Today for me is the start of a new year.  Going with the original Roman calendar March is the first month of Spring and therefore the first month of the New Year.  Today is also my birthday so it is the start of another year of existence for me.

I have been afk for about 8 months now.  I suffered from a number of losses of friends and family last year and basically closed myself off from everybody.  I did some major thinking and made some life altering choices.  I took a new job and moved myself and my family across the state.  I'm finally getting settled in and I'm much happier with my new job and being much closer to friends and family. Unfortunately during low period last year I quit working towards my weight loss goals and actually packed on quite a few pounds.  

I am happy to report that I will again be working towards my goals and blogging about them.  

 Is none of you damn business.

Just thought I'd let you know.

 So I'm on day one of my decision to give up television for 365 days, but before I go on about my first day let me tell you a little about how and why I've decided to give up television.

First, this is me.

With my daughter last year having some summer fun.  I feel I look pretty big in this photo, I'll tell you what. I don't even fit in that shirt anymore.  I'm 32 years old, I weigh 350 lbs and I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.  I don't want to be fat anymore.  So I start the diets and count the calories and start exercising to the dvds and going for walks and doing the things you are supposed to do to lose the weight.  You know what?  It works.  I went from 350 to 330 in a month. 20 lbs! But it's back already and it took me awhile to figure out why.

Why does the weight keep coming back?  The simple answer? I quit trying. I'd get home and sit down in front of my greatest nemisis. The television.  I am horrible addicted to television, be it movies, tv shows or video games, I'm addicted.  I watch and easy 4-6 hrs a day.  Which means I'm sitting on my butt for 4-6 hrs a day not including those I'm at work.  It was while I was watching television, shows like The Biggest Loser and Jersey Shore that I realized. What do these guys do to loose the weight and stay in shape that I don't do?  They don't watch television.  I never see any TV's at the Biggest Loser Ranch or at the Shore House.  

I thought about it a little more and I realized, America blames the fast food industry for our obesity epidemic.  But what else has grown just as much as the fast food industry?  Media, in our living rooms, in our cars, on our computers, and on our phones.  And we spend hours a day ingesting it in. It's our hours spent in front of these devices where we're wasting away pushing whatever may be quick and edible into our mouths.

I realized I needed to cut down my television intake so I gave it up for a week.  Wow did I get a lot done.  I worked out every day, cooked some killer meals and spent some really good time with my family.  Now before I always hated cooking but over this week it became apparent that it wasn't the cooking I hated but the time cooking took away from me with the television.  Turns out I really enjoy cooking.  Creating something wholesome and delicious can be really gratifying and when you know you putting good food into your childrens stomachs, its a good feeling.  I also realized that if I wasn't eating in front of the television then I was eating really fast in order to get back to watching TV, which often left my daughter sitting at the supper table alone, or me moving her into the living room to eat while I watched TV.  I still eat fast and I'm trying to learn to slow down and enjoy my food more, but I have come to enjoy family dinners without the interruption of the television in the background.

After my week was over I caught up on all the shows I had missed and fell back into my old habbits.  So I decided that I wasn't going to try and quit watching television but I was going to change my life and the television is my first step.  

So here I am July 1st, 2012 to June 30, 2013. 365 days without television and I've just finished Day number 1.

 I'm so confused right now. I swear my brain hates me.  I need to detach, get away from the electronics, the televeision, the computers, the playstation, the xbox, I need to get away.

I have a goal of trying to give up TV for this week, Monday through Friday, and alot myself 1 -2 Hrs on Saturday.  I need to make changes in my life and I have a number of changes I want to make. I've only been blogging about them for the last 5 months.  But it's hard to make these changes, it can't really be done overnight and I can't do them all at once.  

It's said it takes 21 days to form a habit, 3 solid weeks of doing something everyday.  Every week I'm going to try an add 1 thing, exercise and eating right are a start, quiting smoking, giving up television, working towards my goals.  This week is spring cleaning week for me, I'm ready to purge a number of unneeded unwanted items.  Things I can get along without.  I need kind of a reboot.  Let see how this works.

What does the President do for me? When I say President I mean government. He doens't make all the decisions, but he's definately the face of the country so that is why I will say. "What does the President do for me?"

Increase or decrease in taxes? Sure, I don't really notice. Increase or decrease gov't spending? Fine, I don't really notice. Raise minimum wage? I didn't notice. Provided benefits for the less fortunate, welfare, medicaid? That's great, I didn't really notice. Protect me from terrorists? Awesome, I didn't really notice.  Save for my future, Social Security and Medicare? Will I even notice?

Here is what I do notice. I know we have soldier oversees in places I don't feel we need them to be. I know Bills, influenced by Billion dollar corporations, are being written that if passed into law would take away some of my personal freedoms. I know I pay way to much in fuel and energy bills. And I know I have a lot of educational bills to pay off.

I know there is a lot more that the governemnt does, but for most of those thing I still don't really notice.

So to whom it may concern, if you want my vote, do something to lower my energy and gas bills, reduce the influence of Big Business on law making (I think this is lobbying, I'll have to do some research), make it so people don't have to pay so much for college and bring our soldiers home.

P. S.  Thanks for the grants you provided to help me pay for some of my college already, I just wish it could have been a little more.

 So I got my running shoes on Friday and gave them a try this morning.  They are great, a little soreness in the knee right now but not half as bad as it was in my other shoes.  I could only run for about 10 - 15 seconds in the one pair before my knee was killing me. Now I was able to go the whole 30 minutes with repeated 30 second runs with just minor irritation.  It's great.

So why am I upset?  Not because of the shoes but because of my equipment.  I recently bought a fitbit which is totally cool, but I'm starting to question it's accuracy.  I turned on my fitbit for my run and it said I ran 2.9 miles today and I'm like "Awesome!". Then I also turned on an App on my phone call Google Tracks, that tracks my distance by GPS, that says I only went 1.7 miles.  Which one is right?  I love the thought that I almost completed a 5k on my first run but I think I'm going to wait until Google Tracks says I've done the 3.1 miles before I celebrate.

Second, my scale at home is goofy.  It seems like a  good scale, I bought it because it's capacity was like 440 lbs.  It sits on four sensors that measure your weight.  The down side is, if I lean forward or backward I can change my weight quite drastically and if the floor is soft under one of the sensors I can drop 20lbs like nothing.  So I've had to find a stable spot on the floor and I will need to make sure I always put the scale in the same place when I weigh myself.  So far I have been leaning back to get the lowest possible weight, which puts me at 332.6 lbs, but I think I'm going to start going by my leaning forward weight, which is currently 338.4 lbs.  I won't consider my goals met until I reach those weights leaning forward.

Eventually I'll just go get a physical and an accurate weight measurement.

Also I just learned about the Grand Forks Firecracker run.  It's a city wide 5k that I may try to run, but only if I have already reached the 5k on my own.

 I'm in a mood, brought about by dark rooms, computer programming and red bull.  This post is specifically titled: Untitled because I"m not sure what kind of tangents I may go on.  All I know is that my mind is traveling too fast to stick to one train of thought.

I've realized my two favorite things are my Creativity and Problem Solving skills.  In a way they go hand in hand.  For me to really feel fulfilled in life these things have to be a constant part of it.  I have the need to contribute, I want what I do to benefit humanity in some way.  Whether it's by offering entertainment, ideas, art, inspiration, or just a helping hand.  

I'm not rich, I'm not famous, I don't feel I owe the world anything, but I owe it to myself, for the reward in giving is far greater than anything else I can receive.

My mind is moving a little to fast to keep up with it here so I will end this post before it turns into a random spillage of my brain letters.

So I've come to understand myself more recently.  When conversing with a good friend of mine I realized something about myself that I hadn't really caught onto before.  I've been diagnosed with a mood disorder, simple explanation, I'm bi-polar, at least that's what the medication I was prescribed was for.  Honestly they didn't give me an exact diagnosis because they couldn't really decide which one I fit into. 

Well I've diagnosed myself. The initials are MPD, but it's not multiple personality disorder, my in multiple psyche disorder, there are just too many me.  I don't change my name, though I may have a different nickname depending on the mood that I am in.  I don't have voices of other personalities in my head, though I will have conversations with multiple sides of myself and my personality type will often change to those I am around.  Yes, I know many peoples personalitys will differ when they are around new or certain people, but mine can very drastically. Which is why they originally thought I was bi-polar.

One of my favorite actors is Mathew Lillard, you may or may not know him but he was quite popular in the 90's. The reason he's one of my favorite actors is because so many of his roles have been to me personal portrayals of my different mind sets.  He was a leet hacker in Hackers, psycho killer in Scream, body pierced hockey player in Sensless, a psychic in 13 Ghosts, and the most awesome Stevo in SLC Punk.  

There was a time when I was doing nothing but learning about computers, my goal was to hack the CIA before I was 18 and then get a job with them. Then there was a time when I did nothing but surround myself with the local music scene, got some piercings and a tattoo.  In highschool I was a social chameleon.  I wasn't part of any one click but I intermingled with all of them.  I had a wardobe that would allow me to pass off as any of them. 

I love and hate social media, it allows me to stay connected to my friends and make them aware of everything I think they should know that I'm doing. But is also opens up too much personal information.  Some days I want to rule the interwebs and be a media icon, other days I want to fall off the grid and live in a cabin in the woods. 

I switch between my psyche's, not as fast as someone with ADHD, but about every 3 weeks, my mind will be ready to be somewhere else.  I'll be ready to be a different person.  Or I might hit a trigger that causes a sudden switch.  Like reading Fight Club and deciding to give away all of my possesions because "I'm not my fucking khakis!" Or I will hear an awesome song and decide I need to do nothing but play guitar for a month straight.  Then I'll hit a dark period where I will write stories or poetry for another month.  I realize my spans last about 3 to 4 weeks.  That's why I think I did so well in January on my fitness, then in February I started playing Gears 3 with my friends and did that for a month straight.  March was all about work, I worked long shifts and concentrated on getting work projects done. April, I'm kind of in limbo know that I've realized what I do. 

I don't want to quit moving towards anything, but I love diving head first into new projects. I love to learn new things, but what I really need to learn is how to accept a little at a time instead of diving head first into so much.  The second a new "shiny" comes along I'll drop what I was doing to persue that. 

So my true goal over all is to find the combinations of me's I like the best, put that together and develop it. Love, life, health, wealth, and everything in between.    

I'm starting over, square 1.  Injuries and illness, self destruction and depression.  I have horrible will power and after falling out of pace the first time it's just impossible to jump back in.  So instead of picking up where I left off I'm starting over and I'm just going to continue to add to my progress as I get bits and pieces set into habbit.

The other thing is I'm not just trying to get in shape. That's just one of my goals this year.  I have so many more goals to try and meet that I really want to discuss and blog about.  My main goals right now are getting in shape, writting a book and learning Japanese.  I have more but I'm honestly not going to try and accomplish 30 things at once.  I feel if I can move forward on these three, adding other goals down the line won't be too difficult.  The one thing I've learned about goal setting though is the second you think about one of your goals, do something to move toward it.  Then everytime it's on your mind, you end up focusing on it more and continually move forward towards the end.  So already today I got a workout in (with my wife) and tracked my calorie intake.  Working towards my fitness goals.  I'm about to do some posts onto writerscafe.org to work towards my story writing and I'm going to finish one of my Rosetta Stone lessons to work on my Japanese.

My weight today is 334. Not to bad for where I left off, at least I haven't gained it all back.   The goal is 250 by December. Hopefully getting my running shoes in couple of weeks to start my trek to a 5k.

Okay so my plans have changed.  I have just recently picked up some supplements, a two month supply.  So I have decided that from today I will do 60 days of Power 90, finishing around May 13^th.  I will then start my juice cleanse.

My juice cleanse will require me to be super strict as I will drink nothing but highly nutritious juice for 7 to 10 days.  I started this once before and made it to day 3 before I broke and ate real food, and it wasn’t because I was hungry, I just couldn’t resist the cravings.  I’m told after day 10, when you go back to eating solid food most of the other cravings are gone and it’s really simple to stick to a diet.  For me I will just go back to the way I’m eating now, a low carb, medium protein, high vegetable diet.

So if I can get settled and solidified in my workouts and eating I will hopefully be able to work on some of my other non-fitness goals as well.  The hardest part on working on anything else is that I often sidetrack myself off the fitness, which is really my first priority.  I have a number of other things I want to accomplish this year but if I don’t get in shape, there is no way I’m going to live long enough to enjoy them.

This week’s weight loss – 1.6 lbs for a current weight of 336.2 lbs.

 So as some may have noticed there have not been any blogs posted in the last couple of weeks.  Due to a heavy workload, injury, and just straight up laziness, I quit training.  There is no real excuse to why I quit, I just let all the other excuses my mind could come up with convince me to.  So I’m starting again.  I’m still going to continue with the Power 90, but because I have other plans at the end of it I will only be doing it for 55 days instead of the full 90, this time.  I do plan to run through the Power 90 routine again next fall, but I’m going to use the summer to spend as much time outdoors this year as possible.

I think for the next couple of weeks, if I can, I’m going to be a Fitness Nazi.  I let myself slip a little here a little there and I soon give up completely.  I’m making a goal to be really strict this week. I already have the support of my family I just have to make sure my friends understand.  They like to have fun and I like to have fun and I quite easily let myself get talked into going out for a couple, after work, that turns into a late night escapade with a high consumption of calories.   

I just need to visualize the reward, being able to wear form fitting clothes, fitting in my car, being able to keep up with my daughter.  It sounds weird but I have to remember how happy I will be.  If I can visualize and feel the pleasure the reward will give I know I can work through the pain that causes me to give up now.  Plus if I visualize the pain of not going through with this, I know I’ll have a heart attack in the next 10 years and that is a type of pain I never want to experience.

I’m still going to go with the last fitness test results as I’m sure they are pretty accurate.  Luckily my weight gain hasn’t been too drastic and I’m starting with only a 2.8 lb weight gain for a starting weight of 337.8. 

 This was a great week.  I kept to my diet and stuck to my exercise routine.  Except for a couple of beers Friday night, I did really well.  I think I could have lost a pound or two more, but you have to enjoy life a little.  I’m on a journey to get my life back.  It’s not a race so I’m in no super hurry.

This week I started the Power 90 workout series and I’ll tell you it was tough.  The Circuit works out 5 different muscle areas, 3 sets, 15 reps.  You start with your chest, then your back, your triceps, then biceps and finish with your quads and legs.  The first time I tried the workout I picked up too much weight for some of the exercises and ended up really sore the next day with some pain in my shoulder.  I took it rather easy the next time and now I’m moving along fine.

The Aerobic work was pretty tough to start out with as well with 5 minutes of power yoga followed by intense cardio and ending with 100 sit-ups, and not easy ones.  The first time I tried this I made it through the whole routine but I took a lot of breaks and just watched some of the exercises.  The second time through I finished every exercise and tried to do the whole workout at the same intensity they did in the video. I’d say I made it through about 75% at full intensity and I finished all 100 sit-ups.

This week’s weight loss – 3.4 lbs for a current weight of 335 lbs.

Well this week didn’t start out so well.  I caught the flu my daughter dealt with last week.  It was miserable.  The upside I lost 5 lbs in a day.  But it wasn’t healthy weight loss I’m sure it was mostly water weight as I ended up extremely dehydrated and I didn’t eat for a day.  I loosely watched my diet this week, being GHD and all, and I skipped every workout this week.  It was basically a vacation.

GHD, if you don’t know, stands for Ground Hog’s Day.  It’s a day I celebrate with my friends every year where we take the day off and play video games.  It’s been a tradition for about 10 years now.  It started one year when Slaughter and I were living together. I didn’t feel too well one day so I called in sick.  I went out to the living room and started playing some Conker’s Bad Fur Day on the N64.  A little while later Slaughter stumbled out from his room.  I looked at him and asked, “You call in sick too?” He said, “Yep.”  So we sat around and played video games together all day.  It just happened to be Ground Hogs Day.  The next year we both just decided to call in sick on GHD and played video games.  Usually multiplayer games like Conker’s Bad Fur Day, Gauntlet Legends, or Perfect Dark.  Some years we got together and played Rock Band or we all met online and played Diablo II.  This year it was Gears of War 3 and we played it pretty much non-stop.  For me it was a 3 day event from the 1^st to the 3^rd.

So being sick in the beginning of the week and gaming for the rest, I didn’t succeed to well on my self-improvement.  But I’m not going to let that set me back.  I started Power90 today and will continue my year of self-improvement.

This weeks weight loss – 1.4 lbs for a current weight of 338.4 lbs

 So this week I decided to try the Beach Body Fat Burning Express (FBE) Diet and Exercise routine and failed miserably. 

FBE is pretty simple, it’s a low calorie no carb diet plan that you follow for six days while you complete the FBE Aerobics routine.  The aerobics were tough, a lot of lower body and core work, with squats, lunges, and yoga. It was tough but doable. 

The failure came on the part of the diet.  I was consuming practically 0 carbs and only about 800 to 900 calories a day.  I stuck to this for two days and then my body said “I’ve had enough” and crapped out on me.  I suppose I broke the first rule of Exercise Club, I talked about Exercise Club. Oh wait, I mean I didn’t talk to my physician before starting the diet.  I think I just went too low on the food.  I was worn out and sick physically and didn’t work out for two days and missed a day of work.  I was broken mentally, I was being told by my body I needed to eat and at first I tried making good decisions, a piece of chicken, some string cheese, but then all hell broke loose.  I was physically and mentally exhausted and didn’t want to get out of bed so I ordered food and gorged. I ate burgers, pizza, and wings and washed it all down with 72 oz of cola. That’s over half a gallon of soda. I had failed and it was an Epic Fail.

This was only mid-week so I made some decisions. I was disgusted with myself for failing so dramatically, but instead of turning around and going to more food for comfort, I looked at what had happened and decided to go back to the diet I had been following previously. 

Unfortunately the rest of the week didn’t go well either.  My daughter ended up with the flu.  This provided some long nights and skipped workouts.  Once my daughter was able to stomach some food again, no one really felt like cooking so it also resulted in a trip to a fast food establishment.  Truth be told, I didn’t pick the best of meal options then either.

So here I am, getting back on task and still moving towards my goal. I haven’t had a cigarette for 2 weeks now.  I stop consuming caffeine by 7 pm.  I consume about 1200 calories on a good (sticking to the diet) day without feeling hungry.  My energy is up, my sleep is good.  I naturally wake up at about 5:30 am every day.  My life is getting better and I’m getting healthier.

The weigh-in and Fitness test.  I only lost .2 lbs this week, which is kind of depressing but it doesn’t mean I’ll quit, it just means I need to refocus.  Overall I’ve still lost over 10 lbs and that isn’t depressing so I have to look at the big picture.  My fat % dropped by 2% and my waist dropped 2 inches. Both of my arms grew by an in which isn’t bad either. 

Now for the fitness test, I still couldn’t do a pull-up and I did about half a pushup.  I was able to do 10 In & Outs, which could have been more but my knees where hurting, and I increased my curls by 4, which also could have been higher but I gave in at 11 instead of going to muscle failure.  I gained 2 inches on my leap and 3 seconds on my wall squat, so slight improvement in almost all areas.  The major differences I found where in my Heart Rate test, I had a lower heart rate after 1 min of Jumping Jacks than I did last time but it didn’t cool off as fast as before.  The main difference is I pushed myself a lot harder for this test, I’m surprised how difficult 1 min of jumping jacks had been last month. 

While I've been researching and learning new tips and tricks for weight loss and fitness, I've come across a number fitness tracking websites, gadgets and challenges.  So I've decided to review these websites and gadgets, and accept the challenges.  

The challenges:

I came across a number of challenges this week, C25K (Couch to 5k), 7 weeks to 100 Pushups, 7 weeks to 50 Pull-ups, and 7 weeks to 300 situps. I plan on completing each of these challenges later this year, but only after I have completed the first 90 days of Power 90.  I've been close to completion of a 5k on my elliptical all week as I have been running about 2.75 miles every other day and only had .35 miles left to go to complete the 5k which I did today.  Then this spring after Power90 I'll start running outside and build myself up for the higher impact of street running and complete a 5k there. This 5k I'll track on a Fitbit (see Gadgets) or a distance/Location app on my droid. All of the 7 week challenges can be found on 7weekstofitness.com and C25K can be found on c25k.com.

The Websites:

I will do a one or two week trial on each and cover different topics like; calorie/nutrition, workout and weightloss tracking.  Iphone and Android availability.  Compatability with different Gadgets, Fitbit, Withings and Zeo. Pay or free. The websites on my list to test are; myfitnesspal.com (which I already use), Wowy.com (teambeachbody.com - this is Power90 and P90x website), Dailyburn.com, Runkeeper.com, Loseit.com, 

The Apps:

Many of the websites listed have apps for Android and Iphone, but both devices have stand alone apps as well like Digifit and Noom, which I will also look into as well.

The Gadgets:

The Fitbit health monitor, Withings wifi scale and Zeo sleep tracker are just three of the Gadgets I will look into and hopefully purchase and use.  Fitbit is know to count calories burned at all times, even just walking from the car to your desk or home.  It tracks distance and elevation, incase you decided it's better to take the stairs instead of the elevator. And it's also know for sleep tracking, something I'll have to try to see how it works for sure.  The Withings scale connects to your wifi for a straight upload of your weightloss progress. And the Zeo monitors or sleep patterns and paired with an alarm clock can wake you at the most appropriate times in your sleep cycle.  

And finally my week.  This week has been good, work has not been as strenuous and I completed a lot of tasks. I found that for me to build my dev box for my projects with slaughter I needed a SATA drive instead of the IDE I was planning on using, the good news I have that ordered along with some extra RAM.  I've really been concentrating on my 5k challenge on my Elliptical this week so instead of workouts everyday, they've been every other day, since my knees take a real beating and need the extra day for recovery. And I haven't done any workouts for the last two days in prep for my 5k today. This probably won't allow for any extreme weight loss but meeting this challenge is important to me and next week I'll be back into aerobics and weight lifting.

5k times - 1st mile 9:05
                - 2nd mile 18:22
                - completed 5k 30:05

This weeks weight loss - 3.2 lbs for a current weight of 339.8 lbs

"When the going gets tough then the tough get going."  Does that mean that the tough are lazy and just sitting around until things get tough then they show up and save the day? Or does it mean that when the going gets tough the tough pack up and leave town because they just don't want to deal with it anymore?

All I know is that a better phrase for me is "When things are at their worst, I am at my best."  This last week we have had some major problems stemming for issues that happened last week.  Again I smoked 5 cigarettes, I missed a number of workouts, and didn't watch my diet everyday.  Working until 2 in the morning and then getting up at 6 to go back in, makes fitting in workouts very difficult, and meals become tough to handle as well. Luckily we have a mini fridge in the office that I'm keeping stocked with yogurt and I have packets of instant oatmeal in my cupboard.  

Though I've had many obstacles this week to get in my way and knock me down, I keep getting back up.  I may have little to no weight loss this week, but that's okay, I won't give up, I won't quit, I'm determined to meet goals and I'm going to keep pushing forward.

My next decision is what to do after week 3. Week 3 will be the same as I have been doing, cardio with a small circuit set afterwards, with my same diet.  Week 4 I'm going to change it up and I'm trying to decide between 3 things.

1. Juicing - Doing a 10 day juice fast, nothing but Juice, but this also requires little exercise I could probably still do my cardio, but I couldn't do my weight lifting because I wouldn't be adding any protein to my diet to rebuild my muscles.  If I wanted to loose a lot of weight really fast I could extend this for 30 or even 60 days which would help me burn a lot of fat but it's expensive, fruit isn't really fresh this time of year and I really like doing the weight lifting. 

2. Fat Burning Express - this is a 6 day carb fast, with exercise.  This pretty much sticks to cardio for a week along with a specific diet with few carbs just to kick up my metabolism.  This is the start up routine before going into Power 90, which is what I'm planning on doing anyways, so I think this is the best bet.

3. Muscle Builder - this is a rich muclse building diet with some ciruit cardio and mostly straight weight lifing.  The theory is that having more muscle heightens your metabolism and causes you to burn more fat.  You gain weight first as you pack on muscle but the fat will start to burn away on it's own, it takes longer to achieve the fat loss but you can get strong quickly and let the fat take care of itself.  With this though I would need to move my workbench into the apartment or probably get a membership at a gym since I would be able to target all the muscle groups I would like with my equipment at home.

I think my plan is Week 4 - Fat Burning Express, Weeks 5 - 16 will be Power 90.  Then a 1 or 2 week Juice fast. because fresh fruits and veggies should be availabe by then.  Then either another 3 months of Power 90, or go P90x if I think I'm up for it.  I'll probably do P90x 1 or 2 times then after that I'll concentrate on bodybuilding, Work on the main muscle groups I want to enhance and define.

So option 2 is the plan and that will start Week 4.

This weeks weight loss - 1.0 lbs for a current weight of 343 lbs

Week one of my year of self improvement is completed and it's been a tough week.

My plans to exercise and eat right and working on projects have been going okay, the tough part has really been issues at work causing me to put extra hours.  That has made it hard to finish my personal projects at home. Plus I think Issy is getting mad as I haven't been home for reading time Thursday and Friday nights. 

I did get a post into the story blog this week, it's not 3000 words but it is the outline to my Akion story. With this I should be able to go in and fill out sections that I feel inspired or motivated to work on.

I also did well on my working out and eating, I worked out everyday this week except for Friday, of which I spent many hours at work and just didn't have a chance to get a workout in.  I also broke down and had some coca cola, 3 cans in fact, which didn't throw me over my calorie limit but did push me over my carb's for the day.  I also broke down and smoked 4 cigarettes that day, bleh. But yesterday I got back on track with my eating, workouts and no smoking. Plus Issy and I shared reading time before bed again, which I'm really starting to enjoy with her and I can tell she likes it too. 

I have a few things I want to complete by Tuesday to be completely on track this week, if that happens I will be very happy but I'm definately not dissappointed by my progress this week.

Oh and this weeks weight loss - 6.2 lbs for a current weight of 344 lbs

2012 is my Self Improvement Year.

For both Novemember and December of last year I decided have self improvement months.  I improved my lifestyle, my wardrobe, my home and my quality of life.  Because of my personal success with reaching my goals each month I decided to take 2012 as a full self improvement year. 

And I'm not the only one, it's great to see a number of my friends and my wife choosing to quit smoking this year or choosing to get in better shape and be more active, devote more time to family.

As of now I have already failed a number of my resolutions. (Which in fact was my goal)

I haven't had a drink, a cigarette, or a soda since Jan 1.  I've run 3 miles over the last 2 days as well as completed 2 weight training circuts.  I'm aiming for a 5k a day.

Tomorrow night is my first Project meeting with Slaughter where we will start setting weekly goals and try to continue moving forward with project tasks. We will be meeting weekly to discuss our progress and set new goals and tasks throughout the year.   

I will also be trying to maintain a healthy diet and workout regiment and will be posting weekly weigh-ins and monthly measurements in my blog to track my progress.

I have also set a goal to write a book this year and I'm going to try and accomplish this in smaller steps by trying to post approximately 3000 words a week into the story blog. The pieces may not always be in order, I don't think books are necessarily written cover to cover anyways.  Plus I have a number of stories that I am writing so I may not work on the same one from week to week.

So these are my goals, the things I wish to achieve in two thousand and twelve, and for all my friends who have set even one resolution to improving their life this year, I wish them the best and may your fortitude and dedication be met with success.

Have a happy New Year.

1/2/12 Weigh-in
Weight - 350.2 Lbs
Fat % - 44.4

Measurement Inches
Chest - 53
Waist - 56
Right Arm - 16.5
Left Arm - 16
Hips - 52.5
Right Thigh - 31
Left Thigh - 31

Fitness Test
Resting Heart Rate 62 bpm
Pullups 0
Pushups 0
In & Outs 4
Curls 7/Arm 30 lbs
Vertical Leap 12"
Toe Touch  -9.5"
Wall Squat 33 sec
Heart Rate Max 144 bpm
1 min 100 bpm
2 min 80 bpm
3 min 76 bpm
4 min 72 bpm
 

 As they say "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." 

The title of this post is a quote from Mark Twain, and it's true that many fail to keep their resolutions shortly after they make them.  In fact the only resolution I think I have ever kept was the one "I resolve to fail all my other resolutions." This year I think I will only make resolutions I know I can keep.

The Resolution List

I resolve to drink and smoke more.

I resolve to gain or maintain my current weight.

I resolve to drink more soda and eat more junk food.

I resolve to watch more television.

I resolve to play more video games.

I resolve to spend less time with my family.

I resolve to skip church.

I resolve to not build a new computer.

I resolve to not finish any of my projects.

I resolve to not write a book.

I resolve to not learn a new language.

I resolve to not pay off any of my bills.

I resolve to spend and not save any money.

And I resolve to decrease my productivity.

So in conclusion, if the road to hell is truly paved with good intentions, where do bad intentions lead.

 Just in case you are wondering, I've decided to look back on my previous blogs and repost some of my favorites, for your viewing pleasure. Also, now that comments are enabled I'd love to hear your thoughts.

-Prophet-