Categories
My Weight Loss

And this time, I mean it! I think… Maybe…

Katy Trail after a Snow StormLet me start by asking – did you notice the new tag line for my site? “Attempting to Live Life On Purpose…” I think that is a better fit over my old tag of “Another way for me to avoid doing any real work”. I enjoy working and I don’t consider myself lazy as a rule (I do have my moments). Just wanted to point it out… Let’s move on:

I am going to cycle commute to work… Again… No, really this time! I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it here on the blog, but I recently changed teams at work and I changed building that I report to – so now, instead of almost 19 miles to work each way, I have a mere 8.3 miles to work each way! The new building does have a shower and lockers and the bike route is mostly on-street bike lanes just as my old commute was. So, now I can get to work in about 45 mins instead of an hour and 40 mins.

I rode my bike to work yesterday, but I did not ride it home. I got caught up in the new job functions and worked until after 7:30 so I had Stephanie drive up and join me for dinner. Sunrise in Martha, MOThe bike’s night lights (required for street riding) don’t have good batteries. Anyway, I also rode my bike to work today, this time both ways, and I was still able to get home in time to get to church! Stephanie and I have felt the pressure of being a one car family and my being able to ride my bike to work again should be a big help.

Plus, I’m training for the next D-Tour which is going to be riding along the Katy Trail in Missouri. Its a short 225 mile trail and I will be joined by my brother-in-law in Sedalai. It should be a lot of fun and we plan to finish in about five days. I think we might even be able to finish three days – since there are no mountains to climb. It all depends on how in shape the two of us are. Both of the scenic pictures in this post are from the Katy trail.

Motorola Bluetooth S9 headphonesBack on point – My goal is to ride my bike several days a week. I even purchased a bluetooth headset to allow me to listen to music from my phone while riding without having to have the cable draped across the handle bars. I’m not excited about its performance so far… I’ll save that for a possible future post.

P.S. – I still owe Aaron Delong (http://tru-magic.com) a D-Tour AZ-TX, 2007 T-Shirt – which I am going to send him, as soon as I design them, have them made, and pay for them…

Categories
myThoughts

February – Where New Year’s Resolutions Go to DIE!

So? What happened to your New Year’s Resolutions? It’s February and most people have already abandoned their ‘resolve’ to lose weight, pay off debt, save more, read more, spend more time with family, give more to charity, volunteer more, watch less TV, go out to eat less, and spend less time online (don’t start that back up now – finish reading my blog first). If you haven’t already throw away your resolutions, then you may be on your way to atypical results! Want to know how I’m doing?

I’m going to tell you anyway – my goals were to lose weight, go back to school, pay down debt, get more involved in my church, eat out less, and read more – with an emphasis on my Bible reading. Lets start with the bad news:

  • Bible Reading – I haven’t begun a Bible reading plan despite the best efforts from a good friend of mine, Jason. I have a bunch of excuses but no good reasons.
  • Weight Loss – aarrrgghhh!!! I started out well with my diet, but haven’t lost any weight. I also planed to read some health and diet reviews from Ben at DadQuarters website. Stephanie and I rearranged our living room to put in my bowflex and we bought her an elliptical, but so far we have only used the new room a handful of times.
  • Dinning Out – this is supposed to foster a few new living habits, like spending less money, spending more time with family, and losing weight. For most of January we did great, but we both have slipped back into our old habits over the last few weeks and go out to eat often.

Lets move on to the moderate to good news:

  • School – I had to postpone my college start date until March due to money issues, but all has been resolved and we are moving ahead with March 1st as my start date.
  • Church involvement – We have been attending the evening services more regularly, however over the last two weeks we have been out with sicknesses. Stephanie hosted her first scrapbook meeting and I filled out all the paperwork to host a small group at our home, and this week was to be our first meeting – however the small group is currently listed as a young adults group and as such our first meeting was a combined meeting with all other young adults groups. We do have at least one confirmed couple that will be coming to our group and the actual first meeting will be Sunday.
  • Paying down debt – I’ve made a huge jump forward in this area because of our tax refund this year. Last year we owed several hundred s of dollars to the IRS, however this year we got several back. I used the refund to pay off three small credit cards we had.

So how about you? Have your New Year’s Resolutions been reduced to New-First-Two-Weeks-of-the-Year Resolutions? Or are you chasing “results not typical”?

Categories
My Weight Loss

Results not typical

Results not typicalI just saw a commercial for one of the many weight loss systems available in the market today. This one will ship the food right to your door and shows several ‘actual customers’ talking about their 50, 60, even 100 lbs weight loss. But there on the screen are those three little words – Results not typical. My favorite was ‘Results atypical’. Atypical? My eight grade English teacher taught me that he was a theist – meaning he believed in a god, as opposed to an atheist which does not. Atypical means not typical – very clever, but I digress.

Results not typical. What if you saw a car commercial with ‘actual customers’ saying “This is a great car, very affordable, reliable, sporty, and fun to drive!” but the small print said “Results not typical”? Would you buy that car? It’s sad to think that while the rest of the world is starving, we are spending billions of dollars to take off the pounds – but its tragic to think that despite that the results are… not typical. Television shows like “The Biggest Loser” tell us that you can lose 30 lbs in a week, while doctor’s tell us that anything over 2 lbs a week is unhealthy weight loss.

My goal this year is to loose 50 lbs, considering that I am about 120 lbs overweight. I pray that at the end of 2008, I can say ‘Results Not Typical’, but for the last several years I keep getting typical results…