Goals for 2010

I sat down to write my blog today, with a blank page wondering what my goals (or plans) for 2010 were going to be. I could write down all of the easy stuff that I tell myself that I am going to do every year, like stop procrastinating, be a better son, friend etc. But they are never tangible things that I cannot measure, so this year I will make goals that can be measured.

Health

1) Be less than 300 lbs by June 30, which would be a 54 pond loss and will keep me on track to my total weight loss plan.

2) Do 1005 miles by biking, swimming and walking by 2011. I was reading Jennsfitjourney and she had a goal of 2010 miles and I liked the idea but with my knees I figured I could do half of it.

3) Bike the Perkiomen Trail in one day. It’s a 22 mile trail from Green Lane to Valley Forge National Historical Park.

4) Walk the Valley Forge National Park loop. It’s a 5 mile loop through the park.

5) Swim 2 miles at once. This is 142 laps at the YMCA pool. I currently do 44 laps at a time now.

Home

Do all of this myself and not hire anyone. I know it sounds like normal maintenance
but each year I tell myself to do it and it never gets done. So I am making a commitment.

1) Paint the house, inside and out. It needs it, been 18 years and is starting to look shabby.

2) Strip and wax both bathrooms and kitchen.

3) Steam clean all of the rugs.

Well that wraps it up. I will have to track the walking, biking and swimming on daily/weekly bases which will help me blogging more.

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Identity Theft

You know how to really ruin Christmas is to stop at a gas station and have you credit card declined for over limit. Now, mind you I only use this card for gas and I have a $5,000 limit and it’s paid off every month. When I get back to the house I give the credit card company a call and they go over the charges in the last week on the card, and it totals $4,985.

In discussing this with the companies fraud division it appears even the address on the card has been changed. After spending 1 hour on the phone with them and then call the 3 credit reporting agency and my other credit card companies to place fraud alerts on my info, I finally had a chance to think.

Not only am I worried about my credit, but I feel violated. First how does someone get a hold of my card information and just change things. All the companies told me, not to worry I am only responsible for $50 on any bad charges, but I am now the one who has to clean this mess up. The person who did this will probably, not get caught or if they do will not do time.

But I am the one who is the victim and I still have to pay $50 on any bad charges, it’s just not fair. Now, I will try to have a good day today and look at the positive. I have lost 77 lbs, although I missed the lose 25 lbs by Christmas by 2 lbs, I have done well this year. My health is good (even the knees feel better), the family is fine and I still have a job.

I have told myself I will not head to food to comfort this and I will get by, but it still sucks.

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Snow

What a peaceful Saturday. I had done all my weekend chores Friday night and just got to relax on Saturday, watching the snow was really good for me. It calms me and makes me at peace. I love it when you go outside after the storm and everything is still and quite. The crunch under my feet, the sparkle of snow as it drifts.

Then today, shoveling my car out was a task. Ok it was light snow but still 16” is a b*&tch. Afterward my back was bothering me but hey I did it and am proud I did it myself. When I was 75 lbs heavier it would have taken everything out of me. But today, I just had a minor back ache. Even my knees did not feel that bad.

This week is going to be a busy week. Christmas is coming up and I have not even started shopping. My last day at work is Wednesday and I normally leave at 12 pm so that gives me the afternoon. I work well under pressure, no second guessing what people want just pick and go.

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Fat Dude

I reading several blogs today and it seemed that everyone is talking BMI. It’s the new weight measurement tool. So just to check out how I stand on this scale off I head to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute website and enter my stats and hit the button and WAMO my BMI is 45.7. Now what’s that mean to me? According the web site

BMI Categories:
Underweight = <18.5
Normal weight = 18.5-24.9
Overweight = 25-29.9
Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater

Class 1 or mild obesity is a BMI = 30–34.9, class 2 or moderate obesity is a BMI = 35–39.9, class 3 or morbid or severe obesity is a BMI = 40–49.9, and class 4 or super morbid obesity is a BMI ≥ 50.

I am in the morbid obesity area. No s&*t, like I could not tell that by looking in the mirror. But the good news I started out with a BMI of 55.3, which was super morbid obesity and I am down to morbid obesity. Now we have classes and numbers and all kinds of stuff.

What ever happen to just fat dude or blimpy? I forgot that’s was not politically correct, but it got to the point, and I am not politically correct.

So fat dude out.

Office Snacks

When I first got into business, Contractors gave booze around the Christmas time. As guy who had just quit drinking I found this ironic, where were they when I was drinking. But as times change Contractors started giving cookies, popcorn, peanuts (Virginia Diner the best). Now when I was not watching what I ate I would be in the kitchen grabbing something all the time.

Today we received I large tin of popcorn, a slab of almond chocolate and a tin of peanuts. Bad news! Someone opened the popcorn and I found myself grabbing a handful every time I passed the kitchen. On the third time I figured since I am keeping a calorie count I would like at the label and see how many calories there are in a handful. So I grab a normal handful and place the popcorn in a cup and it came out to just about one cup. The label said 55 calories per cup. I had 165 calories without thinking, which is about 8% of my calorie count per day. I looked at the peanuts 190 calories in three tablespoons. In three tablespoons that not enough to really get a good taste of them and the chocolate bar who knows what the count it that is.

So off I walked telling myself no way no more. But as I was walking out the door bang a handful of popcorn. Damn office gifts, right up there with the evil supermarket. Hold on there is a common denominator in this and it is me, you know this journaling stuff sucks

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Regrets

I was reading one of my daily blogs today and she was talking about going to her great grandmother home to get a picture of 5 generations. What a amazing thought to be able to do something like that. One of my greatest regrets is that I don’t have kids. Now I have nieces and a nephew but that’s not the same. But you I have come to accept the fact that I will not have any kids.

One of the main reasons is I am not married. I am one of those “independent” guys who could never settle down with one person. I look at it now and think I was too scared to settle down. Have someone really get to know me. Sure I have a lot of friends but no one ever got close, I never let them. I keep thinking one day I will meet someone and let my guard down. But the truth is I have met someone several times and I ran as fast as I could. It is so easy to wrap myself in my weight and say that is the reason but it’s not. Truth is told I am afraid and that is something I have to get over or I will spend the rest of my life alone.

So as I lose weight I must come out of my shell and start to live more and have no regrets. Man none of this stuff is ever easy.

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“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.” - Aristotle

That was the healthy reflection from Sparkpeople. Very timely, when I reread my post yesterday, I saw a pattern that I fall into. After a slip, or maybe a better way of looking at it is an unplanned break from my new lifestyle, I would normally say what the heck, I blew it and give myself permission to go nuts.

But I didn’t go nuts, went right back to my plan of eating sensibly. I was reading on another blog about people who go on the fad diets. You know the ones Optifast, South Beach, Slimfast etc, etc where you lose weight but after a few years its back and more. The key it seems is changing behavior, like Pavlov dogs, where someone who merely reacts to a situation rather than using critical thinking. Therefore, I have to change my behavior so I react to the situation in a more favorable way.

Reaching back to college and my psychology class that means changing my habits via positive reinforcement and repetitiveness. Damn I thought I would never use that crap again. Let me digress, when I had psychology at the end of the class I was a paranoid schizophrenic with delusions of grandeur. Every chapter I read I saw a part of me. Afterwards, I figured that everyone has a little nut in them, but boy I was wondering about it. Maybe, because I was drinking up a storm and smoking my brains out, had something to do with it.

I am back, reading some stuff on the web it appears that “Key to Changing Habits Is In Environment, Not Willpower” according to a Duke Expert. This I understand. When I stopped drinking I was told to stay away from people, places and things. Therefore, I should never have gone into the evil supermarket. The researcher found out.
“Once you form a habit, it takes willpower to inhibit the triggered response. If you don’t have the energy to override the response, you tend to repeat what you’ve done in the past”. Well I was hungry therefore no energy. This is going to take awhile.

I read all kinds of ways of discovering what motivates specific patterns, and what can be done to change habits and create new life patterns. I boiled it down to the following:

1. Identify the pattern and cycle or awareness.

The first step is recognizing that change is necessary. Just saying I am going to change the habit is not enough of a commitment. I need to actually write it down, on paper, or in this new fangled age this blog. Define what need to be changed.

2. Commit to the change

I read that one key to commitment is my use of language. How many times have I told myself (“I need to lose weight”) or (“I want to lose weight”)? I need to start telling myself (“I will lose weight”). It takes the commitment from a want or a need to an action step

The habit needs to be stated positively. This means I need to focus on what I want rather than what I don’t want. Just saying that I intend to lose weight is more positive than saying that you want to lose weight.

I need to go public with my commitment. This means telling all the key people in my life about the change I am making. Put change in writing. Make a formal contract with myself and post it where my family can see it. Pledging to keep this promise with the same level of commitment I use in promising to tell the truth in court.

How many times have I started losing weight and not telling anyone? Was I just setting myself up for failure? This time is different.

3. Find healthier ways to meet needs

This is the when I am supposed to stop myself in the midst of the bad habit or troubling behavior. They say, the healthy response is to stop, acknowledge and apologize if needed, and then redirect to a healthier choice of behavior. Easier said than done!

To change any habit, I give up my excuses. Stop using them and of course stop trying to come up with new ones. If I am easily tempted, I need admit it. There is something refreshing about stating the truth.

4. Change limiting beliefs

It is said that “Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day, while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.”

When I look at the above it tells me changing habits requires discipline. So off I go to look up disciplines. According to Wikipedia “discipline refers to systematic instruction given to a disciple”. So the root of the word discipline is 'disciple' to me then I am following my spiritual path. Wow I did not expect that.

Back to Wikipedia which tells me self-discipline refers to the training that one gives one's self to accomplish a certain task or to adopt a particular pattern of behavior, even though one would really rather be doing something else. What does this mean to me? I guess acting according to what I think instead of how I feel in the moment.

I know when giving up drinking it was because the pain I was enduring was greater than the pain I thought I would endure not drinking. I found pain was an extremely positive motivator. By keeping my life focused not giving up, I achieve success. So this hold true in every area of life. If I do not achieve something, it just means I have changed my mind at some point and stopped being committed to a new outcome.

Enough said for today.

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