Operation hydration station

Last week my hydration strategy (pictured above) reached it's breaking point in the Summer heat. By the time I was 1/2 way into my route I realized I was going to have to conserve the approx 50 or so oz's that the two bottles hold. By the time I was done I was sucking the residual foam left behind by the electrolyte mix out of the bottles like I was stranded in the Sahara. :(


Enter my new system....ta da!



Not only do I more than double my available oz's I can stash one of the bottles in the pocket of the hyro-pack so I only have to hold one bottle at a time. This is great because on my 9 mile loop my thumbs get tired after a while from holding the bottles around the grips. Being able to switch hands and just hold one bottle should be a welcome relief. But in this heat I would not have been able to do the 9 because the 2 bottles simply isn't enough fluid to make it....no longer a problem.

I'm doing the dry run testing now and this thing is threatening to be super cool. I can load 2 liters in the bladder and stick that in the freezer for an hour or so before heading out. I drop 6-7 ice cubes in the bottles but the liquid is always lukewarm within 20 min. :(

So tomorrow when I get up I'm going to take my new hydration system out for a spin. It's kind of crazy what makes me jazzed these days because carrying water on my back is not something I would have imagined a few years ago would be exciting to me.

Flippin sweet!!

Hitting Alice Cooper in the nuts.

A total ramble fest.

Two things have been on my mind lately.

Hitting Alice Cooper in the nuts and randomly looking at gold medal winner Tera Lipinski's panties in a Target paring lot.

In other words strange things I have done....

The fact that I have done these things (or the doing of them) isn't what's on my mind...what is on my mind is that some stories can never properly be told. First off the more interesting a story is the more unusual it is and the less likely people are to believe it. It's the plague of not being a bullshiter in a world that loves to bullshit. When I tell you I hit Alice Cooper in the nuts it's very literally because I was the cause of him doing that specific flinch that only happens when someone is hit in the package. And by the same line...when I say literally it's because I know the definition of the word and use it the way it was intended....because I am straightforward like that. ;)

Anyhow, I would have figured my eyes were playing tricks on me when we rounded the corner and I saw Tera Lipinski bending over and her skirt hiking ALL the way up AND over her hips to have her pretty much moon the paring lot her full back panties. I could easily have figured it was just somebody that looked like her but not actually her if she had not been standing next to a black corvette with personalized plates Nagano 98. Whatayagonnado?

So it's not my fault that it was Halloween (making the story even less believable) when I threw something "TO" and I'll stress again "TO" Alice, he didn't see it and that is why it accidentally hit him in the nuts. He was not hurt for what it's worth and he was also wearing a cup that provided him the extra protection he didn't even know he would need that evening. I know he was wearing a cup because it was on the outside of his pants...and it was bright orange/red.

No matter...he was pissed! He tried to brain me with the 3/4 length cane he was holding but I was just out of reach. Haha Mr. Cooper. :)

My reason for mentioning these things is that I think I'm going to retire these two stories. Even as I've probably only told the Alice story 6 times and the Tara story twice They really fall under the category of you had to be there plus I don't think anybody believes they happened so why waste the breath? So I think this blog is going to be the retirement home for stories I don't want to tell anymore. A story is like a secret...the mischief is in the telling so this way I can get the story out of my head and into the great information stream. If I ever need it I suppose it should be here but I've go to do some spring cleaning of my noggin. I had a trippy experience last week when I was working out and a flood of convoluted memory information tried to present itself from the old storage file cabinets to the inbox and there was a transfer glitch. :(

I've got an uneasy feeling about what's whirling around in my head trying to get out but I'm sure that Alice Coopers package and Tara Lipinski's panties have nothing whatsoever to do with it...... My brain is probably stalling. In fact I know it's stalling. Makes me nervous that something wicked this way comes.

With any luck it will just pass, fingers crossed.

The netti pot

Damn you somewhat effective piece of addictive witchcraft!!

The back story is that I got a very good yoga DVD and the instructor is very insistent that for his class you only breath through your nose. I didn't realize how bothersome my allergy/sinus problems were until I got upside down and tried to breath exclusively through my nose....I lasted about 5 seconds just like Christoper Hitchens when he had himself water boarded. :o

Because I hate to take medicine and I've known about the netti pot I did a little searching and found that people tout it as a fantastic miracle cure. Tons of stories about people coming off of medications they were taking for years and years...really impressive results. So I picked one up and started testing...

Initially it was frustrating and uncomfortable. Nothing like watching youtube vids of people from 7-70 making something that looks easy - look easy and then almost gagging yourself silly with eyes watering and salty mucus water going down your throat. It was pitiful. Eventually I figured it out but there are still some issues for me.

When I pour into my left nostril the first 3 seconds trigger a distinct sensory memory of drowning. I went under water twice as a kid and would not be typing today had somebody pulled me out both times. I think in that moment when your lungs finally have to breath and you take in water that is a very specific felling and it gets cataloged in your brain. The first 3 seconds of the netti and I tell you...my brain says "you are about to die". Luckily I can reason that out but it happens none the less. And it's embarrassing, cuz again kids form 7-70 are laughing it up.

Anyway the good news is that the netti does clear out the nasal passages and it is having a clearing effect of higher portions of the sinuses and there is all manner of popping in my ears caused by what I think is a venturi effect. So breathing by nose is notably improved.

Bad news: breathing is like drugs that make you feel good. If a little is good more is great! So here I am hitting the netti sometimes a couple few times a day trying to get maximum breathing so I can be superhuman... but no. It clears the lower portion of the sinuses but it's not exactly a miraculous amount and the section under my eyes over to my temples is laughing it's ass off..it is humored that I'd attempt to slay it with mildly salty water.

So it's mixed results. Mixed but I am addicted to this stupid process now even if it is less effective than I wanted, only a partial cure, and every day I have to poke a mental wound and feel a second or two of terror over it. It does help me breath better and it is clearing out portions of my sinus cavity so that it better than nothing.

I'm glad for what it does but I hate this thing. :-

Edit - 2 year olds laugh it's so easy.

1,003 shots of espresso

1,003 shots or espresso or life imitating art….latte art.

A long post….. and possibly a coffee/life connection that non coffee geeks might find wacky but here it is anyway.

As we enjoyed the last 3 shots of espresso at my buddy Shaun's house in Sugar Land, TX last week there was a team of movers packing up his life in the background for his move back to Canada. The snowy, snowy tundra impacted cold...COLD, bitterly cold (landscape dotted with igloos cold) Canada. ;)

As they movers packed we did the math and over the last 2 years we had enjoyed over 1,000 shots in that kitchen (each) and then it was the final 3 before they packed up the espresso machine and taped the lid on the box closing the book on the team Sugar Land espresso experience.

As we talked and the reality came to light that we were drinking our last coffee together the coffee didn’t really matter anymore for 2 reasons:

1) Neither one of us considers coffee something that can be locked down or captured in any one spot. Coffee is always changing from the second you roast it until the second it’s gone minor and major things are happening that are taking it along it’s evolution and the ebb/flow is the journey…taking what it gives and continuing down the path is the only way to truly accept coffee and increase your chances of enjoying it on on higher levels.

2) Over 1,000 cups of coffee you sort of get to know somebody. There are more than a few words spoken and conversations had along that time. I think we spent time talking on average 5 days per week in person and sent harassing texts/emails to each other just about every day. We shared family b-days together, a few BBQ’s, one crazy whirlwind blitzkrieging trip to the windy city for a live UFC event Shaun dragged/forced me to go on. ;)
Some random times at a noodle house or pizza and beers at the brew pub..those types of things. My family watched his family grow as the boys got older, bigger, and more entertaining each day. We became really good friends.

So as the coffee left the room #1 above left me in a fine place even knowing that some days we had truly WORLD class espresso in that kitchen. We had so many outstanding shots that outstanding was just normal. We had some shots that were above outstanding and a few that were what I think of now as shots of a lifetime. They were that good and you would think a coffee fanatic would be upset about that going away but because I am in for the ride and journey of coffee it didn’t bother me much that a new chapter was ahead. What bothered me was that #2 above was undergoing some significant changes…bringing me to my point.

I think now that life might be interesting to look at as coffee… if anybody reads this that is not a coffee person try to hold your eye rolling for 2 seconds and see if it makes sense anyway.

We knew from the day that the Taylor’s got here they would only be in town for a couple years. Why then was it such a bummer to see them go? Immediately the thing that came to mind is how we should have dome more BBQ’s, more get togethers, and made better use of the “friend time” available. Next thoughts were about future events that would not be possible and that part really blows. In life it’s like we want to keep trying to capture things and lock them down but in reality it is like the coffee. Life is consistently changing from the moment we are born. If we could somehow embrace (more fully) the times we have in the moment and as things change we understood (more fully) that change is just change. Something different is next and something different after that and the next really interesting “cup” is around the corner form that. In many ways you can’t get to the next great points if you don’t take the winding path. All you can do if you resist is:

Stay home
Fight change and remain stagnant
Drink Folgers forever
Live life in a fishbowl
Convince yourself that xyz is “the best blend” of coffee
Convince yourself there is a “the best” of anything actually.

If change in coffee is the path to new experiences in the cup life looks a lot like that to me right now…

2 years ago Angie and I were not considering a vacation to Canada and we were unaware of the natural wonders that igloo dotted ice ball held. ;) Now we will plan that trip as our next vacation.

In order to travel to Canada we will need passports….getting passports will make us consider other places we can suddenly travel that we had never considered. There are 10 trips inside the US I wanted to do and if things had not worked out the way they did we would probably have done those trips and not ever considered Canada.

Am I saying Canada “better” than the other trips we might have done? Pay attention to the above… :- Who knows and it isn’t the point.


Good luck the Shaun, Doreen, Evan, and Keegan as you roadtrip across the US back up into the great white north….we need your address when you settle in and we will be up to visit (at a time when the snowdrifts have melted).

The push to Bierstadt

This is the final 3 months (approx) to the lead up training for this years 14er attempt. I considered a lot of things in selecting Bierstadt this time and the most important are:

I am only considering class I or II climbs before I get more experience/training.
I don't want to put myself in a position to make safety decisions at altitude where pride and ego are involved. I'll decide before hitting the trail that a class III route is beyond my capability right now rather than think at 13,700 "If I can just pass this one tough section I might be able to make it". I'm not ready for technical passes yet.

After the shelf road last year :O I wanted a trailhead with 2WD access. Our next vehicle will be a 4WD jeep or Land Cruiser...something like that and tougher access trailheads will be easier to access. I didn't love having to go back on the shelf road after Handies when we could have taken a serious short cut if we only had a proper of road mountain vehicle. 2WD access this time. :(

Angie is going to take a crack at bagging her first 14er peak and Bierstadt offers something that others might not. Not far from the trail head most of the route is visible to you straight to the summit. I think that will be a big psychological advantage to see everything ahead of you have the ability to make constant evaluations/calculations.

Bierstadt is a 7 mile round trip hike (plus some extra if you hike down and back up to gain an additional 200' elevation) and I will be doing that...not sure if Angie will bother or not but I'm doing it to make sure I have the official 3,000 elevation gain. It's probably a minor detail really....but I'm doing it. ;)

Training shifted into (OMG, THERE IS ONLY 12 WEEKS LEFT TO GET READY) mode yesterday and I the focus from here until the trailhead is going to be walking, stair climbing, walking with a pack, stair climbing more, walking some 9mile and 14 mile hikes, more stairs, and more walking with a double weight (50#) pack. I will try to mix in some core and upper body when I can but time is short now and I will be more prepared this time because I know all too well how hard it is to show up under trained.

Bierstadt by all accounts is a little "easier" than Handies and I will be better trained, more prepared, and will execute my climb 10X's smarter than I did to bag Handies so I think it's going to be a fun day on the mountain when we hit it barring the one thing we never get to control the weather. I want to allow a back up day in the itinerary in case the weather is bad so that we have a second shot if needed.

Bierstdat will be my 2nd 14er and turning the corner to the heavy training is bringing the excitement now. In addition to training I've started planning the nutrition, water options, I will be getting a new pair of shoes soon, we will start going over gear and making lists now... It shifts from the future to the now. Big fun!

Big fun!

Drinking Kopi Luwak

Yep....

I'm sitting here drinking the legendary Kopi Luwak as I type.

Most people are probably aware of this bean and think of it in the terms Angie described it... "that poop coffee".

The Civet Cat (a distant relative of the Mongoose) eats ripe coffee cherries and passes the coffee beans undigested. They say undigested anyway but this coffee has a slightly unusual look when green so the process has done something to the beans for sure and I suppose the stomach acids have etched the beans or something but anyway...

The bean roasted up great and there were no bad odors wafting around and if anything the roast was uneventful. Completed roast was slightly mottled but no biggie.

After 50 hours rest my first taste....

Dry aroma: different! Mostly cherry is what I get but it's like cherry pit more than fruit. My descriptors are what they are and often they don't even make sense to me why they come out like they do, I just don't argue as I have learned to trust them so... dry aroma cherry pit.

Wet aroma: interesting....leather rope. Really tasty smelling leather rope for sure and if you are not a coffee person just ignore that and pretend I said very dark chocolate. :)

First bit into cupping spoon: wild!! it has an almost golden look to it. A golden tea sheen of sorts in the spoon...trippy. Slurp.... it's good! Man am I happy that it's good.

First few moments with the cup: A well bodied cup doing everything I would figure from a Sumatra/Indo cup but with an unusual acidity. It's making the roof of my mouth a little tingly. This is a pleasant cup.

Mid cup: Great body, earthy, and that acidity thing is really wild...still tingling. I am trying to give attention to the journey this bean took to get to me. Not just the digestive part but it's just been a really long journey for such a limited supply to get from a coffee cherry that caught the Civet's eye a zillion miles away to my cup in Sugar Land, Texas. Amazing really.

As the cup cools I am coming back to that leather rope vibe and it is starting to dominate along with some decent chocolaty notes and the acidity is either facing or I just can't pick it out anymore from the deep body of this cup.

Final thoughts: I feel lucky to have the opportunity to sample this legendary coffee. It is rare, expensive, often counterfeit, and probably just as often poorly prepared. Watching this bean go from green to my cup I know it was as close to perfect as an be expected. I look forward to trying this bean as espresso, single origin and blended, French Press, AeroPress, Iced, and vac pot to experience it as fully as possible while it is here. I just tasted the last sip of this rare bean and I did note that acidity again but either muted now or I can't grasp it anymore I just can't tell.

And that is all for now.....Kopi Luwak...wow, that was epic man....simply epic!

Ankle crank

I was messing around with some Parkour yesterday and now my ankle hurts. ;(

To be fair to Parkour I was doing some ultra low speed pre-beginner Parkour.

As an aside, I thought people freak out when I do the unthinkable (put my kayak in the water at the parks) but they go into melt down mode when you start jumping up on rocks and maneuvering about park benches, trash bins, and brick decorative steps....they look nervous about it. Hahaha.

Anyway, I did not twist m ankle or have any awareness that there was a problem until 90 min after I was done frightening the neighborhood. I was making a cup of Chai tea and got hit with a pain out of nowhere....an injury pain not a sore pain. DAMN IT!!!

I can't dig on any leg injuries right now and my last shoulder injury lasted about 6 months and my last knee injury keeps me concerned still. I'm not sure it's 100%

I'm still walking on it just fine and only had 10min of limping so I might manage it ok. Guess I'll stick with core/kettle bell today, try to get the kayak on the water tomorrow, and save the stairs and 50# pack for later on in the week if my ankle repairs itself. Parkour, maybe in 4-6 weeks. :) Advil in the am, Fish oil in the afternoon, ZMA at night...see if I can turn it right around.

Injuries Suck

50#'s of love

I've been taking a 30#'ish pack with me on some of my short walks (approx 2 miles).

Today I decided to up the game a little bit and tossed my 50# sand bag into my big trail pack and hit it. It's a big honkin' multi-day pack so I'm sure it looked crazy (as usual for me) in my normal "suburban assault" mode. The uniform around here involves designer work out gear, blackberry, Ipod, and perhaps a little frufi dog or an off road baby stroller to push. Not me....I've got other plans. :)

Anyway, it was hard....hurt my neck holding up the weight after my legs and back just gave up an realized they were going to have to drag me around the lake. My neck was informed it was going to have to do more work than it is used to....neck objected strenuously. laying down on the ground 1 mile away form home didn't feel like an option I was going t take so neck had to get over it.

1/2 way around the lake I realized it was ON....I'm heading off for some unusual territory in the weeks ahead.

I'm trying to remember what weight pack I carried up Handies but it never felt heavy to me. It must have been around 20#'s or so. 20 is easy to carry man, you can't really feel it....I think I'm rambling.

It sure feels good tossing a 50# pack off your back.

On racing a Porsche

The set up

Era: sometime in the 80's.
Time: approx 3am.
Location: Detroit, MI 8 mile and Gratiot heading North.

A Porsche 911 Carrera pulls up beside me an invites a race. I am in a 71 Cutlass, Van Halen blasting from my ridiculously awesome speaker system....mullet just sitting there being a cool 80's mullet destined to be one silly hairstyle any second but in the moment it was cool....uhm, maybe you had to be there. :)

Anyway, the way it works is a car pulls up beside you, guns it a little and inches about 3" ahead of you and waits for your response. If you don't do anything when the light turns green he will peel out. You get to go back to doing nothing after calling him a jackass.

But if you pull up even 0.5" it's on.

I'm making the decision on what to do at the same time I am pulling up 1" ahead of him. I already know I'm beat by the way but it's not that easy. For one thing was that I was sitting in Detroit muscle....in Detroit and as such was obligated to to my best into a loosing proposition, it just had to be done. That and some other things...

Light turns green off we go. Long about 90 MPH I was pretty excited that I was able to hold his rear wheel At about 95 or so I started to catch him and when we got window to window he smiled a BIG smile at me, tipped his head a little and just like that POOF...he hit it and left me standing still like I was in a VW bug the whole time. He was just letting me buy into it a little is all.


Era: the present
Time 11:30 AM
Location in the kitchen of an endurance athlete athlete trainer/coach Shaun Taylor.

We are getting ready to get into the coffee of the day when he slides me a scrambled egg wrapped in a multi-grain tortilla. A few sprinkles of hot sauce and I am digging it because all I've eaten so far was a scoop of Whey protein and 4oz of milk. I have no idea where this is heading....

After 2 nice small milk espressi (is that right)? He goes for Vietnamese iced over some experimental double cream milk and as he slides one across the table to me he guns the engine and pulls the 911 Carrera a few inches ahead of me. "I'm going to work out in a little while you are welcome to come if you want". I have instant recognition but start trying to stall..when are you thinking about going I say and immediately it was pretty sad...I don't have a 71 Cutlass even right now, I am rocking a station wagon of some sort at best in this race....but high end supplements are coming off the shelf and when a dose of JP8 goes down the hatch my fate is sealed... help.

I could tell you the play by play but I won't. I developed a philosophy a while back when I was doing some seriously hard shit that if anybody wanted to see what it was about they would have to pay the price to see it first hand (just like I was doing) and so now this is my deal. Some things you have to do in order to know and everything else is a disservice to the doers of the stuff. The gist of it is we were doing things that required you to balance, stabilize, lift, move, twist, concentrate, and re-balance and stabilize the entire time or else you would fall down and bust your ass in a spectacular fashion.

So I tried to hold his back wheel as best I could but I know it was the Carrera all over again....damn fast cars. ;)

I'm not sure what the point of all this is other than to say that sometimes you have to get in a race even if you know you are outgunned. You have to get up to 95 MPH in Detroit blowing lights like you can't possibly get hit or pulled over in order to see that you won't. Sometimes you have to see the Porsche pull away with ease...you have to see it in real time because just knowing the Carerra is fast is too generic. You have to get in that race and get a taste of how fast it really is so that you can make informed decisions about future races. Maybe you work on your car a little and go driving a few weeks later at 3 AM to see if you can find him, or maybe you don't move next time...what do you do? You just can't know if you never take a race you knew you couldn't win before you ever took it.

20 something years ago I raced a guy in a Carrera that slowed down to let me keep up a little and show me what Detroit looks like at 95 MPH. Last weekend an athlete slowed down to let me play along a little (I like to pretend it was just a smidge) to see what that type of race looks like.

Thanks dudes!

Green

To my surprise my favorite smoothie so far is green.

I never expected this from a kid that only at corn growing up. Not exactly true because we ate plenty of things we had to "clean your plate before you can leave the table" but given my choices corn as about the only vegetable other than fried/mashed/salad-ed potatoes I would eat....oh and cole slaw..I did like that. Also my Austrian Grandmother made something with cucumbers sliced razor thin and soaked in a milky dressing for a long time that I absolutely loved (like all of her food) but nobody saved those recipes. :(

Anyway, green smoothie with a giant ball of raw spinach the size of a volleyball stuffed into the blender, water, blend, add an apple, banana, whey protein, ice, drizzle of agave nectar....it's a million times better than I thought it would/could be.

I realize not that going over different recipe ideas for blender smoothies is a waste of time because the long and short of it is that you can put anything in there. Anything at all you want of fruits, vegetables, additions like protein powder or almond butter..I'm going to try some 100% organic cacao with coconut later on....pumpkin is going into something... The idea is to take healthful foods and cram as many of them in as you can dream up and get a ridiculously nutrient dense meal or two out of it. I've got to do maybe 2 weeks or so of testing but it's downright freakish how much nutrition you can "power load" into your system like this. Peter at GCBC mentioned just using your God given teeth to chew with but I'm sure it would take some serious will power and grit to eat (by chewing) in a day what you can blend.

It's looking like a VERY useful tool to me right now and the spinach alone is unreal. You can consume a huge pile of spinach like this without having to use any salad dressing. You are adding fruits/vegetables and eliminating the less than great condiments that normally go on them at the same time.

It remains to be seen how long my interest in smoothies lasts but I think even if it tapers down to 1-2 per week it's still an awesome tool to have in my kit and I wish I would have done this sooner.

Cool stuff.

Blender Breakfast

I'm not sure why it took me so long to befriend the blender but after a few days of using it I think this thing ROCKS!!

This was my breakfast of 1 banana, handful of mixed berries like straw, blue, and rasp. :) some yogurt, whey protein powder,handful of oats, and about 2oz of milk.

It fits nicely in this glass and makes it very easy to eat this assortment of items.

While the new is on my blender I think I will make a few posts about blender foods as I explore beyond the breakfast smoothie category. I'm wondering about eating an entire day of things from the blender... What makes it interesting is how easy it is to literally "blend in" healthy foods that you otherwise have to find ways to incorporate. Like yellow squash. Last week we steamed up some yellow squash, zucchini and broccoli as a side dish. I like that but other than putting it in Soba noodles we normally don't eat it for finding places to put it. The blender takes care of that issue..Bzzzzzzzzt. :)

I'm going to explore some ideas and hopefully post up some breakfast, lunch , and dinners that I'll make and test out.

As for the above breakfast it was good. The strawberry seeds and oats give it a consistency/body that is pretty thick and fluffy.

I should have been doing this a long time ago!

The life long journey

It's coming to me slowly now exactly what's going on.

In order to gain an extra 100, 200, or however may pounds represents "seriously" overweight a lot of things have to happen. In order to loose all of that excess weight a lot of things have to happen as well and no matter how well prepared I think I am for the next stage(s)of this journey I keep finding out that I'm not ready to simply step up to the next challenge, kick it's ass, and move on to the next thing, simple as that.

It's effing hard! There have been some tough lessons to learn and all I can say right now is that I'm learning them in "real time" and I find that the one thing becoming more clear with everything I'm learning is that this is a life long process. It's going to be a life long process. It's long.....it's going to take a long time as in a really really long time that will encompass the rest of your life....like forever and ever amen type of long.

You can loose 100 pounds in 1-2 years and it counts for shit the next day if you go back to your old habits.

I've made permanent changes in my eating habits to the degree that I do not think it will be possible for me to gain back all the weight I have lost so far but even with that it all depends on me maintaining those changes....those things have to be permanent life long changes or else my old habits will return and in 1-2 years I'll be another 100#'s overweight again like none of this ever happened.

With that being said I'm feeling very aggravated with myself right now that I've allowed a general blase attitude to creep over me the last few months and the result has been a lack of progress towards my total goal of 185#'s. I have not forgotten my goal, I have not gone back to Burger King lunches and Ben &" Jerry's late night snacks but I have not been "ON IT" either. Result ---- Nothing much to be happy about right now other than I can report lifestyle changes are the saving grace of long term weight loss. I can't stress this enough that if I had fallen back to old eating habits over the last few months I would probably be crying right now and in really bad shape instead of just aggravated. In fact I'm super motivated right now just thinking about how unmotivated I've allowed myself to get. If I had fallen back to eating the way I did 2 years ago I'd have been able to pack on an astonishing amount of weight I'm sure and that would have had a MUCH worse mental affect that might have even derailed me altogether.

I'll say it again lifestyle changes are the saving grace of long term weight loss.

This is going to take the rest of your life.

Loosing 2 months to lazy stupidity is disappointing and humiliating but it isn't life threatening. Loosing your resolve because you were surviving on willpower and resorting back to destructive patterns (because you have not eliminated then from your life and replaced them with other options)IS life threatening.

Today I'm simply going to shake myself, make sure I'm awake, refocus on the task at hand, be VERY thankful I started this journey with a solid foundation of permanent changes and not a temporary "diet", and set in intermediary goal of making 205 by 4th of July and making my end goal weight of 185 by Dec 31st of this year.

It will mean that from start to finish it will take me just under 2 years to make my goal.

I'm blowing out any/every other goal on my list and re-focusing completely on the next phase.

205# by 7/4/09
185# by 12/31/09 Final goal weight reached.

Weigh ins will be starting back up soon once I get organized and more updates now that I will have lots of info to update.....


Now I'm off to start figuring out the most bad ass drink I can toast with on New Years when I'm weighing in at 185<. :)