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!

Improving My Blogging - and Yours!

Since I've been kind of M.I.A. on the blogging front lines lately, I've decided to do some research on how to up my online game. Of course there's the obvious things like, I don't know... ACTUALLY BLOG, but I found out some other interesting things as well. Naturally, I first had to do the obligatory Google search for "How to be a good blogger."

Ah, good laugh. It's reassuring to know that if I ever want to drop my prime gig as a blogger that I could easily find out how to be a good bartender. Definitely would make more money! I also think babysitting is in my near future, but that will be a mandatory vocation - since the kid will be my own! (And no, mother, this is not me announcing that we have a baby on the way!)

Anyway, one of the things that I read was that your blog should be aesthetically pleasing. This made me wonder if I should try a different layout/design of the blog. Thoughts? I like this layout because it allows me to have all these nifty things on the right side here, but I definitely like the layout of some of the more dynamic layouts. I can't decide...

Another key to good blogging is writing about a topic that you know, and that your readers will enjoy or find useful. I think this is where I need to improve. I've been doing a lot of running over these last few years, and I can tell you how I did or how I felt, but when it comes to giving tips and recommendations, I really don't think I could confidently give you credible words.

In that same vein, I also feel that once I am more successful with my weight loss and can actually post some respectable times in my races (and my YouTube viewers start reading), that people may see me as more of a credible source as well, rather than a guy who can make you laugh here and there. The goal is both!

So while I take an introverted look at my own blogging highs and lows, feel free to do the same with yours too! But I must say, the blogs I've been reading lately seem to be doing pretty well for themselves! For now, I just hope you stick with me on this journey - things will get much better soon!

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.

June 2012 Report Card

A few weeks ago I wrote a post listing some of my goals for the month of June 2012. Now that we've found ourselves in July, I figured it'd be a good time to step back and look at how I did! I'm going to be doing something like this each month using the title of "Report Card" - I think it'll be fun! Well...unless I end up with a big, fat "F"

Below I have listed the goals that I stated back towards the beginning of June. I've graded each individual goal (kind of like as if they were their own class in school). *GULP*

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


OVERALL: C

So let's walk through these in a little more detail, shall we?

1. I gave myself a D+ for losing weight because I have lost about 5 of those 15-20 pounds. Percentage-wise that probably warrants an F, but I know the effort I've been putting in lately. Definitely room for improvement!

2. I've been doing pretty decent on the soda, but a few times in the last month I gave into the orange Crush in the fridge at work. Free stuff is so hard to pass up sometimes!

3. I'm just kicking off my half marathon training, so the endurance isn't quite there yet for five miles. I've logged a lot of treadmill time in June, but wasn't pushing myself hard enough to increase endurance. Kind of just settled for the running/walking pattern.

4. These numbers SHOULD be easy to track, but then again, I failed to take note of where all the stats stood when the month started...whoops! I have, however, upped my Facebook and Twitter 'likes'/'follows' quite a bit, because I've seen all the notification emails that have come through my inbox. Thanks to everyone for joining me!

5. I think I've stayed pretty on top of this one. I think things here at the blog are really gaining some momentum, and I'm really looking forward to seeing the opportunities that come from this here site.

6. The closest I got to reading my mags was packing them in my backpack last weekend when we went camping. I have them on my person a LOT, but have never found myself unoccupied enough to bust them out and flip some pages.

Looking back, this month hasn't been anywhere near a TOTAL loss. I've made some solid steps forward, and plan to carry the progress over into July. And don't worry, I'll have a July Goals post up REAL soon! (Probably later today)

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.

Setting Up My Summer Plan

Well now that my 'big race weekend' is behind me, it's time to focus on what REALLY needs the appropriate attention - losing the weight.

I've actually set sort of an 'unofficial goal' of September 1st as the date that I'd like to really make strides in my weight loss efforts. I don't want to assign a specific goal weight to this date, but since that is me and my wife's anniversary weekend, I'd love to be able to look back on our first year of marriage and see the healthy changes that I was able to make - for the better. And I want to be able to share a 'before and after' comparison with you using my wedding photo!
So what kind of plan am I going to put into place to make 'skinny Jordan' a possibility? That's a good question...

I think I've gotten to the point where I've almost read TOO much material on workout plans. Like dieting, it seems like everyone has their own method that's worked for them, and swears that it'll 'work for everyone!' So understandably, I'm kind of confused as to what might work best for me.

My goals are to not only lose six dozen pounds, but also to slim down my wasitline, flatten my gut, deflate my thighs and get some solid arms and shoulders. I also want to vastly improve as a runner!

But first things first. One day at a time. Sure, I have lots of goals, but they're all going to take time to accomplish. Another goal is to make weekly videos updating you on my progress. I'll videotape my weigh in, talk about my week's accomplishments and failures and give you an insight into my mind and how I'm handling the hard work that lies ahead of me. I'll also take measurements every few videos and post them here as well.

So I would love it if you checked back here on a weekly basis to see the progress that will be happening on this site. I'm excited to share my journey with you and show you what I'm capable of. And if you have any workout program tips, please let me know!

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? :)

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.