To be fat happy and lazy or not fat happy and lazy? That is the question.

Today is the Day.   Do I turn pull up on the yoke or power this body into the ground?

If you are out of shape or almost out of shape (not once what you were) you will understand completely the turning point I am at today.   I turned 50 on April 29th and am just getting to the point where I have to decide, "Am I going to just let it go or am I going to change decades of bad habits a little at a time so that I can more fully enjoy the rest of my life?"  Many that read this may have arrived at this decision point decades ago, perhaps even in their teens.  Maybe you flopped.   However try try again.  I don't think it is that hard...maybe I am wrong.  However, I have found that when I stick to something it usually gets done.

For me this day came this past week when I got out of breath after my stomach squeezed up into my lungs when I was tying my shoes.  After a bit of reflecting I realized that along with letting my body go I have let a lot of other things go as well.   Having been tied up with being a bread winner, I have been almost completely consumed with earning enough money and making the sacrifices necessary to raise a family.  Lots of things have fallen by the wayside.   I decided to make an effort to change all of these things a little at a time with a simple but doable plan.

My Body (diet will be discussed separately).

Getting out of breath tying my shoes was a real eye opener for a guy that was training to run a marathon 10 years ago.   I am not worried about my heart as I am in otherwise good health and I just had a check up.   So what can a 50 year old out of shape dude do that is busy and not into lifting weights, too cheap to get a gym membership, and travels too much to drag a bicycle around with him?  I am going to walk and run.

Preparation

First thing I did was buy a decent pair of shoes that I can run and walk in comfortably.  If you would like to follow my journey and do this along with me, my experience has proven to me that cheap poorly fit shoes make for a miserable exercise experience.  Spend some money and get good shoes.   Any job is made easier with good quality equipment.  I researched the web, looked at reviews and went through several web sites that help me find the shoes that will fit me best.

A couple of the sites I checked:
Runners world
Runners World Shoe Advisor

Brooks Shoes

Brooks Running Shoe Advisor

And shoes.com
shoes.com running shop

The shoe I decided on because it sounded like it would fit the best was the Brooks Adrenaline GTS14 for $120.00 plus a cut for the state.  Painful price since I hate spending right now, but definitely a comfortable shoe.

Oh yeah, I bought some shorts too since I am traveling and did not plan to have this epiphany when I left home.

I would take photo of me in my get up, but I travel extensively and am alone in a hotel room.  So you are all out of luck.  That said, when you do eventually see a photo of me you will probably see that I appear to be in pretty good shape.  Why  am I worried then?   Like I said,  I am at a turning point, not at the bottom of the roller coaster without enough speed to get back up the other side.  Keep this one thing in mind.  Nothing you do will add a single day to your life.  God determines when you live and die.  What being in better shape will do is help you enjoy this life a little more.

The Plan:

My plan is very simple and easy for anyone to do.

Week One.

Sunday: Run for 5 minutes without stopping, walk for 10 minutes at a brisk pace without stopping, run for another 5 minutes and then finish it out by walking briskly for another 10 minutes. 30 minutes total

Monday:  Walk briskly for 30 minutes

Tuesday:  Repeat Sunday's work out

Wednesday: Walk briskly for 30 minutes

Thursday: Repeat Sunday's work out

Friday: Walk briskly for 30 minutes

Saturday: Repeat of Sundays work out.

I'll try to blog daily about how I feel...nope not going to do that...changed my mnd.  Stay tuned.  I am a very busy guy and I tend to get lazy in my off time so I may miss exercising, blogging or both.  We'll see!  

Week two has not been planned yet.  It may be a repeat of week one.

Diet.  Wacked out just doesn't work.  I would rather shoot myself.

I am going to make some very minor changes to what I eat.   I see so many people making themselves miserable with diets they cannot sustain.   Seriously how in the world do you sustain these diets that require you to order meals from them?   I work on the road, restaurants are my only option most of the time I can't carry special food with me.    Then try doing weight watchers when you have 3 meals a day at restaurants.  So, I have a very simple plan to cut out the worst of the worst and just not worry about anything else with one rule.   In the end I don't want to be that funky guy that always has some weird hang up about food and can't eat with everyone else.   People like that are more of a wet blanket than they think.

What I am going to cut out:

Fried potatoes of any kind.  This means French fries, tater tots, hash browns, chips (I include baked chips too).
Did you know that a large order of McDonald's French fries have almost as many calories as a quarter pounder with cheese?  Just think how much that will cut out of my diet.  3 lunches a week at McDonalds with no fries saves 1530 calories.

510 Calories!!!!

520 Calories!!!!

The only things I will drink is water, coffee, beer, pure juices and the occasional straight alcoholic beverage…in other words no mixed drinks, but straight bourbon is fine.


The one rule that I will follow no matter what I eat is this.   Eat slowly and when I start to feel full I will stop.  Sorry mom and dad I am not going to be a good American boy and clean my plate.  The hard part for some people is that the nerve that triggers your brain to make you feel full does not send the signal fast enough.  This is why I suggest eating slowly.   Maybe when you are out to eat you should intentionally eat half of whatever they bring you…just a suggestion.  The only rule is to eat slowly and stop when you are first satisfied.  If you eat to feel satisfied then you have problems that are out of my league.

Mind:  I have to get back to some meaningful learning.

Another aspect about myself I have learned is that I have officially stopped learning new things in a purposeful way.  Like many other people I find myself "vegging out" in front of the television most evenings.  So I have decided I am going to learn about something meaningful that will help me in my life from here on out.

What am I going to learn about?  Brace yourself, but I have decided to learn about the stock market and investing. ZZZZZZZ.   It has bothered me for quite some time that I know very little about money and investing inspite of using money every single day of my adult life and having a degree in business.  How sad is that?  Truly, I should know more.

So to start myself off I went to Investopedia.com and started on the list "10 books every investor should read"

10 books every investor should read.

I went to the Apple store and bought my first book today.

I try to let you know how it goes.   Perhaps if you are interested you can purchase this book and we can discuss it via the blog.  However, in order to really read this book it means the TV has to stay off.  Heavy books like this take your thought and attention.  They are not like a novel that make your imagination soar.   I intend to read all ten books and will decide what to do once I finish the 10th.

Spirit: Someone recently pointed out that even people that have no faith talks about the body as if it is separate from the person.  The person must also be cared for.

I will make it no secret that I am a devout Presbyterian born again Christian.   People tell me that I throw them off because they have never met a Christian that is as comfortable as they are in a bar, enjoys a good cigar, dances like no one is watching (because they are not) and definitely only discusses his faith in depth with people that ask.  Not that I might not occasionally steer the conversation there, but I won't debate the merits of my faith with someone that obviously does not want to believe in it.

God is great, beer is good and people are crazy, pretty much explains everything.

However, if you want my beliefs in a nutshell here is a link to my church.
My church...check it out.....

Whatever your spiritual level is I found that the business of life has distracted me from my faith and maintaining my spirit.   I spent all of my time working and very little of my time serving. Lots of time pontificating and very little time living it out.   Almost no time feeding my soul what it needs.   Service in the past for me has done more for me in many ways than it did for the people I served. Definitely need to get back to that.   Service is important if done correctly and for the right reasons.

The wrong reasons:

I am an ordained deacon in the Presbyterian Church in America, but my service the first time was done out of a warped idea of status and importance than it was out of service.   This bad experience of realizing that people I thought were fine men were not so fine and that everyone regardless of what I thought is a flawed person lead to reconsidering being involved.  I was just not mature enough to deal with it.   As we often say people need hospitals because their bodies are broken and they need church because their souls are broken also.

The right reasons:

Christians do good works for this reason.  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.  Christians should be busy with good works.  If you are not a Christian what should you be busy with?


So here goes.   I hope to be successful in this journey.  I would love to discuss your thoughts.  Chatting is a strength of mine.