Health, Work and Weight Loss

Health

Well… it’s been an interesting week. I think everyone in the house was sick at one point or another, even the dog! Nothing like taking a doberman outside at night every half hour when it’s 8°F . But it looks like we’re all doing better and should be back to normal today and for the weekend.

Haven’t decided which WOD to do tonight, but looking things over, probably either “Annie” or “Nasty Girls”. Call it visions of grandeur but I hope to make this a “CrossFit” weekend. Lots of practice on things, such as Oly lifts and just general fitness. So fire up the heaters, turn up the boom box and be ready to sweat! Open invite to anyone who wants to come work out with us… MIKE… unless you’re scared…

Work

Ok, this is a very bitter sweet time for me. After working at the same place for the most part of 9 years, I’ll be leaving my post next week to begin working for another local company. It’s not necessarily something I want to do, but due to the announcement a few months ago that they may be closing this plant down, I had to hedge my bets. On the one hand, I would rather stay here until I retire, but since that probably isn’t possible, I have taken what I hope to be a good opportunity. I’m staying in IT and will pretty much be doing the same thing, but with more challenges as I will be going in on the ground floor of an IT department that is basically starting over from ground zero. I like that, and hope it goes well. Now if we can just get this economy rolling again.

I will miss my friends and co-workers, many of whom have already left for greener and safer pastures. Good Luck to all of you!

Weight Loss

Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m pretty tall (6’3″) and not a “big” guy. But after my yearly VA check up, and looking at my wedding pictures from this summer, I realized I was not in healthy shape. I was “a” shape, just not “in shape”. I weighed 217lbs and about 30lbs of it was belly fat. Even though I was working out, I never lost more than a pound or two and more importantly, never lost any “fat”. So around August, I started seriously doing CF and then in October got serious about diet. Now I didn’t get measure-and-weigh-the-4oz-of-meat serious, but I really got strict with what my intake was, quality and to a large degree, quantity. Meat’s, veggies, nuts, seeds, some fruits, little starch and NO SUGAR has become my mantra. I’m learning that 90% of being healthy is diet related, that supplements and vitamins are for the most part a farce and that exercise is to shape and tone a healthy body to make it stronger, faster and more powerful. After 3 months of this, I am approaching my best physical well being of my life. I eat healthy, I feel healthy and am really digging this lifestyle. And I still have a long ways to go… I am realizing that I have a much greater potential than I ever thought possible.

Back to my weight. As I said, I was 217lbs this past summer and as of this past Monday (before I got sick), I had been consistently holding at 202lbs. A 15lbs loss that is nearly 100% fat. My goal is to be under 200, but not much more than that. Weight is just an arbitrary number, the important thing is BMI (Body Mass Index), that is… how much of your body is fat vs lean muscle. Right now I am at an approximate BMI of 25.2. I’d like to get that down to 15 or so without much more weight loss, perhaps even a slight weight gain.

It has come down to this for me… Change my lifestyle and be healthy or keep doing what I’ve been doing and get no results. There is no magic bullet, no secret diet, no get out of jail free card, no miracle vitamin pill and no exercise machine that will fix the body. It’s a very simple truth… eat the wrong things and don’t exercise properly and have the body to show for it.  Eat the right things (only) and exercise in a functional manner and get results. Sugar is crack, so, “Just say NO! to crack.”

The principle I learned in Sunday School still holds true, you reap what you sow.