing back on...
Whatever impetus I had...being morbidly obese, being unable to breathe...Well, those were gone.
I was no longer ashamed of myself.
I no longer hate myself.
I continued to eat a little too much and exercise...
I allowed my fear and my apathy to keep me away from the person I truly want to be.
Which brings me to where I am now...currently 166 lbs.
(Down one pound so far since I began DOING again...remember one pound at a time...)
Now.
I had run away from the scale for over a year...last year about this time I was 156.
It's been a slow steady creep
(I noticed by the way I looked and the way my clothing fit, but did nothing to stop it...as I was still waiting for that magical moment to happen).
But In the last two weeks I have discovered something very, very, very important.
There is no magical moment.
And this is not about the weight.
It's about deciding who you want to be.
The day I put down that latte and started walking...
That wasn't an outside switch.
I pulled that puppy.
At the time, I was too disempowered to realize it was ME.
It was MY decision.
I thought some other, mystical force propelled me.
When in reality....
DOING BEGETS BEING.
I began doing what would get me better...
and by DOING I BECAME.
I became healthy.
I became empowered.
I became the person who tries  new things.
Not because I was not afraid.
But because I felt the uncertainty.
I felt the fear.
I felt the crushing reality of all my past failures.
and I
DID IT ANYWAYS.
So last week I began DOING again.
Not perfectly.
imperfectly.
But counting my calories.
Exercising.
Because I know WHO I WANT TO BE.
You can make TODAY the day you changed everything.
You can be who you want to be.
By flipping the switch inside you..
from wisher to doer.
from failure to winner.
simply by choosing to.
Chris out.