Thursday, December 26, 2013

The great blog reboot/ looking forward

Hello dear readers, if there are any of you left. It has been quite some time since I updated my weight loss blog, and I realized that I missed it. I am a very busy guy these days, but I know I need to get better at taking time for myself, and part of that is this blog. So, this is the great blog reboot. My new goal is to update this blog once a week. It will not be on a regular day or time, but I am challenging myself to give a substantial update once a week.

I am currently sitting in the dining room at my parents' house. Fresh off a wonderful Christmas with my parents, my brother, sister-in-law, and my adorable niece. I have been sleeping in a room where a medal hangs, a medal my dad got for completing one of his various races over the last year. One the fridge is a list of goals my dad has in four different life categories. He runs no matter the weather or the circumstances. It is very inspiring to see in person. I look at that medal every night and think about my goals to finally take on a 5K, but more importantly, my goal of a 12 minute mile. That medal hangs there helping me recommit to my physical health.

Tuesday I actually went and ran with my dad, well, power walked and ran. It was the first time I had run in too long, and my body paid the price for it, but I also felt something I had not felt in a very long time: energized. I took Christmas off, but this morning I set an alarm for 8:30, made a delicious smoothie and headed down to my parents' club house where I found a treadmill. I set a goal to do a half mile today because it had been so long since I really ran, and I did not want to hurt myself. After a solid warm up walk, I started to jog at a speed a little lower than what I was doing over the summer. My new shoes really helped me stay balanced on the treadmill, which was very nice. I have never really spoken about this before, but if you were to pay attention to my walk, you would notice that my feet point out pretty aggressively, which makes walking in thin spaces difficult for me. Treadmills have always been a bit complicated for me because of that. It makes skiing impossible because the back of my skis always hit each other. My ankles have always been very weak, and I am not sure if it related to how awkwardly I walk, but there is always pain there. However, my new shoes help tremendously with that. My feet are still not perfectly straight, but the shoes help me stay relatively straight.

Once I hit the half mile mark, I started to wind down with a cool down walk, but I realized that I felt pretty good, and instead of taking a cool down walk, I took a 1 minute, catch my breath walk, and started jogging again. I hit the 3/4 mile mark and was just about to wind down when Pandora hit me with Eminem's "Lose Yourself." I told myself I would jog until the song ended, and next thing I knew, I had crossed the one mile mark. My time is not important, it was much slower than my best speed over the summer, but it is a start. I got myself two out of three days of being physical again. I am planning on doing it all over again tomorrow, and hopefully for the rest of my break. My hope is to get myself back to a place where I am working out 5 to 6 days a week. I slipped in a major way the last four months, but after the two work outs this week, I feel so much better about myself. Teaching stimulates me in so many ways, but I get so busy that I forget to take care of myself and I need to get back to it. It is so much fun to be active, sweaty and out of breath. It makes me feel like I am accomplishing something positive for myself.

Next week I will be updating with a recap of how I did with my goals for 2013, but I wanted to get my goals down for 2014 now:

1. Be the best teacher possible. This is truly immeasurable, but I will have it on my list every year.
2. No more Fast Food at all. I have managed to cut out fast food burgers, but time to eliminate it or real.
3. Get better at preparing meals. This means lunch and dinner. Martina and I are going to get much better at food prep in the coming year.
4. Not stress so much about things completely out of my control.
5. Spend more time talking about things I like and ignoring things I do not like.
6. Finally feel comfortable running that 5K I have been talking about for a year.
7. Write a full novel.
8. Work out as much as my time and body will allow me. I am not going to put specifics on it, it really amounts to just being more physically active in the coming year!
9. Cook something completely new every month.
10. Enjoy the world more. I want to see and do more in 2014. I want to be a part of a more full life.

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Inspiration is all around

I wish that I was posting something amazing about my physical health, but if I am being honest, teaching is absolutely kicking my butt. One of my best friends, who is also a teacher, said that teaching is like performing for 7 hours a day. It absolutely is. Every day leaves me just exhausted. It is an awesome experience, but generally speaking, when the day is over, I feel too tired to do much of anything, so my work out routine that I thought would fix itself, has just become more erratic. I have tried to do little things to help, such as parking far away from my classroom so I have to walk further, and I force myself to walk around campus to talk to people instead of always just e-mailing them, but it is certainly not the work out routine I desire. What it comes down to is defeating the exhaustion. I am getting enough sleep, and I am still eating healthy (although, I am not eating regularly enough), so I have not slipped back into these awful habits, but, at the moment, I am just sort of treading water. I am stuck on a total of 72 pounds lost in the last 17 months. Today I had planned to go to my gym and talk to a personal trainer about possibly getting personal training sessions to help me get out of this funk, but I am getting beat by an awful cold, and I stepped on something sharp last night that punctured my skin and my foot is in immense pain. I will try again later this week.

What I do want to talk about is all of this inspiration around me. Let me start with my students. Last weekend I read 130 essays about goals. My students had to pick four categories of their lives and write an essay about the goals they set for themselves in those areas. It is a wonderful assignment for them and for me because it gets them thinking about their lives and it allows me to see what they value. Many of them are working on their own physical health. Some are doing it for aesthetic reasons (teenagers lust after six packs), but are doing specifically to help them in their sports (one junior already has been accepted to a college with a swimming scholarship), and others are doing just to feel better about themselves. I have already mentioned that I told them all about my journey and many of them mentioned it in their essays. Multiple people included little asides rooting for me and encouraging me. Once football season is over the gym on campus is open 4 days a week after school, and many of my students want to get me in the gym and teach me the routines the coaches have set up for them. I think I am going to take them up on it, if only so they can see that I am actually trying. I even have a student to chastises me every day that I forget to bring my lunch, because they know that I am trying to eat better. One of the many beautiful things about teenagers is their willingness to point out when their teachers are not holding up their promises. It keeps me motivated and keeps me on my toes. I know I am going to get asked if I brought my lunch and I know the disapproving glances I will get if I forget.

I get to come home every day to a wonderful woman, this is not news to anyone, however, over the last two months, Martina has started to get incredibly serious about her own health and fitness. In July she did an insane squat challenge and stuck with it all through the month. She also started stocking our fridge with only healthy things. We have moved from regular milk to almond milk, and we snack on bananas and apples now. She makes wraps instead of sandwiches, and because of her, we are incorporating vegetables into all of our home cooked meals. All of that is awesome and impressive, but the thing that blows me away every single day is her dedication to the Insanity Workout. Every night when I get home from work, she is either in the middle of her work out or just getting ready to start it and every day she pushes herself to finish the most insane work outs. It is the most inspiring thing ever. When we get a bigger place next year, one of my goals is to be able to do Insanity with her. Watching her push through all of the pain and the difficult speeds of Insanity is awesome, but that is not even where it ends. Last weekend she participated in her first 5K, and even though she had not really done any running in the last few months, she completed the 5K jogging the entire time. I was so proud of her. I AM so proud of her.

It is a wonderful thing to enjoy coming home at night, and knowing that someone is there who inspires you to be your best on a daily basis. I luck out because I spend my day with roughly 200 students who inspire me in a variety of ways, and then I come home to a girl who also inspires me. To say that life is good would be an understatement. So, now is the time to take all of this beautiful inspiration around me and put it to use. it is time for me to get my act in gear and get back to the business of getting healthy. Thanks for all of the support dear readers. Keep doing big things!

Monday, September 2, 2013

What do you represent?

The first few weeks of teaching have taken up pretty much all of my time, so I apologize for getting lax on updating my blog but I figure with actually getting a holiday off, today would be the perfect time for an update. The focus of this blog will be my mental and emotional happiness, with a little bit of the physical work peppered in there. I am going to try and get my physical activity elevated in the next few days, so hopefully I will have that update for you.

A week ago Friday I began a poetry unit for all of my Junior classes. It was a disaster. They did not like the rap song I played, they did not like the Mumford and Sons song I played and they were rejecting the very idea of a poetry unit during their junior year. The most common reason was that they already could point out metaphors and similes, which of course, they should be able to do at 16 years old. I told them all that what we were going to do was deeper. I was going to expose them to new types of poetry and hopefully get into what the poetry/songs are about. I was getting nothing positive and I went into last weekend pretty sure the upcoming week was going to be terrible. After briefly considering just dropping the entire thing, I decided I had to power on and most importantly, I had to rethink my tactics. A few years ago I had written a poem entitled "What do you Represent." It was my first true attempt at a slam poetry piece and I was pretty proud of it, but never had any intention of performing it. During my student teaching, I was told I needed to teach poetry and I had a really great relationship with my students, so I decided I would start off our poetry week by performing that piece and having it lead to a whole assignment for each students where they all had to write a poem about what they represented. It was a smashing success. I decided I would perform for my new students, even though I feel like my relationship with them is a bit unknown. Sadly, I seemed to have misplaced that original poem. I wrote a new one that had similar aspects to my original one, but it had a whole new attitude to it. It seemed to have veered into a more call to action ending.

Monday morning came and I performed it for all of my classes and the response was positive, but not overwhelming. From there I went into my poetry week using slam poetry videos, traditional printed poetry and the lyrics of songs from The Zac Brown band and Justin Timberlake. Being a new teacher, I need feedback from students when units end and I tell them that their grade will not depend on how much praise they give, I just want honest feedback. This honest feedback method could certainly go horribly wrong, and I was bracing myself, but much to my surprise, a majority of my students wrote that they felt energized by the unit and that they actually looked forward to coming to class to analyze what these poems/songs really meant. A good portion mentioned that they were not looking forward to a week of poetry, but that my energy, unorthodox teaching style, and desire to stretch what they thought should be categorized as poetry, turned them around. I do not write about this to toot my own horn, I admit that part of the problem with the way that I teach poetry, is that I make it a bit easy on the individual, and focus more on the whole group, but I write about this because it was something with which I really struggled, and came out of it feeling great. I completely changed my approach to something to fit my students, and it worked. I think more than anything, it showed my students that I am trying to figure out how to best teach them.

Friday afternoon, one of my students came into class and said that they needed help filling time for the rally that was only 2 hours away and she asked if I would perform my slam piece for the entire school. I said yes, but was really feeling unsure of myself. The entire piece is based around my love of rap music, and with the exception of my students, no one in this school would know that. Plus, this school is full of country music lovers and the students all drive trucks and love guns. We do not exactly have much in common, and I was thinking that my slam piece about feeling like an outsider for growing up loving hip-hop would not be well received here. With those reservations, I went out to center court in the gym, grabbed the microphone and waited for silence. Only 1/4 of the students at this school know who I am. That means there were roughly 550 students sitting there that had no clue who I was. I have performed in musicals where there were maybe 200 people who did not know me, and in a few of those musicals I have been in a dress, and had to do some pretty ridiculous things, but the things I was performing were not written by me.

For the last 4 years or so, I have made it a goal to perform a piece of my own poetry in public, and every year I fail to reach that goal. Knowing that those room would have had maybe 50 people in them still was too much for me to bear my soul. Here I was standing in a quiet gymnasium in front of 700+ teenagers, and 30+ teachers and administrators, getting ready to perform a poem entitled "What do you Represent." As I waited for quiet, one of my students shouted "You got this Hadley" and it led to the entire section of juniors to start cheering. I took a deep breath and just went for it. As I was performing my piece, I could hear cheering, and when I got to the part of the poem where I talk about how I represent people who are different, or are called weird, I had to stop because the entire student body broke into applause. It was a surreal moment for me.

When it was all over, the principal made a bee-line for me and in that moment, I thought to myself "uh oh, did I swear somewhere in the poem?" I did not, he just wanted to express appreciation for me throwing myself into the school in such a personal way. Again, I do not recount this as some sort of #humblebrag or even a not so humble brag, I recount this because it was a huge deal for me. I conquered this big obstacle in my life by giving this huge piece of myself to nearly 800 people. This is one of those moments where I was flying without a net. It could have easily turned bad in a hurry, but in my nervousness for performing my piece, I forgot one very important thing: Almost everyone can relate to being an outsider in some way. The poem is, of course, not about loving rap music at all, it is about being true to yourself and owning what makes you who you are.

The last 18 months have been all about finding myself. From the really harsh realities of why I allowed myself to get this obese, to the beauty of making a change, this journey has been all about trying to realize what I truly represent. I have been honest with my students about my journey to healthy living. We spent a week talking about goal setting and I told them a bit about what I am going through right now. I believe in being as honest with my students as possible. Some teachers look down upon that method of teaching, and my mentor teacher flat out told me to stop it when I was doing my student teaching, but I think it is important to let my students in a little bit. Since the day I told them that, I have had a few students come up and ask me how I got started, and how I dealt with all of the teasing I endured in middle school and high school. After my poetry performance, I had three students I had never seen before come into my class and thank me for representing the misfits. They were nothing like me in terms of why they were misfits, but misfits come in all shapes and sizes.

I think the most important question to ask yourself when you start to feel like other people are controlling your emotions, or when you start to feel like you are losing yourself is "What do you Represent?" I think once you really start to think about that, you will figure it out. I know it is working for me.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

A massive sigh of relief

As everyone on my Facebook now knows, I am a fully employed English Teacher. The goal I had set for myself when I went back to college 6 years ago has finally been achieved. The last six years have been a crazy time for me, but here I sit with the biggest sense of relief, followed by an unfamiliar sense of panic. I achieved this huge massive goal, but NOW WHAT?? I am supposed to teach now? I am supposed to look at 200 students throughout my day and impart them with the passion, joy and wonder that is the English language? Holy crap! What have I gotten myself into? Still, for the last year plus, I have been saying "If I could just get a teaching job..." and now I have one! I thought I had a long term sub position in January, but that fell through. I very nearly had a teaching job in Santa Cruz at the beginning of July, but that fell through. I was beginning to doubt if this was going to be a reality and I set up a plan B. It was a solid plan B and I could have still been very happy with it, but with summer winding down, I got a call from a school I interviewed at in early June. The position I interviewed for had been filled, but they had a last minute retirement, and instead of interviewing all new candidates they called their second choices for the first job. I was one of those second choices, and the principal went with me because I did not hesitate when they asked about being yearbook adviser. He said he was not sure they were even going to assign the new teacher to it, but he knew he wanted the teacher who was willing to do what he had to do to be a teacher at his school. In my two days on campus, I feel like it is a good fit for me. I am incredibly excited to begin the next chapter of my life, but before I do, I love to reflect and now I will do that.

I want to focus on my life roughly four years ago. Four years ago I did not have a job, I had not yet been accepted into the credential program and I was a 29 year old man living with his parents. I quickly sunk into the biggest depression of my life. Nothing was good, nothing was working. I was completely lost.I was barely making ends meet and I was now heartbroken. It began the absolute worst summer of my life. I did not sleep at all, I was eating all of the time, or not eating at all. Most days I could not even fathom why someone would get out bed for any reason other than to eat or use the bathroom. I was pretty sure that is where I was going to be forever. Once I was accepted to the credential program, I considered dropping it before it began because I was in no shape to be teaching young people. I was days away from quitting everything in my life, packing up and moving to Utah to start over, or drown in a sea of Mormons.

Nothing big happened to change my mind. There was no big epiphany. I find that life does not happen that way. This is not a movie where one monumental event shifts everything. I just woke up one day and thought about how rewarding it would be to be a teacher. I just kept getting up in the morning and trying to find a way through the fog. The teacher credential program started and I quickly fell in love with all of my future teacher friends. I slowly started moving out of this depression and in doing so, I found an awesome girl, and awesome friends. I was finally moving in the right direction! The credential program came with serious ups and downs and there was a time when I was sure I was not going to make it though. I found myself slipping again. I was agitated, lifeless, and stressed out beyond belief. Trying to do a show that was in Tech week during the week PACT was due turned out to be the stupidest thing I could do, but I still had my awesome girlfriend, and my awesome teacher friends. Somehow we found our way through PACT and through the program.

Last summer had arrived and with it, the job hunt. Except I had a problem, I had failed a course at Sac State. I had too many absences and even though I had done all of the work and watched the lectures on-line and did the assignments on-line, because I was enrolled in the in class version of the class, the teacher failed me and was not going to listen to anything. I could not get a teaching job because I was still a class away from my damn credential. I let it get me down for a while, but eventually I knew I had to man up and retake the class. I took it on-line, got an A and by December of 2012, I was a credentialed teacher. I lost the long term sub job in January, but I had a job at Regal and while it was not stellar, it gave me purpose. I got a promotion in May and this summer I had 9 interviews for teaching jobs.

Now, I have a job. When I think about all of the ups and downs of the last few years, all I can think about is how many times I wanted to just give up. I could have easily given up. I can always work at a movie theater. Between my own depression, my lack of confidence and the stupid things that kept me from getting where I wanted to be in the time frame in which it was supposed to happen, I could have quit. Giving up would have been such an easy way to move on in my life, but I did not quit. I found a way to stick it out and BAM, I have my own classroom. 6 years in the making, I achieved this goal. I did not quit when it got tough, when I felt stupid, or when I felt like it was just not meant to be, I just kept plugging away and it eventually worked out. Now, I am not saying it worked out because it was supposed to, or because I wanted it so bad, no. It worked out because I kept working at it. I never let myself stay down. This was not about willing myself to a job, it was about continuing to work my way through all of the mud.

Over the last year plus, I have had various starts and stops in my health, but the one thing I have not stopped doing, is trying. I have realized that there is so much to be said in just trying. When I think about the last four years and where I was and where I am now, I know I would not be in this great place if I did not just keep trying. 4 years ago I was on the verge of giving up on everything in my life, I could not get out of bed and now here I am absolutely LOVING my life. I could imagine being in any better of a place than I am now. In grand scheme of life 4 years is not that long to find your way through the muck of life. I did it. I am moving in the direction every day that I keep trying to move in the right direction. It really is that simple. All you have to do is keep trying and eventually you will see more victories than losses. I am a very blessed man right now because I started to realize I deserved it and worked to get it!

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Confronting the gym issue head on

I have discussed my problems with gyms in the past. I am terrified of them. I feel lost, confused, and judged. I can workout in the gym at my apartment complex because it is rarely populated. For years I was a member of a gym in Woodland and I never went regularly. I just get so self conscious in a gym. However, the gym equipment at my current apartment complex is terrible. The treadmill feels like it is going to collapse under the weight of my obesity if I try to run. The two bikes are nowhere near the level of my last apartment complex. It has made working out more of a challenge than something I want to do. The last few days I have been going back to walking out in the world, as we have a bike trail across the street from our house. I love being out in the world, but my body does not. It is really tough on my knees, ankles, and feet. I have certainly been feeling the pain the last few days, and I have not been feeling knee pain after the treadmill. Martina has been killing it in a variety of ways in her health journey and since it appears we are truly aligned in our quest, we decided to give a gym a shot.

Last night we stopped by California Family Fitness because it is roughly five minutes from our house and Martina also has one right near her work, so it would make sense. We were given a tour by a relatively new employee, who was energetic, charming in a nerdy way, and put a very good face on this giant box store looking gym. We did show up at the busiest time of year, which I actually liked. It gave us a good idea of how huge the place was because there was still plenty of open equipment even with the parking lot completely full. The gym is two stories and is gigantic. They have a pool, a lap pool, and an indoor pool. They have a sauna and steam room and the most impressive locker rooms I have ever seen in a gym. It was incredibly difficult not to be impressed. We were offered a two week free trial and the monthly fee for a couple is less than I was expecting, so the odds are we will be sticking with it, but that could change if we end up not liking it.

Today I did my inaugural workout and after one day, I can tell this is a place I am going to want to frequent. The bike was very comfortable for my wide body and never felt shaky. The bike also had better pre-programmed workouts. This was very nice because I found one that was challenging, but not impossible to keep up and it meant I never had to mess with the levels or the speed and could just focus on keeping my legs moving. I Found that when I did not have to focus on the other things, I almost never looked at my time or my distance, just enjoyed the time I had to myself on this bike. The time flew by and I felt energized and exhausted when it was over. From there I jumped on a treadmill and did a mile of walking and a mile of walking/jogging. Then I jumped into the last 15 minutes of a step aerobics class. I did not love the class, but loved the energy of the class. I can see myself enjoying getting involved in classes. My next step will be a Zumba class. They also have this group training session that is similar to CrossFit that I will most definitely be checking out once we are paying. Plus, basketball and all sorts of cool stuff. Once we get going and once I have full time work, I will probably start working with a personal trainer and seeing their nutrition experts as well. I want to do it all!!

I will tell you why: I never once felt judged. Even at 9:30 am, this place was pretty busy and never once did it feel like anyone was looking at anyone else with judgement. The gym had people of all shapes and sizes and all levels of fitness and everyone was friendly. Multiple employees asked me how it was going, and asked if I needed anything and one trainer actually pulled a woman aside and gave her a few minutes of free training on one of the machines. it felt like a really great place to be. I know that this is ultimately a big box gym that talks about profit margins all of the time in meetings and it is run like a big box store, but with more warmth. Yet, it felt really comfortable for me and I have never said that in a big gym before. My favorite thing about CrossFit was how welcoming that gym was to us, and I felt welcomed to this giant gym this morning. It is a place I have no trouble seeing myself going to every day and that is the biggest hurdle for me.

It appears that after a rough few months, I am finding myself again. There is a rhythm to how I am feeling and it is wonderful. I am back to getting out of bed at a reasonable time, and eating regular meals and cooking more. I was excited to go to the gym this morning instead of forcing myself to go. My general attitude is back to where it was in April and May. I can feel myself starting to remember why I began this journey in the first place. I am shaking off the cobwebs of apathy, and caring again. Let's do this thing!

Friday, August 2, 2013

The inspiration of others

This summer, as I have documented, has not been terribly kind to my physical health, yet, here I sit a few pounds down from May. Even though it has been a bit of a roller coaster (for lack of a more original metaphor)I am still slowly moving forward. Two nights ago Martina showed me this slideshow of a girl who had lost over 100 pounds in four years. Towards the end of the slideshow there was a quote and I am going to paraphrase it because I do not have it in front of me. It was about how your physical health is a marathon not a sprint. It is no the first time I have seen this sentiment expressed, but at the end of a slideshow that showed a woman over the span of four years, it really hit me, that no matter how slowly I am losing weight, I am still losing it! The only place I really see people my size losing weight is on the Biggest Loser and I know how ridiculous that speed of weight loss is and I know that those people are in a unique situation where losing weight becomes their entire existence. That is not the reality of my life. The reality is that I need to keep chugging away slowly. I lost a tremendous amount of weight in my first year and I knew the second year would be tougher, so the idea is to just keep moving forward at whatever pace I can. I understand I will have some seriously great weeks and some not so great weeks. The wonderful thing about figuring out the rest of my life, the mental and emotional health that I worked so hard on last year, is that now when I have those bad days, I do not beat myself up. I have learned to accept who I am and who I want to be.

I want take a moment to talk about a few people who have inspired me over the last few weeks. I am sure it would not be difficult to guess who they are, but I want to talk about them anyway. First up is my awesome girlfriend. A few days after July started Martina found a month long squat challenge and instead of just starting it a few days late, she decided to catch up by doing 2 days worth of squats every day until she caught up. Every single day she would do her squats. On Wednesday she finished the entire challenge! She did 5000 squats during the month AND she bought us a bunch of healthy food, has cooked more for herself and for me and is really getting after it in terms of her own health. It is such an awesome thing to see. it is totally motivating. Last night we went on a longish walk in our new area for the first time and I am hoping it is something we can keep up when I am actually home at night. having healthier food around is always great and it is wonderful that we are now sharing in this adventure and hopefully pushing each other along. She totally killed that squat challenge, and has been eating so well that it is impossible to feel inspired by her. The list of reasons why she rocks is pretty much endless, but now that she has her mind set on a new healthy way of living, I know she is going to rock even harder because she is so strong and gives me strength. It is going to make the tough days a lot easier knowing she is going to pump me up by leading by example.

The next person is my best friend, Erik. Most of the people who read this blog are probably friends with him and know about his amazing journey. I would link to his blog, but he has yet to set one up for unknown reasons. Erik is down over 60 pounds in the last, I want to say two years. He is eating healthy, working out all of the time and is generally happier than I have ever seen him. That is all well and good, but it is his commitment that inspires me. He has already lost enough weight to make his own life way easier. he walks so much more upright, and moves much more quickly now. His breathing has been helped tremendously, I am not even sure he realizes that. Fighting through his Muscular Dystrophy, Erik has craved out such a better life for himself, but he is not content to stop there. he has set these awesome goals and he is meeting every single one of them by never wavering on his commitment. Every time we see each other I am inspired to get moving even harder and to set tough goals for myself and continue to work until I get them. Right now he has challenged himself to walk 10 miles a week. I remember like five years ago when we went to Disneyland, walking all day in that park was really hard on both of us, but I bet if we were to do that again, he would just be flying through the park. I have decided I am going to join him on his quest. I am going to walk 10 miles a week for a few weeks and then I am going to bump it up to 15 miles a week.

People are kind of awesome. I have not always felt this way. In fact, for a good majority of my life I have felt pretty much the opposite. yet, when I look around my life, I see awesomeness everywhere. I have a friend who knew exactly what she wanted to do at 12 years old, never wavered and this week she took the BAR exam. She is the single most driven awesome person I know and it is inspiring. My long lost best friend Jessica has been working her ass off in New York and on Cruise ships and everywhere else she can to work as a professional actress and she has these amazing stories, and pictures and vlogs from the last few years and all I can think about is how hard I have seen her work in her life and how amazing it is to see it paying off for her. Every where I look I am inspired by the people around me. it is time to start paying some of that back to the world. I have been in some pretty negative space a lot this summer, but I have been coming out of it over the last few weeks and I can feel myself starting to get back to where I was when 2013 started. I can see the beauty of life surrounding me and I owe a lot of it to my friends and my family and everyone who is doing something they love.

Keep rocking good readers. You can never really know who is watching you and rooting for you and who you may inspire or what may inspire someone. I never expected myself to be this person, but there is beauty and inspiration everywhere! We just have to be open to seeing it. Seriously, did I just say that? Hell with it, I am going to roll with this new positive cheery persona. Be awesome my friends, because there is a good chance you inspire me!

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

First we show up, then we see what happens.

After a very rough weekend, I was not exactly sure how I was going to pull myself from my bed on Monday morning. I knew that I had to, but I was not sure how it would work. Sunday night I was at work until nearly 3 in the morning and sleep did not come for me until well after 4 in the morning. At some point during the night at work, or right when I got home, I managed to turn my alarm on. It was set for 9:30 in the morning. When it went off, I was shocked! Why would I set an alarm for a Monday morning after working until nearly 3?? It was criminal negligence on the part of my sleepy body. In my house, it is tough to get back to sleep once you are awake. Our new kitten, Daisy, can sense when you are awake and she cuddles, and your full attention. Once I was up, there was nothing I could do.

I did not ant to go to the gym. I was sad, frustrated, and very tired. I was also hungry with not much in the way of breakfast food going on. A hungry Kyle is a cranky Kyle, just ask Martina, she can verify that. Yet, against all odds, I found myself at the gym. It was not a great work out. I could not get a good jogging pace, and I was 100% in my head, and not in a motivating good way. My mile time was slower than it had been in weeks. I could not get a good rhythm going on the bike either. Nothing was going well. There was no BEAST MODE to be found. I finished my work out after roughly 45 minutes and I was incredibly frustrated. This summer has been so full of starts and stops and I just cannot seem to get my routine back the way I had it in the spring.

Then something dawned on me: I went to the gym and worked out for 45 minutes. How could I possibly be upset about that? It is impossible to work out if you do not GO work out. I cannot lose weight and be healthy if I am not trying. Monday, I tried. Did I have a great day, no, but who cares, I at least, got off my ass and went down the gym and tried. There are days when just showing up and trying are enough. During my student teaching, I was given this amazing class of seniors. I have written about them before, but one of the things I tried to impart to them was this idea of just trying. Often times they would get so concerned with making things perfect, or knowing every single detail about an assignment and I would have to tell them that all I wanted was for them to try this new thing, or try this thing they were not immediately good at. You never know what will happen until you try. Until 18 months ago, I am not sure I could have worked out for 45 minutes straight and now I was upset because my 45 minute work out wasn't good enough? This is such a perfect example of me being too hard on myself.

Some times just showing up is half the battle. For me, every time I go to the gym, I have won something. Every time I try to eat better, I have won something. Showing up in underestimated. Some times, the best thing you can do is just show up and then see what happens from there. I cannot get in a show if I do not show up to auditions. I cannot get a job if I do not show up for the interview. I have limited control over what happens from there. I might have the best audition of my life and not get the role, or I might have an off night and still get a call back. I cannot control that, but I can control showing up. It is time I stop being so hard on myself if my progress is not happening at the rate I want it to. It is time to remind myself that there are days when just showing up and seeing what happens is good enough.

If you are not trying, nothing is ever going to change. If I do not try and eat better, I will, without question, eat fast food all of the time. I have to try to change. I do not get it right every time, but at least I am trying. I am trying to do better in all the areas where I think I can do better. But, none of that matters if, at first, I do not show up. So, that is why "First we show up, then we see what happens" is my new mantra. Nothing can happen if we do not show up. I encourage anyone reading this blog to show up and try to do something hard, or that you think maybe you cannot do because once you show up, you will be amazed at what you can eventually do.

Saturday, July 6, 2013

Something vs one thing

I said on Facebook yesterday that I would be updating this blog today, but I was not sure exactly what the topic would be. Not much has happened in the last week in terms of my health. I am getting back on track with the work outs. I am almost running a full mile again. I did 3/4 of a mile in roughly 10 minutes the other day, but that brought with it some swelling in my knee that has put me on the shelf for a few days.

yesterday afternoon a former student showed me video of me rapping in class that she had taken from her cell phone. Martina commented that I had lost a lot of weight since then. I did not notice it right away because I was focusing all of my energy on how hardcore I was spitting Taylor Swift lyrics over an Eminem beat, but I did start to notice it as the video went on. I have lost a lot of weight. This almost feels like a total "No duh!" moment as I am roughly 70lbs lighter than I was when this video was shot, but it is a nice reminder of what I have accomplished. Numbers do not mean much to me. Math was always my most troublesome class, so when you say 70lbs, it seems like a lot and there a tangible quality to that number that is comforting, but rarely do I feel it or see it. Then this video was going on where I was wearing a shirt and tie that I still wear and I remember in April of 2012, that shirt was very fitted. I did not enjoy sitting down while wearing it out of fear my buttons would pop off, shoot one of my students in the eye and I would have a mountain of paperwork to explain that noise. Now, when I wear that shirt, it is loose on me. If it was not for my wide neck, I should probably be wearing a smaller sized shirt. I have talked about this on the blog countless times, but there are moments that are worth repeating.

It has been a weird summer thus far and I have gotten off track more than I care to remember. My eating habits had fallen by the wayside for a while and I was stress eating again. Then this video came flying at me and it reminded me where I started and where I have gotten. I am so far away from where I want to be, but I have a feeling that the next few weeks are going to bring monumental life changes for me and possibly might get me moving further on my path of healthy choices. At my heaviest I clocked in at over 350lbs. I have yo-yoed between 290-320 for my entire adult life and now here I am getting a grip on it and it is nice to have a reminder of where I started.

One of my next big goals is to get to where I can run for more than a mile without stopping for any reason. I hit this goal in March of this year, but lost it in May and I want it back. But, I also know that I need to strike a balance between pushing myself and overdoing it. I am still walking that delicate line and my body is still too out of shape to be pushed too hard. I am not trying to break myself. I am determined to have my full running mile before the end of the month. I think my goal for the end of the year is a 12 minute mile. I know that in order to achieve this, I have to stay focused, so I am going to get myself into the pool more this week and work out that way until my knee feels totally comfortable. This is a big thing Crossfit taught me: Just because you cannot do one thing does not mean you can't do SOMETHING! There were activities at Crossfit that I was just not physically ready for and there was always a modification I could make or another activity that worked similar muscles that I could do. I miss Crossfit for many reasons, but that is the biggest one. It always made me feel like I could do SOMETHING. Never underestimate the power of feeling like you can accomplish something. it is about finding the person who believes you can do something, or the job that makes you feel like you can do something. I am starting to realize that I can do lots of somethings and that the something that I cannot do, I just cannot do them YET, but I will get them!

Friday, June 28, 2013

New house, new job, new shoes, renewed motivation?

Well, it has been over a month since I last updated this blog and I apologize for that. Things have been moving at a frantic pace in my life over the last six weeks or so. The promotion I received at work has turned out to be much more time consuming and energy consuming than I imagine it being. For some reason I assumed, since I once managed at a 16 screen, that I would be able to manage at a 5 screen with the same amount of effort. That has not been the case and my body, I think, is still adjusting. It is adjusting to a world where I never sleep before 2:30am and struggle to get out of bed before 11am. This is problematic for a multitude of reasons. First off, if I am getting out of bed at 11, it means I cannot begin my work out until around noon, and by noon it is already so damn hot, it takes even more effort to even attempt to go down the gym. This has set me back some. That coupled with the month I took off from working out to move and everything else, has made my time at the gym frustrating. I am not moving as quickly as I once was; also, I am not healing as quickly as I once was. I cannot run for as long without stopping for walking the way I was before this happened and I need more breaks. My mind is still willing, but my body got used to not working out again. It is shocking how quickly the body forgets how to do things, or at least how to stay strong enough to do them. Also, food has become an issue again. My meal times are super out of whack, and trying to normalize them has been fruitless. I am trying to snack on healthy things before work, then eat dinner at work, then when I get home at 2am, I try to have some grapes while I unwind from work before bed. This has left me hungrier than normal, which makes me crabbier than normal.

On the plus side, the new apartment has a gorgeous swimming pool. However, I am currently suffering some wicked pain in my shoulder making swimming too painful. I know I need to see someone to find out if I have a legitimate injury or just pain that I can stretch out, but without insurance, paying for it becomes an issue. Now, the pool is just a place I go to relax after a work out, which is not how I like to think of a pool. It is all an adjustment right? I need to constantly remind myself that baby steps are better than no steps. One good thing the job brings me is stairs. I am climbing up and down stairs repeatedly at the theater, so I am feeling like I am getting a pretty good work out on a nightly basis there. The job is not the most stimulating job in the world, but it is a jo that allows me to feel good about myself and that allows me to feel like I am contributing something in my life and that aspect of who I am has been missing for far too long.

Another aspect to my summer is the job hunt for a teaching job. I have been down in Santa Cruz, San Jose, Richmond, Stockton and Woodland for interviews. These drives can take huge chunks of my day and that is also cutting into the time I was spending at the gym. The drives also offer me a long time to think about my life and where it is going and where I want it to go. During one of my first interviews one of the members on the panel noticed a lapse in time between the time I began college and finished college and he asked me about it. I was pretty taken by the question, but pausing for a second allowed me to think about how best to answer it. I answered by saying that the first year I was at college I did terribly and decided I was not smart enough for college. Years later I realized I was unhappy at the college and that is why I did poorly. It was not because I was not smart, it was because I did not belong there and was not happy there, therefore trying hard felt like too much work. On these drives to and from these interviews I think to myself that my life is right on the verge of being truly amazing. I love my life. I have this amazing, one of a kind goofball girlfriend who has shown me over and over again that she loves me. Together we live in this cute little apartment, make the most of our poverty together, watch Giants baseball and watch all of the movies. We also have this perfectly adorable, feisty, clumsy kitten who keeps us entertained. Outside of my relationship I have this giant net of people looking out for me. over the last two months 5 people have told me about teaching openings they have heard about. People are constantly supporting me and giving me helpful hints and rooting for me. It is overwhelming and completely baffling, but so incredibly kind and heart warming. I am this one thing away from being exactly where I want to be. I am one job away from feeling like I can really feeling like things could not possibly be better for me. It is such a change for me to have a positive outlook.

yesterday I got my first teaching rejection and it did not fill me with despair the way rejection usually does. If the last 16 months have taught me anything, it is that remaining positive actually helps. This journey, which started as a way to lose weight, has transformed into a journey to lose baggage. It has taught me how to let go of so much of the "stuff" that has held me back for most of my life. Did I really want to teach in Stockton in a district where the superintendent was being accused of withholding money from the schools? Absolutely not! Is it probably a blessing I did not get this particular job, probably. This is who I am now. I am a man who goes out into the world looking for the good instead of the bad. I am not good at it all of the time. I can get mired in my own negativity sometimes, but nothing like I used to. I am no longer stuck in bed for days on end when I have a bad day or two. This is a huge leap forward for me.

Now to use this leap to get myself back on the path to physical health. Year one was phenomenal and the first month of year two I was working so hard and seeing so much in terms of results that I actually felt powerful. May was a complete dud and June has been a month of starts and stops, but see, if May was a waste and June had some starts that means July is only going to be even better. Staying in a place where I am moving forward is essential, which is why I allowed myself to buy new running shoes a few weeks ago. It was not the wisest of choices in terms of the financial crisis in my life, but I felt it was needed. I remember a year or so ago when a friend I had not seen in over a decade took a chance on me by giving me a gift certificate to buy myself running shoes. It was a strong catalyst for me beginning to take a chance on myself. What followed has been documented on this blog, and when time came to get new running shoes, I knew that I once again had to roll the dice on myself and realize that it is a worthwhile investment, if I made it a worthwhile investment. Those shoes are as useful as I make them. It is completely up to me if I wasted the money or not. That is power my friends.

It is power that I wield with confidence. I took control of my life over a year ago, and great things have happened since. It is time to take that control back! I have been working slowly on getting it back, but it is time for the reckless confidence of a man with nothing to lose and only himself to gain. I am so loved by a great amount of people. I am supported by an entire network of social media friends who probably have no idea how much their interest in my life powers me to keep moving. I am constantly reminded I am worth having a great life and now I am living that life. Come join me in living the best life you possibly can. Excuse me while I go run two miles and then pass out.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

The cruelness of May

I am not even going to lie, I suck this month. It has been a brutal 15 days in my world of unhealthiness. Okay, in all honesty, it actually has been about 10 days. It began with the opening of Iron Man 3 at work. My nights grew longer, and my body more weary from standing up for 7 hours, and bending down to pick up trash and from running around like crazy making sure I am was staying ahead of the rush. What does that really mean? Well, it means I am getting home from work at 1:30am, not falling asleep until 3am and waking up at 11am with my body in serious pain. My ankles are sore, my knees are popping, my arms are crazy sore and I have no energy. It does not help that I eat dinner at 8pm, and when I get off work at 1am, I am too hungry to sleep, so I have to eat something after 1am. Every day is lethargic. I am straight up miserable, but I am in too much pain and too lethargic to do a damn thing about it. I feel as if I have reverted back to my pre-healthy living ways and I am struggling to come up with the motivation to stop it. To make matters worse, the one physical activity I can do with all of this pain, swimming, is not possible. Why, you ask? Because my stupid apartment complex decided to do wait to do pool maintenance until it was warm enough to actually use the damn pool! The sheer idiocy of that move baffles me. Granted, I only have one more month here before moving to an apartment complex with two pools, one being junior Olympic sized. That does me no good NOW, though.

I sit here angry at myself for losing the motivation. I have every reason to keep moving. I mean it is working. I see it every day when I put on clothes. I am losing weight and getting healthier. I am stronger than I was and more importantly, I have more stamina for physical activity. Yet, I have completely lost it and have instead, wallowed in the self pity of aches and pains. I have not been out for a walk/jog in weeks. I have been on the stationary bike twice this month. April was a month of blowing by personal bests and a month of pure fitness for me. I was out there nearly every day going miles and miles every week and now, nothing. It is sad how easy it is to fall back into old habits. It is depressing how easy it has been to just sit on the couch and play video games or watch television. Every single day is a battle when you are my size, even now. Yes, I am down a lot from where I started, but after a few days of not working out, it has become so easy to skip working out every single day.

I am not here with any answers. I am not here with some determined conclusion that will get my ass in gear. I am not here with some inspirational closing line. I am here with only negativity I cannot seem to shake. I know I need to get moving. I know that if I get myself moving that the long days on my feet with hurt less and less over time. I know all of this to be true in my logical mind, but my logical mind is on hiatus and has been replaced with teenage Kyle's illogical mind of laziness and crappy food. In fact, I ate fast food this week. When I was done eating it, I was up for another two hours with the most awful stomach ache. Clearly my body does not want fast food anymore. It was a nice reminder. It was a reminder from my ever changing body that I have to make better choices.

Right now is a time of extreme anxiety for me personally. I am starting to apply for teaching job again, and I am trying to figure out how to be an adult. I have spent so much time in my life feeling like a failure and all of those feelings are creeping back up again. I am tired of struggling to buy groceries. It is exhausting to spend so much time worrying about basic needs. I am not trying to have an excess of money. I just want to be able to keep food in my refrigerator. All of that worry keeps me up at night and if I have learned anything during the last year, it is that a good night's sleep is the biggest asset to being healthy. Everything spring boards from feeling rested when you get up.

Okay, this is getting away from me. I apologize for the party of self pity. This is hard. Every day is hard right now. I know the best thing I can do is go down to the gym and get on the bike. I am not saying that is going to happen as soon as I post this entry, but I am hoping it is. For those of you out there struggling right now, I understand. We will find our way through the this cave. It might take us longer than we like, but we will get there. For those of you not struggling right now. Be thankful and remember someone around you is struggling and be kind.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

A key phrase

I have had an overwhelming amount of support in my life time. When I was entering high school and realizing that sports were not going to be my thing, I was a bit nervous my dad would not understand, but when I found theater, he was the most supportive person and still is. My parents have always just wanted me to be happy. When I finally got serious about college, my parents took me back in and let me live rent free for years so I could focus wholly on my school work. It allowed me to have just a part time job and really pay attention to school and I think that it showed. My parents still come to California to see me in shows. My siblings try to come to shows and they have all been very supportive over the last year especially as I struggle with finding a full time job. I know I can call on them if I am in dire need and they would be there for me without question.

I have also been lucky with my extended family. I have friends I have not seen in years, but I know if I called them and needed them, they would be there for me. They all want me to succeed. It is not even limited to close friends. I have this giant network of people on Facebook who are pulling for me. I have people who text me or message me if they hear of an English teaching position open up. People love to share inspiring stories or tips or recipes with me all of the time as they cheer me on my journey. It would be very easy for people to just tell me "keep searching" when they ask about the job hunt, but so many people have gone out of their way to say things "it will be a lucky school that gets you" or "I wish my kid could have you as a teacher." These are not necessary things for people to say in the social contract of life. These are extra things that make me feel incredibly good about myself.

However, for years I have never felt worthy of any of it. It does not matter how many people are rooting for you if you are not one of those people. That is why i like to think of this key phrase "I am Good Enough." It is one thing to have my friends, my family and my girlfriend tell me that I am good enough, but is completely different thing to be able to really say it about yourself. This has been an ongoing battle for me my entire life. I have always felt like the back up plan. If I got a lead in a show it was because no one else really auditioned, not because I had a great audition and deserved to play the role. That was just how I thought. I was the person people would call if everyone else was busy and they just did not want to be alone. That is how I have seen myself for the great majority of my life. As I have been working through my various issues on a path to a life healthier and happier, I have been examining these insecure thoughts.

I have finally gotten myself to a place where I can honestly look into a mirror and say that I am good enough for change. I am good enough to be happy. I am good enough to demand better of myself and how people treat me. It is an empowering moment. That first moment you realize that you are good enough for that thing with which you have been struggling. It sounds cheesy I know, but in that moment, just briefly, you really feel like you can do anything if you just decide to do it. My moment came about two months ago when I woke up in the morning. I have no idea why I awoke that day feeling this, but I did. I woke up, stretched out, looked at myself in the mirror and just said "I am good enough to run a whole mile without stopping on the treadmill." Then I went out and did it. It was that simple. I just made the choice to be good enough and now I realize that I am.

I still have days where I feel incredibly awful about myself, but I can combat those now. When I feel those days coming on, I work out harder. I make myself feel worth something. Those awful feelings go away more quickly now. I am demanding better out of myself. I am still working on demanding better from other people. I am still working on explaining my issues to other people out of fear that they will turn away. I am still working on it, but it is all a part of the process. Everything I do is a part of the process. I am really enjoying the process. I am so much better at not getting mad at myself if I eat too much one day, or if I just lay in bed too long one day. I am letting myself off the hook much more easily now.

The art of letting go is a crucial and complicated art. I have to hold myself responsible for my actions while not getting down on myself. I am walking that line with a fine tooth comb these days. I am better at realizing the consequences of my actions but also knowing that I can do better next time. I am good enough after all.

Monday, April 15, 2013

The calmness of Monday morning

For most people Mondays are hectic. People loathe Monday because it signals the beginning of a new week. You have to jolt yourself back into life. While I am jealous of those people who have a job to perform on Mondays, I have realized how much I have come to love my Monday mornings.

Martina's alarm goes off somewhere between 7 and 7:30 in the morning and she gets up and roll back over and sleep for a few minutes before she kisses me goodbye and heads off to work. Once she heads off downstairs, I roll back over for roughly 10 minutes before my alarm goes off at 8. Instead of jolting out of bed, I slowly release myself from a slumbering state and calmly remove myself from bed. Before I head downstairs, I do some stretching to get the morning cracks out of my body and to warm up just enough. Nothing happens at my apartment complex on Mondays. There are no lawnmowers, leaf blowers, or garbage trucks making noise. The kids are all at school. I can hear my kitten meowing and I can hear birds chirping. It is peaceful. I set up my Runkeeper, fill up my water bottle, put on my headphones, turn up the music and head off into the world at roughly 8:30.

There is not much traffic in the world when I get out there. Once I cross the bridge, I do not even hear cars anymore. 8:30 is perfect. It is before the stay at home moms and nannies take their kids to the park. It is before the school kids have recess. On my morning walks, I only encounter like minded people. I see people jogging, walking or bike riding. We acknowledge each other in a cheerful, but calm way as we continue on our separate paths, both actual paths and our own health journeys. Most of them are older than I. Everyone is at a different level of fitness, but we all appreciate the work the other is putting in. It is nice to feel that way. I no longer feel anyone judging me. I feel people looking at me and being happy for me that I am at least trying. Now, I can get this every day. What makes Monday special is the smell. Monday smells like freshly cut grass. The school has its grass cut on Monday morning. There are two houses on my path that are out cutting their lawns most Mondays. Freshly cut grass is one of my five favorite smells. it smells like newness. It smells like a new beginning. That is what Monday morning is for me. It is a new beginning. It is a chance to start fresh. I can take what happened last week, put it aside and do what I can to make this week better. I like to just walk on Mondays. I keep my pace up, but I like to be able to take everything in on Monday. I like to count my blessings that I have this serene time. I know next fall when I get a teaching job, that these moments will have to come earlier in the morning, so I appreciate the 8:30 workout while I have it.

Typically on Mondays I will walk 2.2 miles and then I will go to the gym at my apartment complex and do another 3 miles on the stationary bike. I like this routine. It gets my body doing different things for the week and it loosens everything up for me. Plus, it gets me a good sweat. It is nice to start the week with a good sweat. Last week I had to take some time off from a serious workout because of some lingering pain in my left knee, but after 3.1 miles of intense jogging and walking yesterday and this morning's workout. I feel good. I feel strong. I know I am pushing myself again because it burns. Over the last two weeks, the burn has been less because I was getting comfortable with my level of workout. It is time to up it again, and what better time than Monday. What better time than when the air smells like freshly cut grass. It smells like a time of starting over. It smells like rebirth. The grass gets fresh life and I get a fresh start.

I now have two different things I listen to on my workouts. My iTunes to not iPhone transfer is stupid, so I have limited options. I have Mumford and Sons and Skrillex. They both provide different motivations for me. When I listen to Skrillex I feel more determined. It is a more focused and intense workout. I am fully focused on the time it takes me to do my workout. I feel more competitive. There is a time for that, but that time is not Monday morning. Monday morning is for the spiritual awakening of Mumford and Sons. With Mumford, I take in my surroundings. I notice the two ducks chilling outside of the elementary school longing for an education. I notice the old man who walks with his little black dog almost every morning. I notice the massive truck with the bumper sticker telling me that God wants to talk to me about something, but will not tell me on what subject God wants to converse. I have dedicated a whole blog post to Mumford and Sons, so I will not belabor the point here, but Mumford and Sons feels perfect for a Monday morning.

I know most people agonize on Sunday nights about having to join the hectic world of employment on Monday mornings and I hope I will be that person soon enough, but for now, I love the calmness of Monday mornings. I love the slow roll out of bed, the stretching as I walk downstairs. I love the quiet of my apartment complex. I love the pace at which I walk. Mostly though, I love how Monday mornings smell in my suburban area walk. It reminds me that no matter what happens, I can always start over. I can always try again and work harder, or smarter, or faster. It tells me that last week is last week and this week I will conquer whatever conquered me last week. It reminds me that if I fail this week, next week I can do it again and I can succeed. There is a subtle transfixing power of Monday mornings right now.

Friday, April 12, 2013

A host of short random thoughts

First off, I have reached a frustrating place in my workouts. I have achieved a place where my mind is at one level and my body is at another level. Every morning I wake up and think I am going to do all of these things and run this fast for this long and my body is just not there yet. Early this week I was feeling sick and decided I would just do a short workout on the stationary bike and ended up doing 8 miles on it. It wore me out for two full days because my body was just not really ready for it. My body is still obese, but my mind is not obese anymore. It is a great thing in one aspect, but frustrating on another aspect. I love that I now no longer think that I cannot do things, that I am no longer hindered by my weight, but my body is still obese and it still hurts to push myself too much because I have all of this weight pushing down on my knees, ankles, shins, etc. I know I need to balance pushing myself the right amount and pushing myself to injury. I am working on it because my mind just wants to go go go.

Banana splits have long been my favorite dessert. Last April when I decided to get healthy, I knew they had to go. There was a summer, a particularly depressing summer, where I would make myself a legitimate banana split almost nightly and almost always at like 1 am. I knew denying myself them would be difficult, but I told myself when I got to 60 pounds (I once lost over 50 pounds and then stopped, but 60 would be a massive milestone for me) I would allow myself to have one. Well, I reached that goal and last weekend I allowed myself to have a banana split. NEVER AGAIN! Every single bite was incredible, but every single bite was later rejected by my body. It left me feeling so awful, and queasy and miserable that I know I cannot inhale that much sugar and/or dairy any longer. I am actually glad I did it. I needed to know that my body had in fact changed.

A few days ago I was talking to a regular customer who was telling me how difficult it had been for her to lose weight (buying a large soda was probably not helping) and I told her that I was going through the same things and that last year I lost 60 pounds. She seemed shocked and asked me what my secret was and I just told her exactly what I did. I cut out fast food, soda and most sweets, and started working out. She did not believe me. She thought I had to be taking something or had surgery or something. I tried to tell her that I just did it the old fashioned way, and that I was still doing it. I have not had any soda this calendar year and I have had fast food once this calendar year. I told her I was amazed at how much I lost right at first by just cutting out fast food and soda. Eventually she decided I was joking with her and she took her large soda and left. In my many years of trying to lose weight, I have done many many things that I thought would help me lose weight quickly. It was only last year when I realized it was not a sprint, that I have been able to have success.

One place where I am still struggling and it is always this way when working at a movie theater (the biggest reason I hate it), is in eating late. Often times I eat lunch at around 1:00 and do not get dinner until my break at 8:00 and then when I get off of work at midnight or around there, I am hungry. before, I would just stop off at Taco Bell or Carl's Jr, but that is not how I operate anymore. I have been having some luck being able to actually afford produce over the last few weeks, but this week, it just did not work with my budget. With that in mind, I need plan my budget better. I need to have carrots at home that I can snack on when I get home from work late at night. I need to avoid stopping at AM/PM for a 99 cent bag of chips or something like that. it is a big issue for me because working at a movie theater puts me back in the mind frame of staying up all night snacking, like I have done for so long in the past.

Monday, April 1, 2013

A year of better living!

While it is true that I began blogging in May of last year, April 1st 2012 was the date I started to look at myself and figure out how to be healthier in every aspect of my life. I started with my physical health, but realized quickly that my emotional and mental health was as important and that my entire health was connected to each individual kind of health. I have completed my first year of better living and I thought it would be a good idea to revisit the year and talk a bit about what I am planning to do in the upcoming year.

First off, I want to thank everyone who reads this blog, sends me messages of encouragement, likes my health related statuses, and especially those who share my struggles and confide in me their own struggles. The amount of support I have received has been overwhelming. I had no idea so many people cared. It has been fun, scary, awesome and tough to share the ups and downs of the year. I am excited that people still have interest in it a year later. I also have to publicly thank my amazing girlfriend Martina for knowing when I needed pushing and when I needed a hug and kind words. Having somebody who clearly loves and supports me no matter what is such an awesome feeling and it makes the tough days easier to navigate. There is, of course, also my best friend Erik to thank. His own life changes got my ass gear and our talks have really helped focus me. He is doing so many great things with his own health related issues and it inspires me on a daily basis. I have no idea if I would have been able to really stick this out without the constant support.

So what has happened in the last year? First of all, I lost 60 pounds. My goal was to lose 55 lbs this year and I lost 60. I am currently at the least heavy I have ever been in my adult life. I have at least 60 more to go, so I know it only gets tougher from here, but for the moment, I am going to celebrate losing 60 pounds in a year. The first few months when the weight was falling off, I thought I would reach my goal easily, but of course, things got tougher. There were months where I lost no weight, but a very important thing for me was that there was only one month, December, where I put weight on. 11 months I lost weight. It was an incredible feeling on the last day of every month to step on a scale and see the weight going down finally. Now, one of the best things I did over the year, was not obsess about the weight loss. I weighed myself one time a month and that was it. I took to that strategy at around month 3. It worked out so well because it kept my focus on big goals and not obsessing why one week I did not lose any weight. When you are my size, weight comes off easy at first, but it is impossible to maintain that kind of pace, so I wanted to not get down on myself when things were not going my way.

How did I do it? The short answer is hard work. I watched what I ate. I cut out things I love to give myself a chance at a longer life. In the last 12 months I have had less than 100 ounces of soda and in the last 3 months, I have not had any soda. I used to drink probably 100 ounces of soda a week. I cut out those pesky energy drinks that I used to down for breakfast and a late day snack. All of that sugar is gone from my diet. It was incredibly tough. Fast Food is always the biggest thing to stop eating when trying to lose weight. I think that I lost 30 pounds strictly from cutting down the fast food. I have only 5 fast food burgers in the last 12 months, none in the last 3 months. It requires me to think ahead and plan meals more regularly, but it has saved me money and has left me feeling much better as a person. I had no idea how sluggish fast food made until I stopped eating it on a regular basis. I have been eating a lot of chicken, a food I did not eat much at all until last year. I replaced ground beef with lean ground turkey. I started mixing in many more fruits and vegetables and going away from ice cream, cookies, brownies and candy. I still have a weakness for chips and popcorn, but I no longer douse my popcorn in salt. In fact, in cooking at home I stopped using salt altogether.

I started this journey with the idea that I would work out at least 4 days a week for 30-45 minutes. I would be lying if I stuck to this in a very strict fashion. There were weeks I did not work out at all because of injury or apathy. When you are only employed on a part time basis you have all of this time, but I am used to spending all of that time watching television or playing video games. I would end the day feeling worthless and like I had not accomplished anything. Now on days when I do not work, I can still watch television and play video games, but I like to go get a jog in, a long walk in, or ride a few miles on the stationary bike and when the day ends, I have accomplished something. It is kind of amazing the feeling you get from working out. It is this exhausted euphoria that leaves you invigorated, beat, motivated and just a bit on the right side of awesome. This year I ran for 10 minutes nonstop, then 15 minutes nonstop. I did a mile in under 14 minutes and now I am under 13 minutes for a mile. When the year started I could not ride the stationary bike for 10 minutes without stopping, now I can ride 5 miles in 20 minutes with a resistance of 5. I hiked this year for the first time. I rediscovered my love of swimming, tennis and riding a bicycle. I started to understand why people love the outdoors so much. I jogged through a neighborhood near my house this last week. I did CrossFit and did really well with it. I did push-ups! I did 10 push-ups! I impressed people who are hardcore fitness guys. I miss CrossFit but the gym we like does not offer classes at times that work for me anymore. I cannot wait to be able to afford a gym membership that has CrossFit. I cannot wait to go back to all of that sweat, pain and hard work. Even on my worst day, and I still have plenty, I can look at my workout and know I accomplished something huge!

But beyond all of the physical health, I am slowly starting to really get in touch with who I am. I know that sound eye-rolling ridiculous, but it is true. I look in the mirror and do not hate myself anymore. I can see a guy who is really trying to make better decisions. I see a guy who is capable of more than he ever gave himself credit for. I look at myself and I can see why people are rooting for me, why my family supports me through all of the stuff I have put them through, why my friends have always maintained that I deserve better and lastly why a beautiful smart awesome woman wants to spend her life with me. At some point during the summer of last year I noticed that I was much more comfortable in big group settings. I started to make a point to find people after shows to say hi instead of waiting for them to find me, if they wanted. I stopped thinking of myself as the guy people tolerated and started to think that people actually liked having me around. When I was out in the world, I no longer thought people were looking at me like I was some disgusting creature. I felt like a completely different person, but it was not easy to get there. There were a lot of nights of just sitting with myself and really thinking about roots of my problems. I had to face quite a number of ugly truths and I had to confront myself and actively look to make changes in who I was, who I let be close to me and how I talked about myself. In fact, until yesterday when I made a self-deprecating comment at work, it had been months since I really made a joke at my own expense. For me, that is a huge step in the right direction. I am still working on getting the rest of the toxicity out of my life, but I know I am doing so much better.

So what comes next? Year two starts today and with it come a whole new set of challenges. First off, I know that losing weight is only going to get tougher. I have set myself goals of working out 6 days a week for no less than 45 minutes. For now, it will mostly be cardio because I do not have access to a gym. I certainly have my own body, so there are certainly things I can do and I need to get back up on my squat, burpee and push up game. I also want to buy a basketball and rediscover my joy of hoops. I hope to hike more. I need to research places in the area for day trips to go hiking. I found that I very much enjoyed the hiking experience. There is still room for improvement with how I eat as well. Chips, forever a weakness of mine, have really got to go unless there is a special occasion like a big party. I can still better utilize vegetables big time. I need to limit my bread and cheese intake. Those are going to be tough because sandwiches are a staple of a poor man's diet. I guess I need to look into the lettuce wrap thing. Really, the only thing that is going to keep myself moving to a leaner and meaner version of myself is to push myself. I need to make sure that on the days when I do not want to get out of bed, that I work out even harder! My body is getting a bit more comfortable with the work outs I have now, so I know it is time to step it up just a bit. I recover faster these days, which means I can push myself harder.

However, I feel like my bigger challenges still come from the mental or emotional side. I am working on being more thankful and positive about things in my life. Currently, I am working on not complaining as much. It is such a burden to complain as often as I do and it does no one any good. Instead, I am working on finding solutions to the things about which I would complain. For example, I kind of hate my job. I know I am lucky to have a job, but it is mindless work. Over the last two weeks I have been trying harder to focus on doing the job the best way I can. I stopped complaining about the tasks and just started doing them. Time goes by faster, my attitude is better and my managers have commented on how much I have done recently. Two of my managers put in personal calls to the General Manager of another theater to recommend me for a promotion, and while I did not get it, the GM at the other theater wants me for the next assistant manager position he opens up. He really liked me. Sure, it is just a movie theater job, but I have decided to take pride in my work and I am already seeing changes . Taking pride in myself is going to be a big key in the next year. I want to be proud of the work I do. I want to be proud of the things I say and do. I am currently writing a short story and I want to finish a rough draft and be proud of myself for finishing. I think it is important for anyone to celebrate small changes in ourselves. It is my goal to notice when I am doing something I did not used to do.

This goes beyond just my health though. I want to take more pictures and remember this time of my life. Things are not exactly going well for me in my professional life, but I am happy and I want to remember that. I want to remember that Martina and I are surviving in poverty and we do not fight, we do not complain. We find humor in our situation and most of all, we find entertainment and activity all of the time. We know we can survive on an incredibly small budget, and that lets me know we will be even better when we have a regular budget. I want to go out and make memories with loved ones. Okay, this is maybe getting a bit too cheesy, so let me conclude by saying that I intend to make the next 365 days even better than the previous 365 days. There are times I think I am old and that my life is passing me by but that attitude is slowly changing. I know I still have a lot of life left and it is time to actually live it.

Monday, March 18, 2013

The hike up Dragoon Gulch

When Martina and I decided on Sonora for our Two year anniversary (to be honest, Living Social played a big part in that), we realized we had to figure out what to do. As we went through the things the official Sonora website had to do in the town, we saw there was a 2.5 mile hike that we could do. It is not really like us to seek out a hike, but we are both trying to get a hold of our health and we thought we would go for it. Last week Martina, Erik, Sara and myself went out in Sacramento and took a nice little hike, but it was not particularly strenuous. it was great fun, and it made me feel like hiking was something I could potentially be into, which was a dramatic change from my usual stance on the great outdoors. Ever since the great Half Dome debacle of my teenage days as a member of the Mormon Church, where we we hiked around for a few days, tried to sleep on the middle of a hill only to slide down roughly 7 feet during the night, got our packs all wet from having to wade in waist high water and I ended up with multiple bloody noses causing me to not even be able to attempt Half Dome, I have been not terribly fond of the idea of hiking.

Well, that was a lifetime ago. In my new life, I am trying everything. I thought I hated running, turns out I kind of enjoy it. The era of "nope" is gone. I am in the era of experiencing as much of the world as possible and hiking seems like the kind of thing world-experiencers(I know this is not a word)would be down to try. I do not have hiking shoes, but I do have my running/outdoor shoes. I am not sure what one typically hikes in, or what hiking type people carry around in their neat backpacks. I do not know anything about hiking. People take a lot of pictures, and look like they have not showered in a few days, and that is the extent of my knowledge. I typically think of hiking as camping to a whole other level and I have a deep seeded hatred for camping. The people in my life who enjoy hiking seem like perfectly reasonable human people, so it cannot be all crazy, right? Okay, can I just say this here: nature kind of freaks me out. There are things that grow in the wild that seem to exist just to make people itchy and red. Who has time for that nonsense? People like study that stuff. People know this tree from that tree and that plant from that plant. I am over here like, well that's a tree and it provides me shade when I want to read outside. That is where my basic knowledge of nature ends. Never mind that I got my wilderness survival Merit Badge, and a few other nature related Merit Badges at Boy Scout Camp. I also got a Merit Badge for like wood carving and other nonsense. What I mean to say is that I could not survive in the world if I was suddenly thrown into a situation where I had to. Nature is freaky plain and simple.

Okay, I have veered far away from sanity here. Allow me to reel myself in. Martina and I got ourselves to the general vicinity of Dragoon Gulch, which is the name of the series of trails we would be ascending and if we were lucky, descending. Before we began, we made the decision that we would take the hardest way up the hill. We were feeling confident after last week's hike and if I am being totally honest, I was a little cocky. I mean, I could climb up ANYTHING after tackling that area of Sacramento last week. I HAD THIS! We followed a series of arrows pointing us to the start of the trail and we headed off. It was all petty straight forward at first. The trails appeared to be fairly busy, but it was a gorgeous day, so that made a certain amount of sense. People were jobbing, walking, riding bikes and many people were out there with their dogs. It is a really stunning sight, but fires look pretty too and they do serious damage. I would not be fooled by the gorgeous scenery. I was still on the look out for plants that want to cause me pain. Eventually we reached our first decision. The path split into two ways, but they were not labeled as EASY and HARD. What were we to do? As luck would have it, a woman came through who could tell we were confused and told us which one was difficult and which one was not. The steep and strenuous path was shorter, but provided quite a work out. Ultimately we decided we would head up the steep way and down the other way.

It did not take very long on our way up the steep trail for me to rethink this entire endeavor! I was sweaty, breathing incredibly hard and my entire lower body was hurting. Wait, people do this for fun?? How is that even possible? I wanted to quit. As I thought about quitting I realized, I could not quit. On a hike, you have two options: Keep moving forward, or head back down. There is no quit on a hike. On the treadmill, I can easily just quit. I can hit stop and go home. On the side of the hill, I could not just sit down and quit. I could keep moving forward, facing my fears, conquering my self doubt and getting that picture at the top, or I could admit defeat and slink down the side of the hill, but I could not quit. With Martina's encouraging words, I knew I could not go back down. I had to press on, so on we went. As we conquered more of the hill, my heart was pounding about as hard as I can ever remember and Martina and I started talking about some of our health goals. I said a big one of mine was to get to a place where I was not winded walking up and down the stairs in our apartment. I realize there are people who can walk up or down a flight of stairs and not feel winded. I do not understand how that works. I have spent my entire life feeling winded and I realize that a big part of this journey is getting myself to a place where it takes serious actual activity to leave me winded. After two rest stops for me to catch my breath, Martina and I arrived at the top of the hill. I did it! I did something I had never really done before. Here was another thing I could hang my hat on over the last year. Of course, this was not really about making it up the side of a hill for a picture, although I got my picture. This was really about being in a place mentally where I felt like I could do it. I am sure a year ago or two years ago, I could have made it up the side of this hill, it is not like it is Mount Olympus or something, but I would have never BELIEVED I could have climbed it. I never would have attempted it. I would have just assumed I was too fat and never would have thought of it as something for us to do.



3 months into the year and I am doing many things I have never done before. I ran for 10 minutes nonstop, then I ran for 15 minutes nonstop. I walked over 3 miles last week, and in a week, I went from riding a bike 3 miles in 15 minutes to 4 miles in 15 minutes. This weekend I willingly hiked up a hill the most strenuous way to hike up it. As we drove up to the Vineyard for our wine tasting, we realized there were other places to hike and made note of them so we can go back! I am not saying I am going to train to be a legitimate hiking type person with the backpack and the nature knowledge, but I know that it is hard work that is fun and gives me a great work out. It allows me to look at something gorgeous while still being active. Many people might read this post and just think "duh" and that is perfectly fine. It probably is "duh" that hiking is fun. As someone who is perfectly content to stay inside and watch movies or read all day, this is not a "duh" situation. I have never loved the nature scene. I had a great time on Sunday and am definitely going to be looking to do more hiking in my life.

I have been at this for almost a year now and am learning so much about myself. I am still not happy with the physical change I see in myself. I see pictures of people who have lost as much weight as I have, and they look drastically different. I do not look drastically different. I look different yes, but it does not feel drastic, but I keep believing it will come. Where the change is drastic, it my attitude. I want to be out in the world now. I want to try new things. I want to say yes and I am saying yes. On the side of that hill, never once did I think someone was looking at me and judging me for being a fat guy breathing heavy. Never once did I think someone was looking at me and thinking I was not going to make it up the hill. This is a huge deal for me. The only thing I can do now, is keep looking forward and finding the next challenge!

Monday, March 4, 2013

Feeling the burn

After a nearly two week hiatus from working out due to injury, I am back and better (read: more sore) than ever. For some reason I thought my first workout back should be the single most intense workout of my entire existence as a human person on this planet of Earth.Click here to find Lucas Blair's Cardio Fat Blast website. Lucas is the trainer who concocted this insanity and last summer when I saw him posting things about leading this workout, I was curious, but I was scared. When I saw that he was going to be leading classes in Sacramento, again, I was curious, but scared. I knew I was not ready for that. The problem was, if I talked myself out of it, I would never be ready for it. As I have been documenting my journey all over the interwebs, it did not surprise me when Lucas reached out to be and told me he would love to see me in class. Without any excuses, I found myself in his class yesterday morning.

After 11 days off, any workout is going to be tough, but after 15 minutes of Lucas' high energy, high intensity workout, I was ready to completely collapse. He tells you to modify and to go at your own pace at spots, but the music is loud and uptempo and everyone there is battling, that you want to battle as much as you can. My biggest fear going in was that everyone else in class would be in incredible shape, but that was not the case. One person was in excellent shape and the rest were people like me, just trying to get into shape. There was this ease of tension when I realized that. However, I believe even really in shape people would have to battle in this workout, it is that intense. If I am being completely honest I did not make it through the entire workout. At about the half way point my stomach started turning and I threw up. I came back and managed to do the abdominal workouts, but once they got back up, I had to throw up again. When the hour was over, I went and threw up everything I had ever eaten in my entire life. If that sounds awful, trust me it isn't. I worked out so hardcore that I threw up, but I came back and tried again. And even though I was beat, and hungry, sweaty and more exhausted than I can ever remember being, I felt GREAT! I have a baseline with which to track my progress with his class. Yes, I definitely plan on attending again. I cannot make the next class, but for the entire month of April, I am planning on going and I would love to see all of you out there. (no Lucas is not paying me to say this, I just really had that great of a time.)

One of the things I love about a really good workout, is how well I sleep the night after it. I have been struggling with sleep lately due to the anxiety of money/job and a really good workout makes it so easy to fall asleep at night, which makes it easier to get up in the morning and get a good workout in. The entire thing is connected. If I eat well, workout, and get a good night's sleep, I feel better. For the last 11 days, I have not felt that great. Of course a big part of that was the fall down the stairs just hurting me, but it was more than that. I missed the workout. I missed running on the treadmill. I missed the feeling of accomplishing a good workout. So on Sunday I might not have finished the whole workout but I branched out, did something that scared me and found that it was not that scary. In fact it was invigorating and energizing.

This morning I set out to do a light workout because I realized I probably should ease myself back onto the treadmill. I did a 15 minute mile doing intervals of jogging and walking and it felt good. I was two minutes behind my current pace, but I felt good and I know I need to work myself back up, but after the 15 minutes, I did not feel done. I felt like there was more I had to do, so I got on the stationary bike. I do not use the bike as much these days, so I was curious as to how it would go. It felt so good to get moving on that thing. I destroyed personal bests and when it was over I felt so good, I decided to come back to my living room and do some modified CrossFit exercises. I am sore as ever right now, but I also feel great. I want to eat great for the rest of the day and just enjoy this feeling.

There is so much going on inside my brain as I deal with bills and trying to find a full time teaching job for next year and even trying to figure out where Martina and I will be living in the summer or fall, but one thing I can control is my health. This is the time when it is at its most crucial because stress is typically when I allow things to spin out of control. I am a stronger person now and am finding that a solid workout is way better for stress relief than a Double Western bacon Cheeseburger with a large Chili Cheese Fries and an extra large Dr. Pepper.

Thursday, February 28, 2013

My father, the hero

I should warn any of my readers that this post will be straying a bit from my usual health related posts, but it will tie into my journey, so please allow me this little side venture.

Growing up I always knew I had great parents. Sure, I would complain about them the way any kid/teenager did, but I knew deep down that I got lucky. In high school I had friends who would come over to my house when I was not home in order to hang out with my mom and talk to her. Why? Because my mom is intrinsically cool, but more than that, she was an open minded non judgmental mom. She never talked down to people who were younger. That is something I did not realize when I was at that age, but as I enter my almost mid-30s I see it now. One of the things for which I was often praised on evaluations from my mentor teachers and university supervisors was that I never talked down to any student. One of the reasons, I think, that kids and teenagers gravitate towards me is this concept that I do not talk down to people just because they are younger than I am. I treat a kid's problems the same way I would an adult and I always ask kids how their day is going and I treat it like it important because to that kid, it is. I learned that from my mom. I learned so much from my cool parents that I wish I could back to being a teenager and fully appreciate what they did for me. My parents loved having my friends over. One New Year's Eve my parents had all my church friends over after New Year's Eve Dance and made pancakes and bacon for all of them. I certainly did not ask for it, but my parents wanted my friends to know that my house had a sense of community. I probably never told them how much I appreciated that.

This entry however, is going to focus on my father. It can be a post about all of the great dads out there. I know plenty, but as I struggle to get healthier, I have no better role model to look towards than my own father. My dad has always been a goal oriented man. He is a man with a plan and no one sticks to plans better than my father. I grew up watching him sit down on Sundays and write letters because his goal one year was to write more letters. So he wrote missionaries, family members, and probably various other people. No one has ever stuck to their goals better than my father. I do not know how many years ago it was that he decided to get into shape, but the minute he did, he never looked back. However, it was not just about losing weight. My dad started running 5K's and now has branched out to half marathons and who knows what he has left in store for him. I hardly get to see my dad these days, but one thing I have noticed over the last few years is a change in his attitude towards his own life. My dad has always had excitement for things, but they were reserved for the things his kids did. He would get excited about my opening nights, Travis' point total on the basketball court, Jackson's stat line for baseball and Carly's stat line in softball or volleyball. He would get excited for church events he would help organize or work outings to the Giants games or Waterworld. However, in the last few years he has started to get excited at his own accomplishments. He texts me the times of his runs, not because he is bragging but because he is proud of himself for setting these goals and achieving them. My father is not a proud man, in fact, he might be the most humble man I know, so to him get excited about something he has done, fills me with such happiness and motivation.

I know one day I am going to run a 5K or something with my dad. He will probably beat me, but that is something I am aiming for. My dad is the most supportive man I know. He has supported all four of us kids in anything and everything we have ever wanted to try. He wants us to be happy. My dad sat through rap concerts with Travis and I because he knew we wanted to go and he wanted us to be happy. He has supported me in my most trying times and now that I am working on getting healthier, his support grows all of the time. I am not sure how old I was when I realized that my dad was my hero. It probably happened later in life than it should have, but I truly am a lucky person. My dad is kind and hilarious and motivated and hard working and he leads by example. If my 50+ year old dad could get into shape and run races why couldn't I? Well, I can. Things are slow right now after a fall down the stairs and some oral surgery, but I know that I have my goals in place and when I am physically healed, I will get back on that treadmill and back in that gym and work towards my goal because Hadley's do not quit.

I have learned so many great things from my dad, but not because he was telling me to watch him and act like him, he just did it. As I start to think about family and future, I always wonder what kind of dad I will be. I do not worry about being a good father because I had such an excellent role model. In sports my dad wanted to win, yes, but as a coach he practiced things like fair play and gave every player a chance to play minutes. He wanted to make sure everyone was involved. He was never once too busy to play catch with me, or shoot hoops with me, or run passing routes with me, or any of my siblings. He was home for dinner most nights and we ate as a family most nights until there were teenage jobs, and extracurricular activities to get to. Even now he drives to California to see my plays and see Travis and Carly. His kids are his life, but now he has this other part of his life that excites him and it excites me to know that I still have my own life to look forward to. Every day I wake up with a choice to be happy or not and for some reason, often times thinking about my dad makes me want to be happy. It wants me to be better. I want to be the kind of guy who whose kids' friends' think to come to if they need an adult to talk to.

Through his actions, my dad taught me how to treat a woman correctly, he taught me the importance of date nights, and laughter. I learned the value of being with the family when things are rough and when they are great. I understand why family game nights are important. I learned fair play and team work and I learned that even my smallest accomplishments are worth celebrating. However, in this journey to get healthy I have realized that I learned the importance of goals and in the last few years I have learned that it is never too late to change you life and make it the best life it can be.