Good Friday - Twins Beat Yankees!

Motivation:

"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.

Nothing can be done without hope and confidence." ~Helen Keller

Diary:

B: cereal and soy milk
S: protien bar
L: meetings. missed lunch by 10 minutes, no lunch.
S: salmon, mayo + mustard, apple, xs, vitamins
S: peanut butter sandwich
D: cereal and soy milk, homemade chicken soup
S: bowl of chili

Notes:

I forgot to write about Maundy Thursday Service. It was a nice quiet service, but there were only about 20 people there. Felt a little akward, since they were doing a 'foot washing', but I wasn't really in the mood to take off my shoes. After running 2 miles and walking another mile, my dogs are pulsing with soreness (not pain, just sore) and the last thing I wanted to do was to call more attention to them by taking my shoes off, washing them, then putting shoes back on. I stuck out like a sore thumb, because everyone else participated. The service was good. The message was "Ask not what God can do for you, but what you can do for God." The message was service. Service takes humility and action.

What can I talk about today. Let me look at my cheat-sheet....


Well, I should start post some more photos of Fat Chazz. That way there will be some frame of reference for the photos to come soon from Twins games.

The photo attached to today are from the last "Virgo" party (so mid-late September of 2005.) The woman in the picture is normal size, but the big guy is morbidly obese. It is interesting that while I still probably look like this, I don't feel like it. My mind is totally confused about my weight, becuase when I am at the gym, I feel like a lean guy, but again, looking down is a mass of belly..... argh.

About the time this picture was taken, I was eating mostly chinese buffets, pizzas, beer, burgers and fries, fried chicken, canned beef ravioli and assorted other junk food. I recall driving home from work early with stomach pains and chest tightness. Several times I would have to stop quickly to throw up and then be so weak and tired that I would just go to sleep and get up the next day. I remember having to take tums and rolaids as a daily habit to deal with the gas that I was feeling. I was having stomach pains always. Some days were worse than others, but the constant amount of food in my system at any point in time was causing my digestive system to put in overtime and never able to catch up with the punisment I was putting it through. It wasn't a good memory, and I don't like talking about it. I don't like seeing that picture. It reminds me of how aqward I felt and looked around other people, how I didn't match the women that I was flirting with, and how I couldn't dance for more than 5 minutes at a time (if you can call what I was doing 'dancing', it was more just moving back and forth while flailing my flabby arms.)

However, as I read in "Good to Great" it is necessary to embrace brutal reality, but still have dreams and hopes and desires. Without full knowledge of the reality of your current situation, it is difficult to understand what you need to do, specifically, to change your current condition. This will help to track your progress. So, while it isn't nice or cute or happy, that is where I started. Fat, miserable, popping antacid like candy, having to take baths to calm my stomach pains, vomiting from overeating or eating the wrong things, not being able to stand for more than 15 minutes, being useless after 6pm...

So now I got that point of reference out. I don't have stomach pains much anymore, and when I do, I know it immediately, and know what I did to cause it. It is difficult for me to see the comparison of before / after when I look in the mirror, because now I just look generally Fat. I am going to have to continue to look at pictures to see if there is a difference. At this point in time, I don't think there is much difference.



9 Reasons to Drop 20 Pounds
By: Mike Zimmerman on 10/07/2005 (at Men's Health, of course. I think they will soon sue me for all my plagarism, but I find these snippets to be handy information.)

1. Twenty pounds of warm human fat can refill every bottle in an empty case of beer, with enough left over to fill your blender.
2. It's not scaling Everest or writing the great American novel. You can do it in your spare time.
3. It's the difference between being thought of as jolly or witty.
4. Your chances of developing heart disease, prostate cancer, diabetes, sleep apnea, depression, back pain, impotence, gallstones, joint problems, high blood pressure, low sperm counts, and an impressive collection of prescription-drug bottles.
5. Men who lose weight never have less sex. They may not have more, mind you, but they never have less.
6. Every time you pick up a 20-pound dumbbell, you'll remember.
7. You'll be able to reach even more places to scratch.
8. Wait till you ride a WaveRunner, quad, or snowmobile when you're 20 pounds lighter. Vroom, baby.
9. In our society, people respect weight loss. Even if you do nothing cool or interesting or memorable for the rest of your life, you'll have done that.

more later..

Chazz