Daily report 3

My Bodymedia says that I had 1833 calories yesterday and my excel sheet that I have been using since 2007 says that I had 1855 calories and I would call that close enough to assume I am being accurate. I walked with my daughter again for just under 2 miles but we shaved 5 minutes off of our last walk time because I talked her into bringing her razor scooter so that we can go at a more me pace, worked great. One gallon of green tea and more than one gallon of H2O went down the hatch so hydrated I am indeed, the Bodymedia says that I slept for 6 hours 48 minutes with a sleep efficiency of , 82% still figuring that part of this new gadget out. 

It was unbelievable gorgeous outside yesterday so just before sunset I went out and walked around the lake with my fishing pole in hand just to get some light walking/fishing in to end my day. I caught the tiniest bass that I ever seen in my life (of course released it) and got a nice end of the night walk in all by myself. 

I have been back "on track" for about 5 days now and its crazy the difference in how I feel whether its actual or just mental because I know I am doing the right things for myself I suppose it doesn't matter either way, it is the result I was hoping for.

Thats all I got for today

As Ever
Me 

Daily Report 2

Yesterday finished off with 1810 calories in, 1 gallon of green tea and more than 1 gallon of H2O, I did not get in anything that I would call exercise and my walk did not happen because it was rainy. Though I got to bed by 11PM it was hard for me to fall asleep and then I was up at 4AM, maybe my body needs to adjust to getting full nights sleep again as I have always required less than 7 hours per night.

After talking with a couple people who have the Bodymedia Fit Link I decided that I would give it a go as I had a gift card that would cover the cost of the device and buying a health related item seemed like a good idea. Last night I ran out and picked it up, created my account and it is charging right now, I am a little worried that it will not be as comfortable as I am hoping but I will find out as soon as these 2 little lights blink green indicating that the device is fully charged.

Of course I will be giving my opinions etc on the fit link and I will continue to post as I can because getting this weight off has to be a priority.

Thanks for checkin' me out

As Ever
Me

Daily report 1

Took a walk with the kids yesterday afternoon, ate 1820 calories for the day, 1 gallon of green tea and 1 gallon of H2O down the hatch. Going to try and keep the momentum going through today and I am going to start using twitter again @Zeusmeatball if anyone is so inclined to check it out, its time to get the JuJu back..

My walk was 1.77 miles at my daughters pace and I got a chance to use my new Garmin fit app which I will be using from now on in as it syncs with my forerunner 305's data apparently so I am looking forward to pairing the two and seeing how it helps me. 

Posts will be short and sweet for now so that I can focus on getting back into a regimen of healthy eating, working out and hopefully I will start seeing the scale moving in a downward trend again.

Thats all I got for today

As Ever
Me

Big ol fattys...

After the swift kick in the ass yesterday I decide to go for a walk to reinforce the message to my body that play time is over, I ended up doing just under two miles with the baby stroller. After I got about a mile out I realized that my son would be home from school in 5 minutes and I needed to be there to let him in so I hustled back for the second mile and just made it as his bus pulled up. If mowing the lawn counts I did that as well as far as exercise and I am coming to the realization that I am going to have to go see a doc about this shoulder pain so that  can start in on my daily push ups again. 

I will touch on the shoulder, nine months ago give or take I started having shoulder pain in my right shoulder, at first it was minor but its since gotten way worse and I believe it to be rotator cuff related. I can do daily life type stuff but anything past that is painful especially if I were to throw a ball, that motion is the worse. I need to look at this go at weight loss as new, when I was 500 pounds I needed to do things a certain way because of where I was then at 300 pounds I was almost unlimited yet now I am somewhere in between and if I think like that 500 pound guy I am in the wrong spot and I am not close to where the 300 pound version of me was so taking it head on as it is a completely new experience is how I need to advance through this. 

Setting goals is going to have to be in my approach because well.. goals help and give a fella something to focus on while turning down brownies and declining the cherry pie. Setting a cycling goal for myself is on the chart and setting weight loss goals will be less prevalent this go around, I mean hell I am a scale addict when I am doing well so I will be aware of what my weight is doing but I have come to the realization that I really don't care what I weigh if I am unhindered in anything that I want to do. This sort of means that if I can do my 25 mile Sunday rides without death finding me on the trail or flattening my bicycle I am happy, currently I am not confident on my bicycles not because I cannot ride them but I worry about breaking something so riding tender will be where I am. 

Riding tender? what the hell does that even mean man? well it means that even being a "clydesdale" rider I am merciless with my bikes, I RIDE my bikes, I do tend to ride light but at my current weight I feel that I may be pushing my luck even while riding light. When I say riding tender I mean literally just getting the pedals turning on easy rides, no standing on the pedals and no off road excursions because "hey that little trail over there looks fun" but I do need to get back out there even if its short trips to get things going again and perhaps gain some confidence back. 

I recently bought some big ol fatty tires for the K2 which is pictured above they are CST Cyclops 26  x 2.4 tires and are extremely ummm rotund so I am using that as a reason to get back onto the bike as well.  My shoulder keeps me from riding as much as I would like to as well, but it is what it is I suppose for now but I am hoping to get things lined back up and having my body begging for mercy again because this me begging for mercy thing just don't fly. 

So with all of that said it is time for me to hit the road and get a couple miles into my day, I am going to try and get a few minutes later for a quick spin around the lake as well because when I am moving the weight typically comes off. I hope that was enough random for your day coming from my direction because that's what I got for today, I have never seen cookies jump into someones mouth on their own before so as long as I don;t pick any up they should stay out of my mouth. 

As Ever
Me

Everybody freeze! this is a robbery!

I feel like I am robbing myself of all of the things that I earned and saying earned is odd because most "normal" sized people need not earn them as they are just a given in most cases. Once upon a lullaby I was a 500 plus pound man wondering if it would be on the stair case or maybe on my way outside to bring the trash out when my heart would grenade and seven poor souls would have to lift me into an ambulance and then that changed. I decided that enough was enough and it was time to get serious about living before death got serious about finding me in a dark alley and cashing in and this here blog was started and viola that along with a piss load of hard work and discipline lead me down a path that ended at a healthy 300 pounds, which sounds funny but its true.

 

I have in my life right now something that DEMANDS my attention and I am an emotional eater through and through if I had a single wish it would be that was not a fact but it is and its not easy to distract myself when the shit hits that proverbial fan and lately trust me when I say that I am covered in it. This is a problem because as you know its not easy to stay on track all of the time without the distractions to use a nice word for them so managing to do what needs to be done while the water keeps rising is not a remedial task at all, but alas.. it must be changed. 

  

Ya see sometimes though over in the corner is that other guy, that guy who battled his way down from 534 pounds to 300 pounds and every day at the gym status. Hes sitting there watching all of this shit go down in front of him and he knows that if he just sits there and allows it to happen that the cage door is going to swing shut again. That guy knows how to do what needs to be done, he understands the repercussions of sitting idly by while shit goes to hell around him and he one hundred percent realizes that even surrounded by stress that sooner or later the hammer will drop and which side of the fence he ends up on is placed squarely on HIS shoulders.  

  

So... What to do about it? Perhaps allowing stress that would shatter most people and I suppose you could say that I am letting it do the same to me, destroy the health of a man who worked so hard to completely 180 his life and the way he was treating his body is one way to go. Something else that could happen is that instead of understanding whats causing the distress and allowing it to dictate what the next step is that maybe, just maybe I snatch life up by the throat once again and tell it to go fuck off because I got shit I still need to do should be the direction I lean instead. 

 

I am stronger than anything that will stress me, I am the one who steers the truck and I can either let go of the wheel and let the shit that seems to be trying to tear me down be in control or I could remain in full control of these things. I think its time to to tell life to reach into the bag and give me my wallet back, I will allow it to keep what it has taken, I will allow it to have its small victory but ultimately it needs to understand something and more importantly I NEED to understand something, I determine what I put into my body, I determine whether I will go for a ride on my bike or for a walk, I decide. 

Yep, Thats the one, its the wallet that says bad motherfucker on it so with that said, and I am repeating myself here its time to turn in my little bitch card and man the fuck up.

As Ever
Me

 

You could spend your entire life walking around in the nowhere land of self doubt.

Where do I begin, I have not had time to sit down and regularly write here, Life is keeping me on my toes and unfortunately its taking its toll on my weight. I am up in weight from my lowest but not close to my starting weight but if something doesn't change who knows where the wheel stop, I am keeping tabs on things to the point that I am not gaining but I am not losing either and I believe the lack of focus is to blame. I'll never make excuses as to why I am not losing weight or gaining on fitness goals, I will say that if you have to shovel shit against the tide while monkeys toss stones at you from the shore during a Nor'easter while your hands are tied together that it's a bit more difficult than usual. 

Something about my blog that has held true since its creation is that I don't like to bullshit, its straight to the point, blunt and typically reflects where I am in my head and that's a part of why the posts have been thin lately as well, why post if its going to be negative? I see people "fall off the wagon" all the time when I read weight loss and fitness blogs, I wish I could barrel through it and keep writing when that happens but it feels so false to me to tell someone "keep on keepin on!" as I sit here, beard covered in cookie crumbs, so I don't. I did sometime last year decide that I could not shave my beard until I got back down to 334 pounds (which is the 200 pounds lost mark) so lets say I am sportin' that mountain man look a little bit these days and as Summer approaches I question that decision.

This morning I decided it was time to MAKE time to write a post, not for anyone that may be reading, not because I was bored and needed to kill some time but for me. I started writing this bog for me back in Jan 2008 and I need to keep that in mind when I write posts. I need to keep me in mind with ever decision because those monkeys are not going to stop chucking stones, the tide never quits but that Nor'easter has to end some time and when all is said and done I am the one that has to deal with it all. I gained enough weight that my wardrobe is umm how do I say? snug would be a nice way to say it and that alone pisses me off to the point where I could get frustrated over it if I let myself but I'm not gonna go there in my head. Its time, time to man the fuck up and put my big boy pants back on and fix this because looking back at life at 534 pounds there is no fuckin way I'm going back no matter what those monkeys toss at me. 

Being a little bitch has never really been the way I roll and in some ways letting my weight get out of control because so much around me seems to be in chaos is well... bein' a little bitch. I am unstoppable when my game is on, I have proved that to myself so the question is not really can I do it or do I have it in me but how to beat this little bitch down and man up. I suppose the answer to that is to just do it because I have said it time and time again, no one can do it for me, I have to just put the fork down and get my ass moving again no matter how much is tossed my way and I am going to quote someone that's helped me get through a lot of shit in my life here and apply it to this.

"If I took the time to bleed from all the tiny little arrows shot my way, I wouldn't be here"

~Henry Rollins~

Now with that said, Harden The Fuck Up fat boy, its time to start beating my own ass again, besides... I want to shave again because there are too many beardist people in the world....

As Ever
Me

My bike storage fix.

So my wife says that I have too many bikes, no surprise there I suppose but she also says that she is tired of stepping over them and since I am not willing to park my Xcal outside and she was not letting go either I had to figure something out. I keep two of my bikes in the house, in my bedroom specifically.. yeah yeah I know but my K2 is set up on the trainer at the moment and the Xcaliber is not going outside so here we are. 

The way I see it is that the bike could be art.. stretching? perhaps but even still so I thought about making some sort of system that would allow me to hang the bike in front of a window that's on the side of my room which would A.) get the bike out of my short wife's way and B.) allow the bike to be inside without bothering anyone. After thinking about it, yep a whole 10 minutes, I ran out to the home improvement store for supplies and spent I would guess under five bucks on some wood and the rest of the stuff I had laying around. 

 

 Not too shabby.

  I did make sure to leave room for the curtain to slide behind the shelves to keep them out of the way and somewhat protected from being up against the tires.

I built two small shelves that would be wide enough for the wheels to sit on yet not stick off of the wall in a way that would be in the way. I measured the window and the bikes foot print fit perfectly and after some quick measurements and some cutting the shelves were made and mounted on the wall, not too bad. For the hanger on the top tube I used a piece of 550 paracord that I had laying around, 2 small carabiners also which I had laying around and a small vinyl coated hook that I had in my box O stuff and viola! the bike was on the wall. After it was mounted and I knew the bike fit it was primed and painted white to match the woodwork  around the window and I used stair tread grip tape in the center just to give the wheel a more positive gripping surface and to keep the wood clean as the tire sits on the tape. 

Over all it works awesome, the bike is out of the way and it cost me close to nothing with the grip tape pack being the most expensive thing I had to buy. I did use a bandana around the top tube just to spread the force of the paracord and keep the paint from getting mussed up, I honestly believe that the paracord is soft enough to not hurt the bike but it is no big deal to put the bandana on.

There you have it, my solution to a problem that didn't exist in my eyes but at the same time it is a pretty convenient way to store the bike when its not being ridden and way better than putting it upstairs in our extra room which is used for storage.

I am attempting to post more often again to get my arse back in gear and share with whoever cares to read along the struggles, triumphs and things like this here post so that someone may take something away from my ramblings that might help them in their own struggle. 

That's all I got for today. 

As Ever

Me

Be your own hero dammit.

When we set our minds to something, we can accomplish almost anything at all in life, I truly believe that statement wholeheartedly. 

Motivation, now that is the key because without proper motivation it is very easy to lose sight of the end game, but how about of you made it to the end game and slid back? then what? We all struggle with things in life, for some of us its money, others its health and that list goes on and on and on. When it comes down to it ain't no one gonna do shit for you in life and why should they? if you do not do it for yourself its just not going to get done and when we can realize this all of the things that make us smile all start falling together until one day we're standing at the top of a peak looking down at the world that was once so much smaller than it is now.

Having positive role models is an awesome tool! I know all too well how strong the feeling can be when you are reaching to be like someone or are attempting to emulate what someone has done but I find myself asking why lately. Why? why does it need to be somewhere else that we find strength? why does inspiration need to be found in others? why? Find it in yourself and it will be ever lasting and I believe this to be key because if you are finding inspiration in yourself then we are forced to hold ourselves more accountable, we are forced to make better choices in whatever we do not only because it effects us directly but because you want to be the best you can for that person that finds you an inspiration. 

That person is You..

Be your own fuckin' hero dammit, put that cape on every day and hunt down everything that makes your struggle difficult and work through it, kick down the doors and demand whats yours. When you can be your own hero you will work to impress that guy and he will work to impress you, it will become a viscous cycle of trying to one up each others awesomeness until one day you will look back at what once was and be satisfied with what you have accomplished. 

what YOU have accomplished.... 

Be your own hero dammit....

As Ever
Me

Why I ride...

A page on facebook popped into my feed and there was a statement "Why I ride" there, I am currently reflecting on things because the struggle with keeping myself in check is in full swing right now and I thought about that statement.

Why I ride....

Why do I ride? I ride because there was a point in my life when riding was not a possibility, I watched from the window on my broken couch at 534 pounds as people walked by and honestly asked myself "why would someone want to just go for a walk or ride a bike?" this is where I was. A decision was made to lose weight and during the time that the weight came off I found cycling again, the last time I had ridden I was a kid. On my bicycle I am free, I am limited only by my own strength, my own endurance so as long as there is a road or a trail I can ride. Going from 534 pounds down to 300 paired with cycling could be compared to being a caged animal, one day you realize that the cage is unlocked and watching other people do the things that you want to do is no longer reality because now the wind is on your own face.

It may sound silly to some people that the freedom riding a bicycle gives to me is a very powerful feeling because knowing how the cage feels compared to moving down a trail is such a stark difference. My life on two wheels includes freedom, freedom to go where I want when I want while getting a high at the same time all while under my own power. Now when you were once powerless this is an exceptional feeling, to be moving forward literally and figurativly seeing life through the eyes of the child that you once were atop a frame bolted to some wheels a chain and some handlebars truly is something to not be taken for granted.

Like the saying goes, "It's like riding a bike, you never forget" the same can be said about that caged feeling when you weigh 500 plus pounds, you never forget....

I will not be caged..and THAT is why I ride.

As Ever
Me

Don't say it, shut your fuckin mouth and keep on walkin'

I started writing again recently and then it hit the fan again, to put it bluntly I have some pretty stressful shit going on in my life currently and trying to stay focused on my health is extremely hard when I have so many other places my attention needs to be. I am stretched thin right now and just don't have the time to get on here and post as much as I would like and it sucks because this blog is a VERY important tool in my weight loss/health regimen but tonight, sleep deprived and feeling pretty fucked about how this weight game is going right now I came across a post that had been shared on facebook from a person that I do not know. 

I will not post her name but if she reads this she needs to know that she IS NOT a fat bitch and kids are stupid. I completely related to what she wrote as I have been there done that with someone taking the time to make sure that their stupid fucking opinion was shouted loudly cementing into a fat persons brain what they already know... Yes world we are quite fucking aware that we are fat, thanks for stating the obvious along with solidifying the fact that you are a complete douche bag. 

Struggling with weight loss is as hard as anything I or any other person dealing with it has ever done and people who have never been there do not have the right to say a single negative word about it to anyone who struggles with being over weight. How about if you feel so inclined to make sure stupidity flies out of your mouth you change it into something positive instead, and if that's too hard for you fucking idiots then just keep your mouth shut.  

We are fathers, brothers sisters moms and cousins to someone, everyone on the planet struggles with something or will struggle with something and verbally smashing their face in with insults is not helping a single person and that goes for any struggle with any person not just us fatties.

If you have something negative to say fuck off and keep it to yourself, have a look in the mirror and ask yourself why you feel the need to belittle someone else because they are fat before you take time from your day to insult someone whom you do not know.

I will get down off of my soap box now but you get my point. 

As Ever
Me