So it looks like I’ve not done a blog post in about, oh, 9 months. My bad. It’s not because I haven’t had things to say, I just haven’t taken the time to put it in this blog. I sat down here tonight and decided I wanted to add a blog. I didn’t have a plan as to what about, but I knew I wanted to write something. So I started by re-reading my previous 2 blog posts. I wondered what the me of 9 months ago had to say. I will say I’m impressed that 9 months ago me did a pretty good job on the first couple posts.
There have been some exciting changes in my life since I was last on here. I plan to write about much of it, but here are a few things that have changed: Hailey got engaged, I decided to get healthier and have lost 20 pounds so far, we bought a house at Fripp island, business keeps getting better and I keep working less, lots of travel coming up and I have a couple big business ideas I am constantly working on in my head.
I just realized I am easily distracted. Not that I didn’t already know this, but I was sitting here contemplating my next words and I found myself clicking through other pages and tabs on my 2 screens instead of starting the next paragraph. So I closed all the other tabs (well minimized anyway) so that I could focus. I used to think that I was a good multi-tasker. I also thought that this was a good skill to have. I suppose it can be in some areas, and may be necessary in many situations but I’ve come to realize that it usually leads to not being productive. Too often when you try to do 3 things at once, none of them ever gets completed or they all get done but in an amount of time way longer than should have taken, or lastly they all get done poorly. I find that getting one task done at a time without even thinking about the others is a better plan, at least for me.
I just made myself a cup of coffee, black. I’ve never been a black coffee drinker, but I am starting to like it this way. I always wanted to drink black coffee because I thought it was kinda bad ass. I’m not sure why, but I guess black coffee always seemed edgy and bitter and raw and the people who could drink it this way seemed to be the same way. Like when someone orders tequila with no fruit or salt. I started on the black coffee to comply with my fasting diet. In the fall of last year we went to long island to visit Amy’s other side of the family and my sister in law Jeanna told me about a book she had recently read, called “the fast diet”. Diets never worked for me, for likely the same reason they don’t work for most people, they suck. Any diet that says I can’t have bread anymore or fried foods or red meat or alcohol or anything else will never work for me because I like food too much. The basics of the “diet” is this; 5 days a week eat and drink as normal. The other 2 days, any 2 days you pick, restrict calories to 600 max for the day (500 for ladies). This is not easy in the beginning. Its sometimes not easy now, after about 5 months of doing it. It wasn’t easy today. But back in the fall I peaked out at 205 pounds, the heaviest I’ve ever been. Like many people, the weight just came along a couple pounds a year, over the past 20 or so years. Before you know it you’re at a a weight you never thought you’d get to and getting rid of it is hard. So I read this book and it just made sense to me. I can live my life like normal most of the time. 2 days a week, of my choosing, I have to behave and eat very little. I go as long into the day as I can without food, or calories at all, then I eat 1 meal with no more than 600 calories. This where the switch to black coffee came from. Adding cream to my coffee was starting my day with calories, and wasting those precious calories on creamer instead of another ounce or 2 of chicken wasn’t worth it, plus to be truly getting to a fasted state required no calories. So I made the switch to black coffee and I like it. A typical fast day has me taking in no calories till dinner, around 6 or 7. This dinner usually consists of a lean meat, like chicken, salmon, pork loin, shrimp, a pile of veggies and maybe some salad. I feel better eating like this. My normal days to fast are Monday and Thursday, right after the weekend and right before. The weekends are usually filled with good food and beers, so I look forward to my Monday fast days as a way to kinda detox from the weekend. It’s not always easy though. Today is a Monday, my normal fast day. I had a fund raising golf tournament to play in today, complete with pulled pork lunch and free beer. And I couldn’t have it. I could have switched my fast day to tomorrow but I have to fast tomorrow too, because Wednesday we leave for Las Vegas and the last thing anyone wants to do in Vegas is be restricted in any way. So I fasted today, drank no beer and I will do the same tomorrow and then come Wednesday I will be ready for endless red bull and vodkas, washed down with beers and steak and pizza and everything else I can get my hands on. Then next week I will reset on Monday and week after week I am able to drop lbs. So I am down to 185 lbs, a number not seen since at least 10 years ago, maybe closer to 15. I am not sure what my goal weight is, probably 175. But more important than the number on the scale is the way I feel. I snore less. I sleep better. I am not winded putting on my shoes. I feel lighter. I am crushing the golf ball farther than ever. I know that based on the science of fasting and the benefits to the body I have a lower chance of heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke and cancer. These things make me excited. I am 42 now and have to assume I am near the mid point of my expected years on earth. Cancer is everywhere. Seems like everyone takes medication for diabetes or high blood pressure. I take no medications but I was close and would have to be on some had I not taken action to change my habits. I had a life insurance exam maybe 2 years ago and was told my blood pressure was higher than normal. It made my rate for the coverage not in the preferred tier. This was the first kick in the nuts that made me start thinking. The next was my weight that slowly kept creeping up. I never wanted to cross the 200 weight threshold. I would hover at 198 or 199 and I thought, “I’m still under 200”. Then one day I wasn’t. My size 34 pants were getting tight. Some of my size 34’s I was avoiding. I told myself I wouldn’t go to 36’s. I had way too much invested in size 34’s to start over with the next size up. So it was time for a change, but I didn’t know how until I read the fast diet. For the first time in my life this made sense. I always used to joke and say i was going to write a diet book, called “don’t eat so much fat-ass”. Inside would be one sentence that said “put less food in your mouth”. I felt, and still feel, that portion sizes are the biggest problem with american diet (though processed food and chemicals are a very close second).
So I have traveled down this path of fasting twice a week almost every single week since about October, minus a couple weeks around the holiday. My wife has been a big help in this and we have helped keep each other on this path of getting healthier. I plan to grow old with her, in better than average health. We are doing a tough mudder challenge this year. The 5 or so months of doing this is the longest, by far, I have ever stuck with any process of losing weight/getting healthier.
I am still not happy with my gut. It’s proving to be tougher to lose than I expected. The sad and scary part is when I look at myself now at 185 pounds and am still frustrated by my gut, how bad was it at 205? I should never know because I am never going back to 205, so it doesn’t matter.
I think we all need to do a better job of taking care of ourselves. It has become too easy to just take a medication for this or that instead of really doing what it takes to fix ourselves naturally. Our bodies are strong and resilient. No matter how much we’ve let ourselves go we can recover and get healthy. It’s amazing really. For me the kick in the ass I needed was in my pants size. For others it may be just knowing that there are things you want to do and experiences left to experience that motivates you to do better. I want to live a long life. I plan to do big things, to see the whole world, to have laughs with grand-kids and hopefully great grand-kids eventually. In order to do all these things in life I have to be healthy enough to live a long time and not in a wheel chair or on a respirator or just too fat and lazy to get around.
I am excited to read this post months into the future and see how much I have progressed.
doing it different 