Painful Reminders

If you often find yourself enduring peaks and valleys when it comes to healthy living and working out (like I do), then you know the feeling. The feeling of those eye-opening, post-work out/run muscle aches and pains that come with restarting a fitness regiment. Oh. My. Goodness.

I won't lie to you guys - I've recently found myself tipping the scales at my new highest weight ever. Not proud of it. Not looking for sad panda faces or your typical "you'll do it this time!" comments. Just stating a fact. And when one sees a number they've never seen before, it usually springs them into action. Hence my return to the gym and the blog-osphere. Time to tighten it up and get my mind focusing on the right things (healthy foods, helpful reading materials, supportive environments, etc)

Well, when one sits on their rear for a month straight, it's a hearty wake-up call when they start working those dormant muscles again. Take this morning for instance. Today I decided that I would 'do legs' - which is a weird way to put it, but you all  know what I mean. I have a weight routine that was provided to me by a dear friend and today it had me scheduled for a handful of leg workouts using some of the machines.

I get to the first machine - taken. I head over to the second - occupied. And since these workouts are supposed to go in a certain order, I found myself aimlessly walking around the gym playing the waiting game. It then finally dawned on me - "hey, I don't need machines to work my legs - let's do some lunges." Well I did not know what I was getting myself into. Apparently I forgot how much I weigh because when I got to the end of 60 lunges - 30 on each leg - my legs were noodles. I mean, it was terrible. As a result, I unfortunately abandoned all my other leg workouts.

But instead, I thought it'd be a splendid idea to hit the treadmill for 30 minutes. Let's just say I'll probably be paying for it tomorrow... It's a long road, but it's gotta start somewhere, I suppose. But hopefully these painful reminders will make me realize the need to continue moving forward rather than sitting on the sideline and allowing a month to go by and watching the progress I'd made fizzle out and disappear.

After enduring this same cycle probably 10 times a year for the last 4 years, you'd think I would have put this all together by now. I see a lot of stories of people who decided to lose 50, 75 or 100 pounds and they just did it, and I find myself saying, "wow, I wish I could do that." Well...why don't I? Why do I assume that's something I can't accomplish? It's that mindset I tell ya...it's crucial.

Just thought I'd toss this lunges graphic in here. Also thought it was interesting that I was wearing the same thing during my lunges this morning!

Details, Details, Details

I've never been diagnosed, but I'm pretty sure that I have a twinge of O.C.D. I mean, I do some things that - when I'm finished - I step back and go, "Now why did I do that? Was it really worth all that extra work?" Can anyone relate with this?

For example, I have a Netflix Instant Queue with hundreds of movies, documentaries and TV shows in it. If I have a TV show in the queue, I 100% intend to watch the entire show completely from the beginning. I've restarted "Lost" three times now because "it's been too much time since I started it last time" and watched the entire series of "Prison Break" because I never saw the last season. I write and rewrite and rewrite my To Do Lists so they looks cleaner, and I'm also the guy that would completely rewrite my class notes in college because I didn't think it looked neat enough. I'm also currently listening to a September 7, 2012 episode of a daily podcast that I like because I am trying to catch up (doubt it'll ever happen).

So why doesn't this exhausting process carry over to the health/fitness portion of my life? In recent introspective sessions, I've often pondered this question. And I think I've found the answer...

For me, it's easy to organize and control the physical surroundings around me. It's easy to pick up my laundry, make the bed, organize my desk  or do the dishes. But when it comes to organizing and aligning my mindset and my actions towards a healthier life, that's not as easy... It requires much more effort and dedication and my mind wears out well before my body does. So how does one go about conquering this giant?

That's what I'm still trying to figure out. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that I have a switch that I can flip that automatically turns on self-control, discipline, motivation or commitment, so I guess that means I'm going to have to go it alone. Yikes, that definitely hasn't gotten me anywhere since I started back in 2009... But I'm making the attempt once again to kick this healthier lifestyle into gear, so we'll see how it goes this time!

What have you found that motivates you to commit to life-long, healthy changes in your life? Was it a life event, a particular person, a new-found passion for running? Let me know!

In the Starting Blocks

On the heels of the Men's 100m Finals - all hail Usain! - I think the title of today's post is quite applicable.  By the way, can we all just stop a second and admit that he is ridiculous? Any time I watch his run my jaw just drops - so impressive.

Anyway, if you read my post from yesterday, you know that I am now 28 years of age and am embarking on a year-long journey (a la Chris Powell) to get to my sub-200 pound goal. So before I get started, I want to establish where I'm starting. I'm adjusting my feet in the blocks and getting ready to tear up the track. (But of course this isn't being treated as a sprint!)

This morning I took stock of where I find myself after a week of vacation and a week + of slacking on my half marathon training schedule. And it was worse than I thought.

If any of you follow me on YouTube, you'll know that I also just joined a couple of challenges - so to speak - that require me to make regular update/progress videos. In my initial videos for #CHANGE and "Hot 4 Halloween" I made a guess before vacation that I weighed around 270 despite having not seen a scale for a week prior to that. Well...I must have been wrong. Here are my starting numbers as of today:

Starting Weight: 275.6

Measurements (in inches):

I took some 'before' pictures that I will show you at the end of each three-month "Phase" (again with the Chris Powell comparison). I will also be giving short, weekly reports each Monday letting you know how my last seven days went - mostly statistical with a little analysis. I'll also have a running, weekly, weigh in tally in the upper-right portion of the blog.

I also want to note that I don't want to stray too far from the running focus of this blog, but that shouldn't be a problem since I'll be continuing my half marathon training this next month and using it as a huge part of my weight loss. My ultimate goal after all of this is done is to become a hardcore runner (like some of you!) and maybe even dabble in some du- or triathlons. Hmm? Hmm?

But let's take this one day at a time, k? I'll have my first progress post for ya on Monday.

A 365-Day Transformation?

On days such as this (my birthday), I find it hard not to evaluate the year that was, and the potential of the year to come. Unfortunately - and only due to a result of my own efforts - I haven't seen much progress in the health & fitness arena since I turned 27 last year. But I'll get back to this in a second...

The rest of my life, however, has changed quite a bit! Back in September of last year I married my wife and best friend, and in March I started my first, official full-time job in downtown Chicago (after a few years of freelance/part-time gigs). Even scored a new car last month! Just about every other aspect of my life has improved since my last birthday. So why not this last part?

Now don't get me wrong - this isn't me lamenting about how bad my life is AT ALL. I am so happy for all the blessings I have received between 8/6/2011 and 8/6/2012 and I wouldn't go back and do a single thing differently. As far as weight loss goes, the past is the past - and now it's time to only look at today and set goals for this next year of my life.

My primary verse for the next 365 days

I'm a big fan of Chris Powell and his show Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition on Sunday nights. Instead of a 'ranch' format of group training a la Biggest Loser, he takes on a client one-on-one for an entire year to completely transform them. Now I'm not looking to lose half of my body weight (thankfully I haven't let myself go THAT much), but I am going to aim for my goal weight by my birthday next year - so I have 365 days to do so.

So beginning tomorrow, I will weigh myself, take pictures and measurements and establish my official "starting (over)" position. More details will come in tomorrow's post pertaining to my plan on how I will approach the next 365 days.

Let me know what things have worked for you that you think I should include in my plan!

Weekly Update #2

If you haven't heard, I'm doing weekly progress updates on my YouTube channel. Now I've tried doing this type of thing before, but I would just cowardly fade away once I started doing poorly. Let's not let that happen this time around, shall we?

Anyway, I'm just about done with quite the whirlwind of a week, and unfortunately it took a toll on my activity levels and discipline along the way. Had a wrench thrown in my routine - had to take a personal day off of work due to a death in the family, was asked to work from home twice this week, and even worked from a different office for a day. All these things threw curveballs at me and I wasn't ready.

When I can settle into a routine and know ahead of time what I have coming up, it gives me a better chance to plan out my meals and gym times. When things get kind of hectic and are thrown off-kilter, it gives me less time and warning to plan things out. With less time to plan, I'm more susceptible to giving in to spontaneous temptations (snacking, sleeping in) and therefore sabotaging my goals.

But the B-Side of that is that when I DO give in to the temptations of immediate gratification, I continue to give in the next time, and the time after that - each instance where I display a lack of discipline makes it easier to give in the following time. That's where the change needs to happen.

I mean, let's face it - no one rarely anyone can keep on point 100% of the time. We all mess up at one time or another! It's how we respond to that lapse in discipline that defines our journey and self-control. For me, it's been a week of good, followed by a bad Saturday, followed by a bad week, which turns into two weeks... You get the point.

That is the piece of the puzzle that I need to figure out for when these lapses come. Once I learn to stop the bleeding once the cut occurs, I'll be in great shape when the next temptation comes around.

My (Slightly Belated) June Goals

One of my reoccuring downfalls on my weight loss journey has been setting all my final, big picture goals up front and then rarely setting smaller, more bite-sized goals along the way. As a result, every time I stumbled on my diet or gain a few pounds here or there, I saw my progress through the lens of the larger goal and found myself getting discouraged because I had "such a long way to go", and would forget that one, bad day doesn't ruin everything and that I just needed to forget yesterday's failure and focus on winning today. I've never been good at that...

So in an attempt to combat this cycle from rearing its ugly head anymore, I'm going to take some time at the beginning of each month to set some goals for myself for the upcoming 30 days. I think I'll give a few, different kinds of goals: weight, nutrition, activity and maybe something unrelated to weight loss.

Before I get into my June goals, let me backtrack a little and talk about May. My efforts - on a scale of 1 to 10 - probably registered only about a 4.5 last month. I had a couple weeks where I ate well and got to the gym 4-6 times a week, but the other half of the month I avoided the gym, at donuts for breakfast and enjoyed way too much soda. However, I still managed to lose 8-10 pounds last month despite my efforts not to, haha.

For June, I've found a new source of motivation to help me through the summer. Some of the women at work started a Biggest Loser type of contest and asked me to join! The prize is yet to be determined, but I'm still really excited about it. I'll get more into that at a later date. On to the goals!

By July 1st, here are some things I want to say I've accomplished:

- Lose 15-20 pounds so I can get myself back into the 250s
- Avoid all non-diet soda
- Be able to run 5 miles without stopping
- Gain 50 combined Twitter followers/YouTube subscribers/Facebook page 'Likes'
- Blog at least once a week
- Read one Runner's World and one Men's Health

I like the list I've put together here! They encompass a lot of the different areas I want to work on and allow me to make smaller steps forward in all of them! I'll lose weight, develop healthier habits by dropping soda, work towards my goal of 'being a runner,' improve my online presence and gain knowledge my reading! Man, I love these!

So there ya go! Let me know your thoughts on my goals, and I want to know what YOU want to accomplish in June! I'm real pumped about this, can't you tell? :)

Wacky Wednesday Post (on Friday)

NOTE: I began writing this post on Wednesday and didn't finish it until today (Friday). So get off me about it, alright? :) Now on to your regularly-schedule programming...

Don't be alarmed - there will be a minimal amount of wackiness in this post. I just wanted to use my alliterative (?) genius in my post title. And I'm pretty sure I achieved my goal. However, I promise you that no whack will emerge because I am deciding that before I really get into my post.

Now some of you may be thinking (if you're still reading), "So what if there's a little wacky in this post? It's hump day!" Ah, but you're missing the point. The point isn't that this is a wack-less post. The place of emphasis is that I determined that fact ahead of time.

I see some of you still haven't gotten it. It'll come around soon. Promise.

I've found that a giant part of weight loss is having a plan. It's about anticipating a curve in the road, and effectively preparing your vehicle for what may lie ahead. It's about deciding things ahead of time. (Ding! Light bulb!)

Staying with the analogy, sometimes despite all planning you get a flat tire on your journey. Here's where determination and keeping your eye on the final goal is crucial. At this time you have to make a decision - fix your flat tire and keep on moving forward only slightly hindering your momentum and progress OR slash another tire...or two...or three on your own by feeling defeated, sad or angry about your one flat tire. I am very much guilty of doing the latter...it's part of my cycle actually.

So I suppose it all comes down to mindset. When that first tire gives way - be it in the form of sleeping in vs. a morning run, a burger vs a turkey sandwich, or a donut for breakfast vs a granola bar - it's very important not to give in to the setback and create further setbacks (as I've been doing this week). The key is taking a step back and reminding yourself why you're on this road in the first place and remind you of how gorgeous your final destination is going to look once you get there.

So why not fix that one, flat tire and get back up to speed? Maybe I should take some of my own advice sometimes...

Battling Myself

I'm my own, worst enemy when it comes to losing weight and getting into good decent shape.

I'm really starting to think that I have two brains battling it out inside my skull for complete domination of the rest of the body. And these brains have two, VERY different goals in mind. For the sake of becoming familiar with the two of them, let's call them Ivan and Deion - trust me, this will make sense in a moment.

Ivan has one goal in mind - Instant Gratification. He wants what he wants, when he wants it. Fast food? NOW! Sleeping in? NOW! A liter of Mountain Dew? NOW! He has no concept of future ramifications and just wants to taste that burger or sleep that extra hour. He's convinced that things can be put off until tomorrow if it means having more fun today. He often tells me, "You can lose the weight in no time! So why not have a huge place of fettucini alfredo tonight? You can just take that off in a couple of days anyway!"

Deion, on the other hand, is quite different. He's all about Delayed Gratification. He's the one that gets me to choose water over soda, chicken over beef and treadmill over my soft, soft pillow. He knows the work that needs to go into losing weight and is willing to take the necessary steps - and use the correct amount of self-control - to get to the end goal of losing 80 pounds. He's the one who helps me lose 5-8 pounds in a week when all is done to perfection. Thankfully it seems he's here today at least!

My problem is that I give them equal attention. And equal attention = treading water.

Maybe it's more of a Jeckyll and Hyde situation where I don't necessarily have two brains, but just two different sides to my weight loss efforts. At night I'll go to sleep planning out my tomorrow with fantastic intentions in mind, only to wake up and not want to do any of what I'd plan a mere 7 hours ago. It's a cruel, cruel cycle I find myself in sometimes.

In your weight loss efforts, how have you put the pedal to the metal and knocked off the pounds? How did you react to minor setbacks and mindset issues?

Believing In Myself

For the first time this season, I felt that the "theme" of this week's Biggest Loser was actually legit and helpful. To be honest, this has probably been one of my least favorite seasons of BL. Not only did the contestants start out a bit smaller than in seasons past, they're also losing less weight as a result. Now I'm not saying that I only enjoy 400+ pound people getting wasted by Bob Harper, it just seems like the producers are trying a little too hard to have a "theme" to the entire season - "No Excuses."Although it was humorous to see someone voluntarily go home after Week 1 (because he'd 'learned all he needed to know'), and to see the first contestant EVER simply walk off the show (in a season toting 'no excuses'). Ha!

Past episodes this season seem to have stretched themselves a little thin just to try to prove common excuses wrong such as "I can't afford organic food," "I can't lose weight at home" or "I can only work out at a gym." Some of the in-house dynamics and actual workouts (complete with Bob & Dolvette words of wisdom) are the best parts of the show! I don't know...maybe I'm just overreacting.

Either way, I finally appreciated this week's theme - "I don't believe in myself." Maybe because it struck a chord deep within me and actually gave me something I felt I could relate to. Because to be honest, I think my self-confidence and doubt are my biggest hurdles in my weight loss journey.

I think problem #1 is that I look at my past performance - and there's nothing to brag about there. So after tallying up the number of times I've gained back all the weight I've lost, or thinking about how many times I've epic failed all over some fast food, I've wasted 45 minutes and missed my gym window. D'oh! And then repeat that patter at least a few times per week. Then it snowballs into resenting my laziness from the morning and eating junk for lunch, and yadda yadda yadda...I gain more weight.

But how about this - I start a brand new, higher-paying job in downtown Chicago on Monday (ballin, right?), and therefore feel more like an adult. Feeling more like an adult causes me to think that I need to ACT like a responsible grown-up. Thinking that I need to ACT like a grown-up puts pressure on me to actually give off the vibe that I have my shtuff together. And in order to show people that I can, in fact, BE RESPONSIBLE...I really need to stop being lazy!

Therefore, along with a whole, new work schedule will come a new gym schedule, a new focus on healthy (and controlled) eating and hopefully new results. Ready for the ride? I am!

Just an update - weekly weigh ins and measurements will begin NEXT Saturday - March 24th.

Business vs Pleasure

STOP! If you'd rather WATCH my video instead of READ my post, click here!

Mindset is KEY to forming new habits and lifestyle changes. Bottom line.

Fellow weight loss vlogger Greg talks often on his YouTube channel about 'minding the big picture' and making sure that your mind is on board with your efforts when trying to lose weight. By keeping the overall goal in mind, your actions should then follow suit and guide your decisions day-to-day, meal-by meal. And (theoretically) each decision should get easier and more engrained in your daily efforts as you continue to make good choices. (It's no wonder he destroyed 80+ pounds in under a year with insight like that!)


And eventually, when you see progress from all your efforts, everything starts to seem more like fun and less like hard work!


That's what I'm looking forward to - seeing the gym as a place I look forward to going to rather than loathing since it seems like endless work. Each early morning wake-up is still a task, and some days I get side-tracked and distracted by Facebook and YouTube enough to where I don't even MAKE it to the gym! For some reason I allow myself to use pathetic and petty excuses to keep myself from doing the appropriate amount of sweating in the morning to get closer to my weight loss goals. 

All in all, my mind is on board with the IDEA of losing weight, sweating and having to buy smaller clothes, but for some reason my mind and actions aren't rallying together and saying, 'Hey, why don't we do all the stuff we know we need to do to not feel like a bag of s#!*?"

Waking up at 5:30am is no fun...

In reality, the only way I'm going to get in the habit of going to the gym and eventually have FUN getting up to go to the gym, is to (say it with me) - JUST DO IT! 99.9% of the time I have no real, legit excuse as to why I can't make it to the gym at 6:00 in the morning. It's not like I have a lot of things vying for that time of the day!

So for now, sure! If I have to view gym visits as business and hard work, so be it! It's something that NEEDS to get done day in and day out - just like a job. But once the clothes get looser and I can run more miles, I'll WANT to get to the gym to see how much more I can do!

It's all about your mindset. So as Matt Damon said in the movie Green Zone, (language warning -->) "Get your f'ing game face on!" 

*REBOOT*

After a weekend filled with pizza and soda, I think it's time to take a step back and gather myself (since I put on a few pounds, especially) and just write a little post about where I am and where I am aiming to be by next summer. Now I know some of you are probably thinking "okay, here goes Jordan once again 'recommitting' to this - I bet he'll forget all about this in a couple of weeks."

Not my feet, I promise

Now I don't blame the nay-sayers since I've really never given anyone any reason to believe that I'm actually going to go through with this at any point, but I do thank those of you who still believe that I'm capable of finishing what I keep starting! But anywhere, where do I begin?

Monday morning I weighed in back up at 272 pounds again - right up there with my heaviest I've ever been. I wasn't happy to see that number creep back onto my scale, but I wasn't completely surprised since I've been around there for the last couple of months, unfortunately. But I also made a decision that I can't let that number get any higher. So here's my tentative schedule/game plan.

Over the years I've tried too hard to lose the weight. I'd try to work out everyday and eat perfectly only to burn out after a couple weeks. So I'm trying to take it a little slower this time. I'm aiming to lose an average of 10 pounds a month. Doing so would put me at goal in June or July (goal being 190 lbs). But I don't want to get too ahead of myself. Gotta take things one day at a time!

On a daily basis, I'm aiming to get to the gym nice and early in the morning (6am), eat less than 2,000 calories a day and drink TONS of water. I'll have to say 'no' to soda for a while too...bummer. Along with these things, I hope that healthy choices make all the difference as I attempt to do this. It's usually the saying-no-to-food part that trips me up every time!

So here goes! Feel free to stay up-to-date with my progress on the Weight Loss page where I update my weight and graph a few times a week. Also feel free to visit my YouTube channel where I'll be making weigh in videos every Monday.

Onwards and Upwards!

So over the last month or so I've been doing some introspective questioning and probing. Trying to figure out what makes me tick - or what makes me WANT to tick, for that matter. A few posts ago I mentioned that I enjoy seeing visual results as fruits of my labor and how that makes it difficult to stick with a weight loss plan for longer than a couple weeks. I may have found a solution...

This week I've stumbled upon the NBC Universal Sports channel on Comcast. This channel is amazing! I originally tuned in yesterday to watch coverage of the Boston Marathon, and I haven't touched the dial since. Watching the marathon yesterday really got me motivated and inspired to go out and punish a 9.4 mile trail in the local forest preserve - and I don't think I've run more than 5 miles at once since my last half marathon...in August! It's just something about seeing others accomplish a race like the Boston Marathon that really makes you want to get up off your butt and do something active.

Since watching the marathon, I've also watched a triathlon in New Zealand, a show called "Human Express" where this guy RUNS the cross-country Pony Express route, and I think an Ironman is coming up in the next hour. Not only does each program make me feel very unaccomplished and lazy, but they all also make me wonder what kind of things I'M capable of doing.

Step one is completing my fourth half marathon coming up on Sunday, May 1st. We'll see where I go from there!

Seeing Results

Yet another personal epiphany struck me this past weekend - one that helped me wrap my mind around why I succeed at some things in life, but then fail to get off the ground in another area. Turns out that it all boils down to me being a visual person. 

Just about anyone who really knows me knows that I am a pretty organized person. I make my bed in the mornings, I keep a neat desk and I love checking things off of lists. These things are rewarding to me because I can actually SEE the progress I'm making - a made bed, an organized workspace and a paper full of crossed-off items. It's actually why I enjoy vacuuming too - I can see the instant results!

However, this is also unfortunately the reason that my weight loss journey seems to get derailed after a week or two of hard work. Sure, I can see the number on the scale creep downwards, but not seeing a physical change gets discouraging and eventually knocks me off the exercise and healthy eating horse.

After being hit in the skull with this realization, I've since taken some action to try to combat this urge to quit when I don't see visible results in my own, short timeframe. Let's see how it works! I'll keep you posted.