Admitting It

   
        Totally went to the gym last night, and this morning.  I’ve grabbed my horrifying sedentary lifestyle and poor eating habits by the nards and twisted.  So, as a change, instead of just writing down the things I’ve been doing (working out and eating wise), I’ve decided to share some of the food and fitness related embarrassments that I’ve committed over the course of my weight inflation.  I’m sure that many of you have done the some of the same things but have just been ashamed to admit it (maybe even to yourself); but I feel like I owe it to myself to write them down and get them out so I can move past it.

1.       I’ve gotten home early and taken food to my room and hid it before anyone else got home so I could eat it in bed and no one would see me sneaking it when they were around.

2.       I’ve made excuses NOT to go out with friends because I wanted to eat junk food and stay at home and watch television.

3.       I’ve eaten an ENTIRE large Round Table pizza to myself.

4.       I’ve lied about what I’ve eaten in a day because I was embarrassed to admit it to someone.

5.       I’ve knowingly sacrificed my health for crap food that just made me feel bad about myself.

6.       I get annoyed with watching people eat because of what food means to me.

7.       I’ve actually been addicted to fast food and gotten genuinely upset when I can’t have it.

8.       I forgot what a plum, peach, and mango tasted like.

9.       I wear sweatshirts when it’s hot outside because I don’t like what I look like in t-shirts.

10.   I haven’t been outside without a shirt on in 3 years (even in my own yard).

11.   I’ve had a hangover at least two days a week for as long as I can remember.

12.   My mental acuteness has suffered because of my unhealthy lifestyle.

13.   I’m almost positive I have made irreversible damages to my body and length of life due to my behavior.

14.   I find it incredibly hard to have a meaningful relationship with a woman because I am so insecure about my own body and behavior.

      These are some of the things that I have tried to hide from everyone as well as myself over the course of nearly half a decade.  Now that I can look at this list, it really instills conflicted emotions, both of sadness and joy; I am sad that I let my life become so unmanageable and depressing but at the same time I see the huge gap of improvement I am able to make by changing.  I can’t say whether I’ll stick to this whole lifestyle improvement or not, but I can say one thing for sure, I’ve never been able to admit to the things above to anyone, not even myself.  This is a good start.

Thank you Monday Night Football!

I got home last night and was pretty fired up to work out but then I realized that Monday Night Football was on, so…I was standing in my living room with my gym bag in hand and re-enacted the battle scene from Braveheart in my mind.  Only, on one side I had beer and MNF and on the other hand I had responsibility and accountability for the goals I’ve made for myself.  After a rough confliction I decided to sacrifice football in the name of health and went to the gym.  Now, the gym has televisions on the treadmills and other machines but every time I’ve been to the gym is either been all the televisions only showing the political conventions or static, so I’ve discontinued turning them on and simply run to my headphones.  This time however, I gave it a shot and what do you know, MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL WAS ON!!  I ended up on the treadmill until I felt like I might pass out.  It was awesome. 

This is how I feel today. Super Awesome.  And a solid B Cup.

 

It turns out that the DirecTv system was messed up before and they just got it fixed.  589 super quick calories later I feel awesome today and brought my gym bag.  But, seeing as it’s Tuesday and there’s no football on, let’s hope they get FOX so I can watch some 2 ½ Men and Big Bang. 

I think my lack of cable and their abundance of it may be the spark I needed to get to the gym.  Who would have that the thing that makes me lazy at home would be my inspiration to be active somewhere else?

My Diet is a Gorilla

Imagine the following:

A giant gorilla holds a Baskin-Robbins hostage for its entire mint chocolate chip supply; it then proceeds to make its way over to the Cheesecake Factory and gnarf down three times its body weight in delicious treats, only to realize it’s still hungry.  Cut to a Papa Murphy’s that will never recover from the damage he has caused; windows bashed in, small high school student employees crying and trying to identify the bandit…and there’s now a worldwide shortage of pepperoni.

This was my diet this weekend.  A full blown rampage of culinary catastrophe blended with an insatiable need to destroy any and all hope my diet had for survival.  It was a blood bath.

 

So.  Here I am.  Monday morning.  Luckily the gorilla was killed by a couple of snickers bars at nine forty five last night and he retreated back to his cave of shame and heartburn.  May he rest in peace (the shit eating bastard).  Now I pick up the pieces and start anew; gorilla free.  I’m pretty sure I should have more self control than this. 

When there's beer involved, I honestly suck at fitness.

       In the spirit of what this whole series of the blog is about, I feel like accountability is the most important thing; and, in that, honesty is paramount.  So, last night I was all ready to go to the gym after work and then our logistics rep came to the office and gave us a $50 “Appreciation Incentive” gift card.  Super stoked.  So I grabbed Dave and we headed over for a pint…or three.  And thennn, on the way home, Liz and I stopped at the gas station and loaded up on cookies (for her) and some cold ones (for me).  We then proceeded to go home and watch guilty pleasure television and lay on the sofas like a couple of atrophically, useless, broken legs. Long story short, I was the epitome of a fat, lazy, sack of shit last night and essentially did the opposite of go to the gym.  Sorry for letting you down Healthy Daris, every week can’t be a winner buddy.  I’ll make it up to you.

In the spirit of making myself feel better, I present to you a picture of my brother.  Whom I love dearly.  And who has made me laugh continuously since 1988.

Back in the Saddle

So the wedding this weekend was great.  Good times were had by all.  I went into the weekend hoping to accomplish 2 things; number 1 – Don’t spend too much money; number 2 – Don’t drink too many beers and blow my diet.  I’m 1 for 2 as of today.  I only spent something like 38 bucks this weekend which was AWESOME (20 of which was spent on a bottle of Jameson that was purchased by the wedding party; the bottle itself I then presented to the head of the wedding party as a drunken gift).  So, to the beers…I drank many.  BUT, it’s a wedding, and if I’m going to drink many beers, where be a better place? 

Always hilarious to go through pictures of the boquet toss and see your uncle going for the leap

 

Back to the diet, I made a militant amount of zucchini, squash, and those swirly green and beige wheat noodles last night so I should be set for a couple of days on that stuff.  I am going to the gym today to hit my interval hill treadmill program (for the first time since Thursday). L  So I don’t have much to report on my recent workouts as they are non-existent, but, writing this stuff down is accountability 101 and it will guarantee I have something to report tomorrow!

Wheat sprial noodles, squash, zucchini, and pasta sauce.  Om Nom Nom.

 

Also, I signed up for a website called SparkPeople.com which, other than being a totally great website for tracking your weight loss / healthy lifestyle habits, also is a great tool for paring with your accountability journal.  I highly recommend checking it out.  As I’m still figuring out how to properly use the site to track my progress (it is my first day on the site after all) I don’t really have any pointers or highlights yet; I’ll keep you posted as I figure them out.

:)

Doing alright. Day 4.

Hit the sit up bench with a fury last night and now can barely breathe without wincing slightly.  Did three sets of twenty on the incline sit-up bench and did some elliptical but that was it; still pretty sore and tired from the last two days.  Good news is, I have been sticking to my dietary restrictions that have been making me more “regular” in the “poo poo” department which is super nice.  Aaand, I’ve been waking up an hour earlier than normal and going to be an hour earlier at night.  I’m not going to get on the scale until day 7 so I can have a decent representation of my change. 

 

The hurdle…

 

I am going to a wedding in California this weekend and I know I am going to be eating less-than-optimally; not to mention the copious amounts of champagne and beer I’m sure I’ll be consuming.  So, I am kind of hoping that I am able to keep it under control and not waste the last three days. 

 

Bright Side…

 

I am super broke so that will keep me from going to bars and stuff like that.  Open bar consumption only.  Also, my cousin is getting married, so that’s definitely a bright side.

 

Dinner last night was pretty basic.  Thanks to a friend who gave me two of the LARGEST vegetables I’ve ever seen in my life.  Squash and Zucchini with some BBQ’d corn on the cob.

 

Don't eat with fingers directly from grill.  You'll burn your mouth and cry in front of you dog.

So sore. Must not sneeze. Might cry.

     I started working out on Tuesday (like I've been saying I would do since 2007). As I am still a light-mild smoker, I am taking it kind of easy on the heavy breathing stuff and focusing on the intensity cardio. Example, the last two days I've done an hour on the treadmill using the following intervals:

Speed level: 4 (15 min mile) for a 3 minute warm up.

Incline level: 2 at Speed level 4 for 4 minutes.

Back to flat land at Speed level 4 for 1.50 minutes.

Jump to speed level 7 on flat ground for a running 2 minutes.

Back to flat land at Speed level 4 for 1.50 minutes.

Incline level: 4 at Speed level 4 for 4 minutes.

I then simply alternate between a Zero Incline for 1 minute intervals and an Level 4 Incline for 4 minutes for about a half an hour, keeping the speed at a level 4 (15 minute mile) the whole time. This keeps my heart rate alternating in a higher range. If I need a rest, I don't change my Incline alternations; I just drop my speed slightly until I feel rested enough to re-pace.

In my last 10 minutes I go backwards down the progression:

After my last level 4 incline, I go to my flat land 1.50 minute rest and then do a 2 minute run at Speed level 7. After that, I finish out at 3.5 Speed level and cry myself to the cleaning spray bottle to disinfect my sweat covered treadmill.

I've found that (because I am unable to consistently run due to my shitty, soot coated, lungs) this lower paced, hi intensity walking routine is actually KICKING MY ASS and I'm feeling real good.

Dinner for the last two nights has consisted of stir fry veggies and rice.

 

 

I am going to need to get on diversifying my meals but I'm broke right now so I'm going through my freezer, cleaning out the things I've been too unhealthy to bother making. Face it, I don't keep Burger King in my freezer.  However, now that I'm avoiding eating anywhere but at home, I'm finding there's some surprisingly good grub in the back of my freezer from the last time I was going to "make a healthy change".

Alright accountability log, ttyl.