Madrone trail ride

rode the madrone trail on Thursday as Kathy had the day off and wanted to spend some girl time with Ella. I had a good ride, but as mentioned in my previous post, I'm feeling really out of shape and fat. Rather than feel sorry for myself for getting to such a point in my life, I've decided to make a change. The trail is really the one to thank. As I rode along I found numerous bits of trash from people being lazy and not caring about this wonderful resource, which made me reflect on how people can be so self involved, lazy, etc...




HELLO FAT A$$, the trash that makes me sick out on the trail is no different than what I'm doing to my body! I ignore it, treat it like crap, fill it full of trash, and then wonder how I got here. Well, no more! If I can clean up the trail, I can clean myself up. It's time to awaken from the slumber I've been in. Time to open my eyes and realize that I've only got this one body and this one life to live. If I sit back and ignore it, it will pass me by sooner than I want it to, and I won't have enjoyed the ride. 2009 is my year for change. Thank you Madrone trail, you're wisdom is greatly appreciated.

from the boat ramp, my favorite place to stop and "think"... nice views too

I'm fat.....

... yes, this is nothing new, but I'm finally feeling fat. I've reached a point where I either need to accept the fact that I'm going to be fat forever or I need to really step it up and stop the current lifestyle. When we lived in Atlanta (Roswell actually) I got on a running kick and did really well. Lost ~ 20lbs, but more importantly lost 3" around the middle and was gaining muscle mass again. I need to get back to that place. I stayed pretty well on course even after the move, but once we moved to the second temporary house, and my work schedule kicked in, I lost all interest in working out, and my attitude went downhill with my fitness.

The challenge I face: a picky eating 3 year old. Like most kids these days, she's hooked on pop-tarts and the like. This is a serious challenge in that when she eats, I eat and I've ballooned to maximum capacity since being the stay at home dad. The upshot here is that I've never known a kid who likes fruit as much as she does, so maybe I can coax her into a better nutritional regimen via fruit, and slowly introduce more veggies. I also feel it's important to influence her life with healthy eating and exercises as we only have a few good years left before the outside influences take over.

The plan.

Slowly introduce a healthier diet. I'm going to start off by trying to change breakfast from pre-packaged refined foods to whole foods. Once this is in place for a few weeks, we'll incorporate lunch, a few weeks later dinner. Loads of research to do on this still as I have no clue what a growing girl really needs.

Exercise... this one is easy. The one thing I have going for me is my 3 y.o. would rather be outside doing anything, she's an outdoor nut. The plan here will be daily walking with the dogs, weekly hikes (2 places close by that are perfect & fun), bike rides... new walking bike should help here, and as fast as she's going I can probably ride the wife's cruiser next to her. Solo runs... ugh, this is the part I love/hate. Once out there and doing it, I love running (well, jogging really but that's as much as you get from me) the part I'm not going to love is the 5am wake up to achieve this goal. I know I'll get used to it, but it will be a challenge given my current physical condition and lack of motivation.

My dream is to get down to 140-5 lbs. My goal is a more realistic 155-158 lbs. The time frame for all of this? Well, back in the day I could drop 20 lbs no problem in 2-4 weeks, now pushing 40, the weight doesn't like to come off as easily and I know a crash diet won't do me any good. So, from what I've read, a healthy weight loss plan is 1-2 lbs per week. My current weight of 191 lbs with a goal of 155 lbs means that if I go it slow, as is recommended, and I lose 1 lb a week, I should be to my goal in 36 weeks or 9 months (like giving birth in reverse... interesting). If I start off 3/09 I should be to my goal by 12/09 or for my 40th birthday. Now, should I achieve my goal, I will have to reward myself with some sort of gift (and since I'm not much of a gold chain/corvette kind of guy) I'm thinking a killer mountain bike (think the wife will go for it?)

Anyway, wish me luck and follow along is you're that bored. Hell, if LFOAB can do what he's done I can achieve this goal.

Walmart*

Yesterday I was at Wal-Mart buying a large bag of Iams Dog Food
for my loyal pet, Remy, the Wonder Dog and was in the checkout line when a woman behind me asked if I had a dog.

What did she think I had, a fuckin' goat? I told her no, I didn't have a dog, I was starting the "Iams Diet" again. I added that I probably shouldn't, because
I ended up in the hospital last time, but that I'd lost 50 pounds before I
awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of most of my
orifices and IVs in both arms.

I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it
works is to load your pants pockets with Iams nuggets and simply eat one
or two every time you feel hungry. The food is nutritionally complete so
it works well and I was going to try it again. (I have to mention here
that practically everyone in line was now listening to my story.)

Shocked, she asked if I ended up in intensive care because the dog food
poisoned me. I told her no, I stepped off a curb to sniff an Irish
Setter's ass and a car hit us both.

I thought the guy behind her was going to have a heart attack, he was
laughing so hard i expected him to pee his pants. Long story short, Wal-Mart won't let me shop there anymore.















* Originally a version of this story appeared on CL, but I thought it was funny enough to re-post to my blog