When I haver, I’m gonna be the man that havers next to you!

This is my hang over head shot! This is what happens once every four or five years. Last time I drank have a bottle of single malt scotch and tried to rewrite American Pie ( I kept in G major I’m a patriot). This particular hangover is due to our Halloween party. I tried drinking expensive beer with my favorite cheap wine and later some whiskey all on a day with little food. So let me start with this would not be a good tip for my readers to follow,although I was told I had a very good time. Never feel sorry for anyone with a hang over its all about choice, although I could have dearly used a hug on Sunday morning for the love of God. Still I’m back from the grave like Christopher Lee ready to take on more.

Todays message is old Scottish toast I would like to share with you all “Who’s uglier then us??!!”

Walk this way

I have tried all sorts of ways to be fit. I tried martial arts for awhile or as others called it Mark gets beat up every Sunday morning. I tried weight lifting,jogging and joining a gym. All of these ideas are good and may work well for you. I burned out real quick on most of them. Like a lot of fat lazy people I would get hooked on seeing TV ads with beautiful people working out and think “Yep that’s the way to do it” you know NO Pain No Gain!!! well that’s bullshit too. You don’t have to knock yourself out to be fit. You just need to make some changes, OK a lot of changes.


I’m very lucky that I live within a few blocks of Grant’s trail in the South county area of St. Louis(please watch my video below of Grant’s Trail,I know another plug for my music). The trail at this time is 8 miles long and runs right pass Grant’s farm. I started riding my bike at first really pushing myself and riding every inch of it every day back and forth. 16 miles everyday, I would only feel good if I did all of it,if I missed a section of the trail I would be pissed off and consider the day a loss. The day would come where I just did not care,and then it became weeks before I would go out,and then I would just give up. I then hit on the idea of changing how I approach working out and this for me is a big deal. I decided any form of movement was better then nothing. I also found out that any steps I took during the day could be totaled up so a few steps here and there would soon really add up. I would wear pedometer and see how far I walked on any given day. I was at 3 miles with no effort, so I just started adding steps where ever I could. In no time at all I was walking 6 too 8 miles a day. The more I walked the more I wanted to walk.
I used to take my mp3 player with me,but soon I found when I was walking I really loved hearing the birds or just saying hello to folks on the trail. When you out walking alone you have wonderful down time to just think and unwind. Its so nice to let your mind wonder while you walk. As long as the weather is above 65 or so I still get my bike out for a slow 5 mile ride,but over all I prefer to walk. Humans are designed to walk and on occasion we should be able to sprint (never know when a bear is going show up on the trail,well some pretty big rabbits any way and if you have seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail well you know).

So here’s my basic workout: I try and walk as much as I can in a day. I park at the far end of the lot at work, always take the stairs and two at a time. I try and go far a walk on the trail for about 45 minutes or so after dinner. My friend Jay is a photographer and has done a really great job of finding other trails in our area and  on weekends we go for much longer hikes. (much more on these great trails in the future). The other thing I really think works well is using your own body weight for work outs. Push ups,planks and some basic curls with dumb bells. My number one work out goal is to be able to do pull ups and I am not there yet( I did build my pull up bar). I find that every day I feel a little bit stronger and I have more endurance. Its so nice to put on your tight fitting jeans just out of the dryer and they have become baggy. This is not over night,its just a little walk but I do it a lot. If I miss a day or two I no longer freak out about it,I might walk a little further the next time but its all good. You don’t get fit over night but you start to feel better each day as you continue taking the baby steps in the right direction.
Catch up with yah all later, I'm off for a walk.

Mind Games

 

 

“Nothing is written until I write it” T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) , I love this way of thinking, I wake each day with this notion in my head of bring on the day. Mondays are just fine with me,I don’t want to wait until Friday to feel good. It took me a long time to reach this level of thinking, I had 48 years of negative shit in my head I had to get over. Here’s a great tip I got from self help guru Tony Robbins. Pain and Pleasure!! The pleasure of lets say a big bowl of ice cream compared to the pain of not being able to zip up your loose cut jeans. That simple, keep a moment where you were soundly humiliated and keep that little gem handy for the next time temptation comes along. I have several I can reach into my fat ass bag of shameful memories. Too fat to go horseback riding was a particular fond memory one summer. Here’s another tip from Tony, when a plane leaves LA to fly to New York 90% of the time its going in the wrong direction, The navigator must correct the course time and time again. I know the place I want to get to but every now and then I wonder off the path. I stop and check and make sure I’m doing the right thing and continue my trip. It is an amazing thing to me that if you change your thoughts you can change your life! How simple and yet so many of us ignore this. I do little experiments every week just to see what kind of results I get. I will smile all day to see if I can make other people smile, or try and compliment as many folks as I can. Small random acts of kindness are a blast. It will help alter your mood and in time it becomes a habit, have a cup of kindness.  My tip of the day: quit wasting anymore time feeling sorry for yourself and go out and make someone else smile today.

Diving into Primal waters

This is the basic overview of my 100 lb. weight loss. In future posts, I’m going to go into details about the challenges, successes, and adjustments I made to get this to work for me. But, as an opener, I thought I would give the full arc.

November of 2012  I discovered The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson, just an amazing book that I can not over hype, he also has a web page, Mark’s Daily Apple.

The first thing I liked from this book was Mark’s approach of saying challenge everything you have heard about health and weight  loss. I read the book cover to cover and dove right in. Please check out his book and site for his insights and detail, I owe a lot to his information.

The basics I went with were to give up sugar and  grains…so, no more pasta, breads, oatmeal, etc., not to mention all the candy and treats that got me so fat. My wife made a wonderful Thanksgiving meal and I even helped her out, but I only ate turkey and veggies. No pumpkin pie for me, no whip cream, no left over Halloween candy. I went for a walk while everyone else started too crash on the couch. It was actually very easy - eat less and move more.

The Primal Diet stressed having fun instead of hitting the gym for 4 hours a day. The next morning I walked again and discovered how good eggs were. My basic meals consisted of three scrambled eggs for breakfast, tuna for lunch, and some type of meat with a salad for dinner. I started making smoothies in my blender and found them to be better then any ice cream. I got a Juicer for Christmas and found out that carrot juice tastes great!

Every day, I tried something new, walked a little further, and kept on reading. I started to set goals. My doctor wanted me to get to 225 lbs. That seemed so crazy to me! I could not get below 250 lbs. even if I starved myself. Nonetheless, I set the goal of getting below 250 lbs. On the first day of the year of 2012, I was just under 260 lbs.!!

Now, I was set. I had survived Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Eve without feeling I missed out. I really need to stress how damn good I was starting to feel! I started doing any little thing to add steps to my day – park at the far end of the lot, take the stairs two at a time, anything to add more movement to my day.

I started doing push ups every day and each week I pushed myself a little harder. My mother told me if I got down to 200 lbs. she would buy me a kilt. That’s a big deal to a Scot, but there was no way I would walk around in a kilt with my gut sticking out. I found that, after 3 months of being “primal,” I felt better! I started to sleep like a baby and looked forward to moving as much as I could. In the spring, I got out my bike and started riding a nice easy 5 miles after dinner. When I was dating my wife, I used to ride 15 miles at a stretch, but 5 was enough to start with.

I just kept a nice constant plan of a little bit of moving every day. I started to get compliments from people wherever I went. The best was always people I saw everyday, but were still noticing a difference in me! I added fish oil to my daily plan and soon saw great results in my dry skin! My mood started to improve and bad days were when I had to go out and buy new clothes. I started hiking and I found out how much I love the woods and the fresh air after spending a week in my office.

Summer came and I no longer hated the heat, which is a good thing if you live in St. Louis. I checked my weight and I was 215lbs. I could wear my wedding suit from 22 years ago, I was under the weight my doctor set for me and I had loss 100lbs. What would you do to celebrate reaching your goal? Me, well I got to wear a Kilt at the St. Louis Scottish games!

How I lost 100lbs

In the fall of 2011, I found myself at 48 to be in the worst shape of my life, the last time I had bothered to check a scale I was 315lbs. I'm a short guy just over 5'8" and at that weight I was one round dude. I have a good sense of humor (jolly) and a quick wit so I made up for my appearence. I have a job I enjoy and a wonderful family,good freinds and life is clicking along. There is the one exception that I have this inner rage against the fat slob I turned into. So a week before Thanksgiving 2011 I took the plunge. I have read books,studied every diet,spoke to my doctor and at long last I figured it all out. The short story a year later I'm down 100lbs!!! The longer story and the adventure I set out on I plan on writing about here. Along the way I learned a lot about food, exercise and myself. I love self help, and many things I found out I want to share with you readers. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me or add comments.