Day 192 of 365 52.60% complete

I have not blogged in quite some time. It is not because I have fallen off the wagon with any of my goals this year it is simply because I have been very very very busy these days. I completed our Family move to a house that I believe we will be at for many years to come. Our family has moved more than any family should. It is in part to me and my wife's bad financial decision making, my work locations, and the status of my marriage. We are in a good place right now on all three of those fronts and it appears we will be putting a flag in the ground and claim this land.

I am now over 50% of the way to completing this year without drinking and there are so many things I have learned about myself during this time. I would recommend that anyone do this with any vise that you may have and see what you learn about yourself. It has been eye opening. The main thing I realized is all the time I have been wasting… it is amazing how much more time I have for building positive things. The past month has been hard I must say – I have been thinking about wanting to drink but most of it is just simply to relax after a long day or with dinner at a restaurant. These are the small things that I miss right now. The time I have right now needs to be getting myself ready for the final push of this year… The hardest test is yet to come. I have tailgating, all inclusive resort in Mexico, and Christmas/New-years holiday to deal with. I am not going to lie and say I am not worried – especially for the tailgating part. I know nothing else during tailgating but drinking and eating. It will be the hardest challenge I have undertaken in my life next to repairing my marriage. I don’t know how I will make it through. Like I said this time right now will need to be preparing myself for the rest of the year. Day one of the tailgating season is 9/3/11 - less than two months away.

My weight is 206. This is great considering I have not worked out in a while but I have been working hard moving though… I feel good about where my weight is and I hope to lose another 5 pounds or more over the next few weeks.

I am still doing well and still on track!!! ONWARD!!!

Day 166 of 365, 45.5% complete

Day 166 and I feel great. I know I have not had much time blog but my new job is taking my morning time and that is when I usually blog and update my blog world. My weight of 206 is great to see. I thought I had reached my "sustainable weight" level. What I mean by that is I have been eating pretty much the same over the past two months and I don’t see that changing much. I have to make a full out effort to change some things about my eating habits to get my weight to lower. I am not comfortable with being 206 but I think I would be comfortable with being 199. If I keep myself out of the 200 range I think I will be happy. I hope that my weight can still keep going down because right now I don’t really want to change what and how I am eating.

I also ate some fast food so my consecutive days have ended. It was A&W with the family but still it was fast food type food. Since I have not eaten any and that also feels good. I have taken fast food out of my mind and even though I am not consciously keeping away from it my mind does not want it so I think I am doing well.

ONWARD people ONWARD.

Day 153 of 365 42% complete

Day 153 almost at that half way point. It certainly feels good to have gotten this far. I must say that over the past month it has been more difficult than at any other point. I am stronger for it now I know that. My fast food days straight are 46 days and counting. I don’t even really want to these days so that is a GREAT feeling.

I have not blogged much the past few weeks mostly because of my new work schedule. Over the past week I have not gone to the gym at all because I have been really sick and it has been something I have never had before. It is a cold/flue but it knocked me on my butt. Temp of 102, migraines, and horrible body fatigue. I am back up to about 85%. That was something awful. My weight right now is 207 (not official because it is my bathroom scale). I have maintained my weight through my sickness over the past week or so.
I am not going anywhere. I have things to accomplish!!!
ONWARD!!!

140 of 365

Day 140 of my journey. In all honesty I must say that the only time this journey of mine is difficult is when I hang out with friends or watch sports. That is interesting in itself. The next difficult bridge will be when tailgating season starts. I have put that out of my head because I don’t even want to think about how difficult that is going to be when the time comes. So for now I keep building my resistance and when that time comes I will be prepared. 33 days into my open ended challenge to see how long I can go without fast food… This may end up being difficult after a couple weeks but we will see. Finally my weight… 208. It feels like a good weight and really all I have done is try to cut back on night eating and keeping with my 3 days a week workout regimen.

To everyone out there that is struggling to find some strength please keep reading my blog. The drinking and weight loss thing is building momentum and maybe just maybe you can get some strength from me.

ONWARD!!!

Day 138 of 365, 37.8% complete

Day 138… 37.8% complete Wow I have been at this for a good amount of time now. I have not been blogging and posting comments on others blogs lately because I have been extremely busy with work and family and my morning time is being occupied by meetings. I have to find another time to dedicate to my blogging so I can stay on top of mine and others blogs. My weight is holding at 210 right now. I guess that’s ok but I really want to see it down at least 10 right now. I eat too much. That is the bottom line. Until I get serious about reducing my intake my weight will not go down. I just don’t know why I refuse to do something about that. My 30 day Fast Food challenge is complete now. I see a direct relationship between my weight and adult acne with eliminating fast food from my diet. I think as I go forward that I will just leave it alone completely. I enjoy not having to deal with the facial issues and added weight. Lets see how long I go without a challenge in front of me.

Other than that I think I am on a new path with my invention and starting to work on it again. So as I like to say – ONWARD!!!

Day 129 of 365

Day 129 and still going strong. My journey has been tested this year but I am still on top. The Fast food and Pizza challenge is also going well day 22 of 30. This weekend was a good weekend for me. I had a great business meeting for my invention and I resisted the temptation to drink while watching The Pacman beat up on Shane Mosley in a boxing match. Usually those events are accompanied by lots food, drinks, and good times. I simply had good times. It was an all around positive weekend.

Now to get to my weight... I am at 211. I'm not sure how I feel about that number. My first reaction when getting on the scale this morning was wow I am not making any real progress with my weight loss goal. My second thought was that I feel stronger than I have felt and I generally feel great right now. I know that the amount of food I am eating is directly affecting my weight status right now. I just eat too much. I don’t eat bad foods but I am just eating too much. I'm not sure how to deal with that. Everything about my life right now feels stronger and healthier so why do I feel down on myself about the amount of food I eat and my inability to get my weight back down into the 190's…? I'm not sure how to answer that right now. Maybe it will come to me in one of my workout sessions MONDAY WEDNESDAY FRIDAY!!!

ONWARD!

Day 125 of 365

I did workout yesterday but had a lot of work things to take care of. I weighed in at 209 and still feelin good.
Still good on both goals.
ONWARD!!!

Day 122 of 365

Day 122 of 365 – Day 15 of 30. All is well.

This morning I had a re-do on the scale. My weight dropped several pounds and I did not have a good eating weekend. I guess the regular scheduled workouts are setting in. It felt good to see a real move in the scale this morning. This week Friday I have another meeting for my invention so there is a decent amount of stuff I need to do to prepare. This week started off great and I will do my best to keep it that way!!!

ONWARD!!!

Day 119 of 365

Day 119 of 365 / Day 12 of 30 and I'm feeling a little better than the past few days. Some family issues along with my invention progress taking a halt has fuel this. I have a couple more meetings set up and I had some discussions with family members so I am able to breathe a little now. I still need more thought on my post yesterday…

Day 118 of 365

Day 118 of 365 still good – Day 11 of 30 still good! Yesterday I did make it out to the gym and I weighed in at 211. I was really busy and have been going through some things lately. My resolve on my journey is being tested. Some things are just not going the way I want them to.

Question - What do people do when they become stressed? How do people handle stress in life? This is a question that justifies most bad actions for people. People use eating, drinking, abuse, drugs, and the list goes on. My sister recently had a disk in her spine that ruptured and is in a lot of pain. She smokes and there has been research that links smoking to back pain and spinal deterioration. She has been going through back pain for years and has been smoking for years as well. She is in the hospital right now and says that it's just too hard to quit smoking. The stress of her life is such that she needs this outlet. Considering the alternative I just don’t understand why we decide to hurt ourselves more when we are going through stressful periods in our life and are already hurting. I am no angel and have justified stress relievers of my own – but why do we need to do this? We want the pain to go away – numb it - most of the time we just don’t care how we just want it to go away. We are a society of "get it right now". Pleasure and stress relief are at the top of the list. How do we condition our brains to go in a different direction? I just don’t know. I will be giving this some thought over the next few weeks.