The "Endo" Be All Of Lapband

Three in a row. I think this is truly a first for my blog. Woo hoo! So as usual, (you know, all three times usual), I'll start off with my success with my body by Jabba the Hutt challenge. This week through a dedicated effort of weights, swimming, stairmaster, and eating mostly right I shaved another half inch off my waist. I went from 50.25 inches last week, to 49.75 inches this week. So in two weeks I shrunk my waist by 1.25 inches. Very nice!

Let me address some things. First I was not completely successful in reaching my goals this week. Food wise I probably ate 70% healthy. Now yes I was successful, but in some ways the ends can't justify the means. It's a path to complacency and then set back. Maybe next week I only eat 60% healthy and I lose a 1/4 of an inch, then maybe the following week I back off on the gym, but eat at that 60% ratio, and don't add inches, but don't lose any either. Then I get discouraged, or some stressor is blamed for me staying away from the gym and eating properly, and the advances that I've made vanish. No bueno, because in my head I've been defeated again. And that's followed by the negative talk, the lack of trust in myself to complete something, and the lack of confidence in myself for not having completed something and trusting myself to do it.

The latter is not "all in." All in is a committment to what I set out to do, eat right 90% of the time, and workout rigorously in methods previously described, to reshape my body, tune my metabolism, and overall trust myself to do those things, because I CAN do them. In the end, and the beginning, the motivation has been extrinsic, something I wanted outside of me as a factor of weight loss, and body re shaping. Nearly all of it having to do with how people, and women especially, see me. Well the problem with extrinsic motivation is that eventually it ends. After I reach my goal waist size, some where in the low 30 inches, and I maintain that as planned, well eventually everyone that matters to me will have seen me, and just come to expect "thin and healthy Dave." What then? Oh yeah that's right the desire to be thin and healthy has to begin and and end with me INTRINSICALLY. Enthusiasm for the process will not carry the day here. I've been down that road many times before. It is a commitment to the process, as a lifestyle choice, that will seal the deal.

One of the things that I pride myself with is not giving up, and with the successes and failures that I've had with this over the last 40+ years the idea of giving up gets tempting. My sister Stacey has had similar successes and setbacks with her weight over the years. As I've mentioned before we are endomorphic people, of Ukrainian peasant stock, on my dads side of the family. That means we have larger than average bodies that stored energy (fat) for all the back breaking labor of pulling wheat out of the ground by hand, and for the women, the need to produce several little Ukrainian farmers as well. We have worker bodies, that were programmed to accumulate fat quickly, maybe in defense of those times when the harvest wasn't so bountiful, and eating daily was not guaranteed. This is an endomorph. Out of shape we look very round and puffy. The upside is we gain muscle very easily, again possibly programmed from all of the physical work this type is predisposed to. My dad gains muscle easily. His arms and calves are big, and he's 64. He started working out regularly about 10 years ago, and eating very little sugar in his diet. Well the pounds came off and his muscles became well defined. He tells me he never uses a dumbbell heavier than 25 lbs. Go figure.

Some food for thought Russel Crowe is considered and endomorph, as is Beyonce'. We've seen what happens to Russel when he doesn't workout and eat right, he puffs right up in the movie "State of Play." When he works out well it's more like Gladiator. Recently the "gladiator" returned when Crowe dropped 60+lbs with a regimen he started last June. Endo women are curvy like Beyonce'. She probably just dances too much to actually gain weight. Kate Winslett is another curvy and attractive endo female. This type are not your sprinters, we're not built like that. We require diets, low in fats, sugar, and probably salt, with A LOT of body movement to keep in shape. Similarly we will never have the waif like look of appearing in desperate need of a sandwich or three.

I think the latter is what Stacey and I spoke about this past week, and that is an acceptance of who we are, what we have as far as bodies go, and what we need to do to maintain a healthy lifestyle for ourselves. Over a week ago this acceptance has caused her to undergo lap band surgery. I think this is wonderful. Anything that is healthy and can't harm you in achieving physical health is good to go by me. I don't know what she started out at, however I plan to post her progress weekly, starting next week. She's gonna be pissed when I tell her about my blog, and she starts to read again. ; ) Hopefully she'll realize that I love her, and am extremely proud of her in this step she's taking.

Until next week.

Swimming in Jello

So I'll get right to it. I taped myself on Saturday January 7th, 2012. Good news, I was down 3/4's of an inch from last week. I went from a 51" waist to a 50.25" waist. So here's roughly what I did to accomplish that.

1.) I chose to eat mostly clean, no refined sugars, sodas, you know crap. I should say not much crap. There were some cookies left over from our Christmas party. It's actually an abundance of garbage sitting in our 5th grade work room, that we are "saving" for next months Valentines party. And I did eat a double whataburger with cheese, fries, and a rather large coke yesterday afternoon. I also stopped by Tilted Kilt in Lewisville last night, quickly becoming one of my favorite places. I had some grilled wings, potato skins washed down with a ridiculous number of Arnold Palmers, (lemonade and sweet tea mixed). The latter of which would contribute to my not being able to sleep well. Still it was kind of worth it, food was good, waitresses are really good looking, and the Saints won. Oh almost forgot about dessert, a partially baked chocolate chip cookie, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream topped with chocolate sauce. I usually don't order dessert in a place like that, especially if I'm at the bar, or close to it, but I had to give pause because this is the Kilts signature dessert. So with assurance from my waitress that I wouldn't have to turn in my man card, supported by the fact the three guys at the far end of the table ordered dessert I went for it.

So yes Saturday was a "cheat" day for me.

2.) I made it to the gym "six" times last week. I say six because to of the days were twofers, meaning I went once in the morning and once at night. The routine for both those days was swimming in the a.m., and weights at night, with the second twofer reversing that schedule. The other day was more swimming, and the another day was the stairmaster.

I have a routine for lifting that works the entire body. It's a circuit from the ABS Diet by Mens Health that I do three times. The first circuit for nearly all of the exercises is a lighter weight done at higher reps, right now 12. The exceptions are Squats using one dumbell, and calf raises using no weight. The 2nd and 3rd sets are done with heavier weights at 10 reps. Also on Mondays and Fridays I'll do the abs portion of the workout by sprinkling the abs exercises between exercises in the warm-up circuit. And last but not least there is about 30 seconds of rest between individual exercise. The heart rate is elevated.

I am also doing swimming. I do nine full laps, (up and back) about a 1/4 mile, of breast stroke in the Olympic sized pool. I kind of do two lap sets where the first lap is sort of a warm-up, then the second lap I'm going all out, as much I can significantly raising my heart rate. The swimming is essentially an interval workout which my research indicates is really good for burning fat. I enjoy the swimming for a few reasons:

a.) easy on my joints, my knees and ankles never being anything to write home about

b.) it feels like it works my whole body, especially the upper body

c.) I sort of envision the water steadily wearing away the fat, and naturally sculpting my body, though I'm not sure I really like the word sculpting, seems somewhat cliche

d.) when I step out of the pool I feel like Daniel Craig walking onto the beach, out of the surf from Casino Royale. I know I don't look anything like him presently, but the thought of reaching that level of fitness is motivating.

e.) I feel like I have accomplished something significant when I'm done

So my whole plan is to reduce the size of my waist while keeping my muscles toned. You can't realistically add muscle AND lose fat at the same time. It really is one or the other. You couldn't eat enough calories to build muscle and lose fat, at least my body type which is likely endo/meso, which means I can gain weight easily if I don't watch what I eat and do lot's of cardio, on the flip side I can probably add muscle a little easier than most. I'll go into somatotypes later.

So overall not bad for this past week. My goal for this week is to get in a 3rd twofer, as well as a third weightlifting day. It would be nice to keep that 3/4" lost from around my waist each week as a standard. I'd love to have my suit re tailored smaller in time for the 5th grade "graduation" on June 1st.

So next week I'll post, talking about my successes and set backs, as well as mentioning my sister Stacey a great deal, as she to started a similar journey as me. That's about it for now.

Thanks for reading.

The Fit Strikes Back

Hi,

So after a two plus year hiatus, I'm back. In my last post around Thanksgiving of 2009 I spoke of buyers remorse over trading in my Honda Fit for a Honda CR-V. I'm happy to say that my cool little car is back as of last May and I couldn't be happier. This time I'm riding in style because the Fit is sporting NAVI, not that I use it.

So I really want to make a serious go of this blog. I think one of the things that the troubled me was that the blog, what little of it, lacked focus. I'm changing that.

The focus of my blog will be primarily about my body re-shaping challenge. The long and the short of it is that my self image has really limited what I think of myself and what I can accomplish. The reality is that when I'm fit the world and myself are filled with more opportunity, and when I'm not I find myself retreating from the world. Case in point my attendance at iai, (my sword class) over the past year is abyssmal. It has largely, (good word) to do with the increase in my girth, the fact that I can't fit into my uniform, my refusal to purchase another, and the difficulty in keeping said uniform on while practicing said techniques. I want to spend this year changing a bunch of those things.

My goal is to really live what I call the "Men's Health Magazine" lifestyle. Real simple, eating right and training right, in order to have a more fulfilling life. I want to be "ALL IN" and not half assing it, as I've been doing for the better part of 25 years. So here goes.

As of today January 1st 2012 I have a 51" waist. Put another way my waist is 4 feet, 3 inches around, the size of a little person. Seriously I woke up one day, looked in the mirror, and said "you have grandad Browns belly!" My grandfather died in his early 70's, (We don't know for sure how old he was), from a heart attack, complicated by diabetes, the latter exacerbated by the aforementioned huge belly. I would prefer to live longer with a greater quality of life, and not shut in.

I don't particularly care about getting on a scale. The numbers are entirely too random, however inches off my waist are inches off, no matter how you slice it, and it is likely almost all fat, and a tiny bit of water.

My goal is for a loss of 2 inches per month. It's going to require a serious focus of gym time, (lot's of cardio, mostly swimming), lots of weight training, (to maintain, and maybe build muscle, while increasing my metabolism), and eating cleanly 90% of the time. Look for weekly updates. I think I'm done for the day.

Best always.

Welcome back.

So it's been a week and change since I posted. Many important things have happened since then. Let me break it down for ya.

I've been going crazy with the buyers remorse on my new car. I really like my CR-V, but it is missing a little character that the Fit had. Like I mentioned earlier the Fit was a cool little car! I think I know why I am missing it so much. It is kind of unique. You don't see a ton of them on the road. My CR-V however, let's just say that any time I turn a corner onto a new street there is an excellent chance I am sharing it with two or more CR-V's. I asked my salesman why this is and he says that due to its price and reliability and quality it outsells its nearest competition, (Toyota RAV4), by a 2-1 margin. I'm going to keep it and slowly add some unique features to it, like a spoiler and fog lights, (most CR-V's don't have these), and I'm going to enjoy it. Should Honda come out with say an as yet to be made Fit Sport Si model with a 1.6 liter iVTEC engine with 140hp and getting 30+ mpg I will own one!

However for now there are far more important things to be thinking about. Like my teeth and say a house.

This is the hard part of posting. There are things I want to say but I'm not sure how much to reveal. Largely because I hate criticism, real or imagined. I don't mind people asking me why about certain things that I do, but it absolutely must be framed in the form of a question, expressing interest in me as a person. I've decided I don't have the time or the inclination to respond to a response like "that's dumb why are you doing that?" How demotivating and crushing to the spirit! If you really are in disagreement with me perhaps you should listen first and then ask if I would appreciate some advice. If I say "no" we move on. If I say 'yes", then this is your opportunity to craft a sensitive, thoughtful, and caring response, free of bluntness and rudeness, unless of course I have expressly requested those things. BTW the more you are in agreement with me, bordering on sycophantic, the better this conversation will go for both of us.

Now really how many of us enjoyed reading that last paragraph? I sort of enjoyed writing it because I thought of some of you reading it and thinking what an arrogant jerk. Now if it struck a nerve, i.e. I hit upon a truth about you that you don't care to admit about yourself, you may want to ask why. You see I've come to notice that people can only hurt us with the truths we keep protected behind the walls we build to protect us from the pain. I think I would like to both take down those walls brick by brick and ease that pain. It requires more openness and honest expression then I am capable of at this moment.

So here is my bit of truth for the night. I have noticed that when I am healthier and more disciplined, I can more fully live into the possibility of being the human being that I am meant to be. I have carried around with me at least 50 pounds of excess weight. This has been the case nearly my entire adult life. This weight is a wall that keeps me separated from people that I love and from loving myself. The more separated I become the more angry, detached, and lonely I become. It is a vicious cycle that feeds into itself, constantly trying to fill a void that is unfillable! So to my weight I say "I surrender, you've won the war. Now it's time to rebuild."

Okay so I'm probably phoning this one in. I haven't written anything since the 4th, which is way longer than my allowable one a week entry.

A few things have occurred in the last week that I do need to mention. One area of rapid disgust is this whole concept of "peace loving Muslims." In light of the TERRORIST/Traitorous incident at Fort Hood I can no longer abide by the politically correct fairy tale that such a creature exists. I'll pick up on this a little later this week, but I will leave you with something to chew on. They are treating this guy with kid gloves, like they are surprised at what he did even though many things have come to light that say our "Major" was a radical islamist. Like for instance contacting an imam in yemen, the latter whom is openly hostile towards America and was at least indirectly associated with the attacks on 9/11. He was the imam to several of the hijackers who found inspiration in his messages of intolerance and genocide towards all infidels. So this "Major" is in contact with this guy, a man openly hostile to the United States, via e-mail and the Department of Defense and the FBI just right it off as "research."

I wonder if these same investigators were the same ones writing off Tim McVeighs association with "right wing militias" back in the mid '90's, just before the Oklahoma City bombing. Let's put it another way. If our traitorous radical islamic terrorist in Army clothing was around during World War Two and was a person of German, Italian, or Japanese descent in contact with members of those hostile powers who advocated "death to Americans," how long do you think it would have taken to have him in front of a firing squad?

To those of you reading this and don't think we are at war, I say wake up!

You'll have to forgive me. Instead of blogging I was on Youtube taking in some 80's Sci Fi nostalgia. I was watching exerpts of "V The Final Battle." This wasn't done solely to waste time on more important things that I could be doing, (name anything and it counts). No I was watching in preparation for Friday evening when I go over to my friend Toby's house to watch the newest installment of the Stargate franchise, "Stargate Universe." I was watching the pilot episode to get caught up. Whew! I will also be watching the newest re-imagining, ( I love that, you know years ago in some movie studio they came up with that phrase, "boss it's not a remake, we're re-imaginig), of "V." As a mutual friend of ours would say "we're getting our geek on." True but I don't apologize. Always liked the sci-fi stuff, especially if there are a lot of great what if questions. It helps if the aliens asking those are HOT human looking female aliens, yes a little xenophobic! I love time travel themes, the whole paradox thing fascinates me. I also like stories about things that we know get turned on their head, such as waking up one morning and finding that your democratically elected republic, has been taken over by Nazi lizards, (in human clothing). I don't give Hollywood credit for teaching us much that is useful, however the alien invasion thing they seem to have down pat. Historically it has never ended well for a technologically inferior race to be visited upon by a technologically superior race. Don't believe me, case in point, native Americans = 0 ( except for a few casinos, there's a proud legacy) Europeans et al = ALL OF IT. So if we get visited upon I think it will either go down like "Independence Day" where the aliens are coming to forcibly take from us, no pretense, or it might be like "V" where they come in peace, and then slowly put the screwing to us. The net result is at least the attempted subjugation of Homo Sapiens. Of course the dead give-away for the we com in peace crew, they will all be beautiful, not an ugly one amongst them. I've been in the military (Army), even in the Air Force there's ugly people. There might be a third option somewhat similar to the European experience here. These visitors might come with actual good intentions, but then they will see how easily we are bought off with shiny trinkets and promises of free stuff. Let the subjugation begin! Something tells me that the friendly Reeses Pieces loving E.T.'s will likely have ben conquered before us. That's comforting. I mean really we've got guns, what was E.T. going to do "cute'm to death." Hmmm.

Okay I've been sarcastic enough for one night. So I walk into this house and there's a red head, a ninja, a Transformer, and a clown. The redhead is my friend Alison, the ninja is one of her students, a 3rd grader whom she looks out for because his mom is an exotic dancing p.o.s. that can't seem to be bothered. Sorry there is more back story but I can't write it here. The transformer is my oldest nephew Alexander. He is 5 and has started kindergarten. Gotta mention his kindergarten teacher is cute! He has always been a little ornery, I love that word. Alison and her family are originally form Montana, so they are aloud to use western style words like that. Tonight he was kind of quiet. It wasn't the Alexander that Uncle Dave usually experiences. Now his little brother Jordan,(20 months'ish) was another story. Jordan has two speeds Fast and stop. This guy is all over the place. He's a climber by the way, and he has NO fear. So we're out and about trick-or-treating. Alison's husband Scott is relieved that I'm going. He owns a haunted house attraction called Terrorplex so on Halloween he has to be there. I kind of look after Alison and the boys on our neighborhood trek. So Nick, (Alison's 3rd grader) and Alexander are alternating ringing door bells. Jordan is being pushed in his clown costume. You want to talk about cuting people to death. That's Jordan. He would hold his bag out and say "please" since "trick-or treat" was a little beyond him. People ate it up. Now they also have a little dog, a Westy named Nemo. Well no matter where Jordan heard or saw a dog, along our trail of rotted teeth, that dog became Nemo. He can also say my name, which of course I love. So after awhile we get back to the house loaded with candy. It was time for my Halloween treat. Knowing the amount of candy I decided to get each boy a Hot Wheels motor cycle. I always like these. G-d knows I buried a lot of them on Nantasket beach when I was 5. They were a hit with the boys. For five minutes. This is the way of children. Alexander wants to play Wii. I wanted to play but Alexander didn't want me to, 5 year olds seem to just tell you what is on their mind. Well using my wisdom, which entailed letting him hand me my butt at several games of Wii baseball, we were able to play, and the loud and funny Alexander started to come out. It was great to see. Those two boys make me laugh every time I see them. It is always a joy. Alison and Scott are great parents, I've no doubt those boys will grow up to be fine men. Working as a teacher you see a lot of indifference and neglect. This is the case with Nick. He absolutely didn't want to go home. He wanted to stay with Alison and the boys. She told me it was heartbreaking to take him home. I see it a lot and it colors my views of children and those that would be parents. I have this completely fascist idea by which children are force sterilized at puberty, and that the earliest this is reversed is by age 25, at which time you must present yourself to a liscensing board and be subject to random spot checks over the course of a year. You must prove that you are gainfully employed, not addicted to any substances, and have all the issues of your damaged childhood fully resolved before bringing some unsuspecting life into the world. There are consequences, perhaps reduced welfare, smarter t.v. (if that's possible), and oh yeah did I mention that it is pretty fascist, though not a "master race" per se, just a less effed up one. And here I was railing against Nazi lizards a little while back.

So for all the talk about my cool little car the Honda Fit in my previous post, I traded it in. This like many things is bittersweet. I bought an '09 Honda CR-V that was discounted, well because they were discounting them to make room for 2010's. I went the day before Halloween. I wanted to test drive a Red '08 VW R32. It is a Golf GTI that has a 6 cylinder, all leather and loaded! I also test drove an '08 Mini that was a manual and turbocharged! Both vehicles were ridiculously FAST! It was a thrill driving the stick, but with both of them coolness was the rule of the day versus practicality. They did a lot of what the Fit was doing, just faster and more expensive. Hauling stuff the Fit beat each one hands down. We then test drove a 4 door Civic SI. This car was fun and fast. I knew that I wouldn't buy it but I kind of knew at this point that I was determined to buy something. Chris, my salesman who sold me the Fit was amazing. This wasn't the first time since riding in my friend Jeremy's Mini, that I'd talked with Chris about a new car. Each time he talked me out of it. So we head over to the used lot and I see a Black '07 CR-V with 35,000 miles on it, and in great condition. Now when I went to buy a car last January I originally looked at CR-V's. So now I gravitated towards this used one. Chris had me look at a new '09 with 38 miles on it and ran the numbers. As far as financing it was a difference of $2000 over the life of the loan. Did I mention the new one was discounted $1,800 dollars? I went new and got a silver one with black interior and had these cool black wheels added, (a little bling). I like the CR-V a lot and it will be my primary vehicle for a long time. It looks sharp, and will look better when I get the windows tinted. It definitely speaks to a stylish utilitarian practicality that will last for years. On the down side I am missing the Fit, a little. part of it has to do with it's nimble zippiness, the other is I just tacked on an additional $8000 worth of debt that I didn't have Friday morning. Though I think that I have a better vehicle for my purposes I've now come to realize that I need to think strategically about money, because I don't. I live in a world that because I don't have any credit card debt and I can afford to live a little comfortably, I think I am doing "fine." It occurs to me that I really need to tackle my financial situation responsibly buy spending less, and saving more. Having an additional income stream of say another $1000+/month take home would help immeasurably towards, fixing my long neglected teeth, saving for that retirement, and buying my future home. Still there are many doing all of that and making less, so don't feel sorry for me. I am open to suggestions. I promise my next post will be full of wit and humor, oh your still waiting for those things. Well I did just buy a new car, so take that!

On my next installment, hear about how I walk into a house and there is a clown, a Transformer, a ninja, and a redhead. We are on a mission from G-d!