So there aren’t a lot of things that I do right when I try to change my diet.  Eating salads is probably part of that list.  Let’s just say that my ideal salad is basically some lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and dressing.  Let’s just say that the the cucumbers are actually pickles and that the “salad” is protected from the cold winter weather by heat generated via all beef patty and melted cheese.  It is further shielded through a device I like to call the “bread muff,” which is really just two warm delicious halves of a bun.  Since the salad is obviously the main course it requires a side dish from the food group known primarily as “french fries.”  Now in order to wash down all this salad I’ll want a large drink, but since I’m watching my calories I’ll make sure it’s healthy for me; probably based out of a liquid that used to be milk and is now closer to butter.  So now that I have my salad and my milk-butter drink (let’s call it a “shake” for short), I’ll have to see about scrounging up some dessert…maybe some kind of fruit…a pear…or apple…pie.

If you’re doing something stupid, like actually trying to eat healthy, here’s a trick I like to use to avoid carbs, avoid calories and clean up the fridge.  Let’s call it “garbage salad.”  It’s called garbage salad because if you don’t eat whatever ingredients it’s made up of soon, they will end up in the garbage.

As I was about to leave for work this morning I noticed that some steak fajita mix that I’d made was still sitting in the fridge.  I thought about what our meal plans looked like for the next couple days, the fact that I’d defrosted some fish already, we had leftover stuffed peppers from the night before and we’d discussed grabbing something fun for dinner tonight.  That led me to believe that if I didn’t take this to work I’d be holding a service for it on Sunday around noon when I discovered it no longer qualified as lunch.  Homemade tacos, burritos or fajitas generally make for a pain in the ass as work lunch fair.  My solution?  I grabbed some spinach and iceberg lettuce we had chopped up and threw them into a container with a little bit of dressing.  The fajita mix stayed in a separate container.  When lunch time rolled around, I heated the mix, tossed it in with the salad.  I shaved some calories, saved some money and kept my hard work from going in the garbage.

Height – 6′

Weight – 246#

Down two pounds from previous weigh-in.  Obviously I will need to continue eating wings and drinking beer in lieu of playing volleyball.  I can honestly think of nothing I’ve done right recently that would warrant the fluctuation unless simply planning diet and exercise is enough to cause weight loss.

Anyway…

Ah…the future.  What DOES it look like? I’ve asked myself many times, “What do I really want?”  People, I’ve decided that there is only one simple answer to that question, one universal answer.  The answer is happiness.  I just want to be happy.  That should pretty much cover everything, right?

Well here’s one theory.

“You can buy happiness…”  http://living.msn.com/life-inspired/new-year-new-you/article?cp-documentid=32096634

It may be a little cream puff for my liking but I can’t totally deny the logic.

Dwelling on negative things is hardly going to be the way to jump start the rainbow generator especially if it’s gotten crammed way up your ass.

I know that  physical health is critical to my happiness as well as mental health.  In fact, I would argue that they are somewhat inseparable.

6′ tall (this stat won’t change)

248# (this stat will)

I did better than usual.  Which in this case is close to pathetic.  I normally put on 15 pounds over the holiday season and this time I managed to keep it to 8.  I’ve also isolated almost all of the damage to the two week period immediately surrounding our holiday party.  It’s the fact that we take Christmas, Christmas Eve, the party, and try to eat all of the leftovers before they go bad.  See, I may be a fat-ass at heart but even for me, eating a whole pie in a couple sittings is not normal behavior.

Now that I’m temporarily done crying about my weight like a fat girl who can’t find the cake, I leave you with these words of inspiration.

If you go to the gym you might see girls like the ones below.  You probably won’t have a prayer of landing them but you can stare awkwardly while you hide your shame with an undersized locker room towel.

http://www.shape.com/fitness/workouts/10-hottest-and-fittest-women-2013-reebok-crossfit-games/slide/3

Maybe this year will be different.

Maybe this year I’ll get my shit together.  Now I know that everyone has different levels of “getting their shit together” as my friends have pointed out.  I have my own expectations.

I need to be better at this game than I ever was.  The clock is ticking, I have dreams unfulfilled, missions incomplete, a wife, a child, responsibilities to myself and others.  How do I find the time to do everything that needs to be done when I’m my worst distraction?  I need a plan.

Not just a plan, I need “the” plan.  I want to be happy.  I want to be happy for the long haul.  I need to prioritize which pieces are critical and which are background noise.  I need to determine which steps have to come first.  I have to figure out how to take all of the day to day madness and turn it into an elegant dance.

Step 1: See the future.

Let me start by congratulating myself.  That’s right.  Auto-congratulations are in order due to making it to the gym a whole one time since the beginning of 2014.

Your body is a temple and there is nothing wrong with a little temple maintenance.

Let me start once again by congratulating myself.  That’s right.  A self high five is in order because I basically ate this entire pie myself.

Your body is a temple it’s important to refurbish it occasionally with essential building blocks… like pudding.

Actually, I think that pie was like a week and a half old and it spent most of that time sitting on my kitchen table even though it was clearly marked “Refrigerate.”  I’m kind of amazed that it didn’t kill me.  Meh.

All the stuff we do at the gym bores me.  It all seems the same to me.  Also, and this really doesn’t help one God damn bit, I have a seriously increased appetite for days after I lift.  So, I fight my way through a visit to the gym only to go home ravenous and then eat like an idiot for the next two days.  Today for example:

• Breakfast – A couple scoops of cottage cheese…you could do a lot worse really
• Snacks – Well there was a bunch of stupid shit in our break room, so cheese, sausage, cookies, pickles
• Lunch – I had packed lunch but…damn I just wanted to get out of the building for lunch.  Chinese buffet, here I come!  There were vegetables in that egg roll, right?
• Dinner #1 – You remember that lunch I packed?  Well it died an honorable death as soon as I got home from work.
• Dinner #2 – When your wife calls and asks if she should pick up something for dinner do you say, “no honey, I ate some leftovers I was trying to clean out of the fridge and now I have no room for delicious whatevers” or do you say “Oh hell yeah!”

Since it’s important to get some activity after a big meal you make sure you set yourself up for success.

Of course if you have an infant then you know that a two hour long movie only takes about five hours to watch.  Then you still have to post your blog.  So while you could have gotten about six hours of straight physical exertion in, you basically ate, drank and leisured your way through that same period of time.  Oh well, at least Tom Cruise looked like he was getting some exercise.

 There will always be new diet and exercise trends out there, some good some bad.  I’ve tried many ways to keep myself motivated and active while eating a healthy diet; it’s never easy.  There are many ways to succeed or fail when approaching healthier living habits but this article outlines some of my favorites:

http://healthyliving.msn.com/health-wellness/best-and-worst-health-trends-of-2013-1#1

I’m a big fan of some of the trends that they discussed.  Fun runs and playground workouts are a great way to get motivated about exercise and share it with friends or family.  I’ve definitely tried to get more veggies in my diet and having a couple vegetarian meals a week can certainly help you start moving in the right direction. 

On the other hand some of the trends are ridiculous. Special diets that have no scientific basis or validity are not new, but there will always be new names or designs.  Driving yourself too hard or using ridiculous gimmicks/equipment are good ways to waste your time and money or even worse end up injured or dead.  One of my biggest pet peeves is the “hot workout” trend.  I tried it myself just because I was interested in what all the excitement was about.  I can safely say that after two sessions of Bikram yoga that I was mortified at the conditions in which these classes take place.  There is little to no real scientific benefit to sweating out two liters of water in a one hour session.  It was like working out in a sauna.  My gym clothes were so soaked that you might have thought I just climbed out of a hot tub.  I could barely breathe during the workout and all I could think about was how stupid it was to do rigorous exercise while putting yourself in an environment that encouraged dehydration.  People die from that kind of shit.

 Whatever you do in the next few weeks of social gatherings and holiday parties, make sure to maintain a strong defense.  High calorie food will be everywhere and in massive quantities.  Everyone will be looking for you to fall on the “last scoop of mashed potatoes” grenade.  Don’t be a hero.  Eat small portions frequently and try to include some healthy stuff.

You also need to step up your offense.  Stay active, whether it’s going to the gym, hanging christmas decorations or shoveling the driveway you have to stay on your toes.  Consider moving some of your social activities in front of a game system like the 360 Kinect, where you have to move around.  Instead of going to the bar to bullshit with your pals, go to a rock climbing gym and then recover with some lo-cal sub sandwiches.  Do a winter fun run dressed up like elves or Santa Claus.

Take it from twofatlosers, keeping yourself healthy may be the best holiday gift you can ask for.

So in the event that you haven’t abandoned all hope that I might continue posting (I almost had) here is the quasi-continuation of part 1 of this post.  I not only had a hard time maintaining the 5am work out schedule I apparently am almost incapable of posting to my own blog.  “THERE’S JUST NO TIME IN THE DAY!” one might decree, but I know better.  I’ve wasted plenty of time here and there doing something useless (I’m not prepared to argue that this activity doesn’t fall under the same heading so don’t even bring it up).  In any case the 5am workout schedule held for about a week.  The very next week I was forced to come to the realization that I needed to schedule a work project with a twice a week 6am start time.  This effectively made those days a no go for the gym.  “Well,” you might ask “what about the other three days?” “Screw you guys for asking” is what I would say.  I don’t have a good excuse other than it screwed up my rhythm some how and that was all it took to de-rail me.  Also getting up at 4:30 really sucks since I have a lot more familiarity with crawling into bed at that time.

The 5am workouts still fit into my schedule better than anything else.  The unlikely prospect of both getting out of work early enough to make it to the gym before having to make my daycare pick-up AND having the motivation to do so limits my options.  Now that I think about it, a month from now the kid will be old enough to take advantage of the gym’s daycare so that would give me some additional options.

That’s all you get tonight.  I have to go suck down a chicken sandwich, fries, root beer and a cheeseburger so I can maintain my aggressive metabolism.  Beefcake, BEEFCAKE!

This blog was originally conceived with at least SOME influence from my efforts (and Mr. Matt’s) to get in shape so it’s fitting that from time to time I would a) actually do something that might get me in shape and b) actually post it to the blog. Clearly that’s been a lot to ask. I would say that I haven’t REALLY done anything that resembled regular exercise since the Hank Aaron 5K. The irony is that we thought that might finally be a good time to kick this thing off, you know, since we’d put it off all summer for almost no reason.
Right, anyhow, so no working out… I basically hadn’t been to the gym since March although I guess I can make some excuses: busy with baby preparations, other physical activities in the summer, just plain laziness…okay so I could only come up with three and they’re pretty weak. We had started running shortly after my son was born and went at that enthusiastically enough for it to become an actual reason to not go to the gym. The running stopped after the 5K. I’m not sure exactly why but it just did. I know that when my wife went back to work there was definitely more of a struggle for time. Three weeks went by and somehow I continued to miraculously lose weight. It wasn’t a miraculous AMOUNT of weight, it was just amazing that I could stop exercise, keep eating like crap and suddenly begin losing weight. Go figure. Well, even that tapered off and I knew things were going to get sideways on me if I didn’t start doing SOMETHING. I have a fall volleyball league but 45 minutes once a week isn’t going to cut it. There appeared to be only one solution. In the back of my brain I began to recall that my gym opened at 5am. Normally I am not a morning person. This is largely because I prefer to stay up late, barely get enough sleep to operate and then run around like a lunatic so that I can get to work on time. This technique has served me well for many years. Ok, it hasn’t served me well but I’d been doing it and dammit I was comfortable with how stupid it was. My wife has always tried to talk me into going to bed at the same time as her and I’ve rarely allowed it. I gave in a couple weeks ago and went to bed at 10pm. You know what happened? I woke up, unassisted at 4:30am. I stared at the clock, realized that not only had I woken up 90 minutes early but I could blame my wife, and then promptly went back to sleep. This experience came back to the front of my mind at the same time the gym schedule occurred to me. Hmmm…if I went to bed at 10pm my wife would be happy, I’d wake up in time to go to the gym and nobody would miss me since wife and baby don’t usually see me before 6am anyway. I bet I could make it to the gym, check that off my list for the day and get to work on time. It would be a perfect way to sneak in my exercise needs without having to give anything up!