Blog: Gotta give God credit

Today I was clearing locked texts from my phone, and I came across one that reminded me of something significant that happened in 2012. It was something that I failed to acknowledge to anyone except my wife.

In January or so 2012, God "told me" that we were going to be making a certain amount in thousands per year by the end of 2012. I disregarded it, because it seemed completely unrealistic at the time (and why would God care about this anyway?). Yet, in late November, I realized that it had happened, down to the very thousandth dollar. It's amazing. I still don't know exactly why this happened, but I think it was given to me as a faith-building experience.

Along with this, God has given me a sense of urgency to take advantage of the position I am in now, using it for good and for long term considerations. I hope I am not disappointing.

I hope what I say here in closing isn't taken as "tooting my own horn", because I'm not. I'm thankful that God gave me the ability to handle finances and to make decisions like this one: Amy and I started our marriage paying $525 plus utilities per month for rent; when we started making more money we downgraded to $450 per month. Now, in an even more blessed position, we are downgrading again to $350 per month. That is $175 per month less than when we got married three years ago. I love it.

When most people start making more money, they buy their dream house or whatever. Instead, thank God, we're just looking to be more frugal. :)

Blog: White and blue

In contemplation of the future, I was inspired to make white and blue the color scheme for 2013 as I reload and go hard in my efforts to get healthy again.  A couple of other changes:

Weigh-ins will now occur on Tuesdays, with the first occurring on January 1, 2013.  This will set the baseline weight going into 2013.

Daily calorie totals will no longer be posted.  That ship of motivation has sailed and it's time to move on to something else.

My goal/expectation is simply this: any week with less than 1 pound of weight loss will be chalked up as a failure.  It is going to be the year of honesty, and there will be no excuses.  The number on Tuesdays will be the number.  It won't matter if I had a large meal the night before, if something strange is happening in my body, or if I got no sleep.  The number is the number.  It should balance out the following week.

Weigh-ins will be posted in this format: "Week 1: -1.1", "Week 2: Failure", and so on.  Other non-weekly posts will be made as follows: "Blog: The gym tonight".

It's going to be no nonsense.  I'm just going to get healthier and that'll be what I do.  There's no need to be fancy or cute about it.  It's my job.

See you on Tuesday, January 1, with the 2013 starting weight.

+1

I weighed in this morning at 217.8 pounds, a gain of 1.0 pounds from last week.

Daily calorie totals for the next week will be posted here.

Holding serve

I weighed in this week at 216.8 pounds, a change of 0.00 pounds from the last weigh-in. This is slightly disappointing given that I thought I had a really good week, but, again, it's December and I can't complain about holding steady.

Daily calorie totals for the next week will be posted here.

What's going to happen? (And Top Songs of 2012!)

The "holiday season" as we call it is here and with it comes a heck of a lot of challenges in terms of eating. Counting calories is hard because there are extracurricular eating opportunities popping up everywhere. Willpower can be low because it's the end of the year and you have a voice inside your head telling you it's OK to party a bit. And anytime you have a lot of new life circumstances to go along with it, it's not made any easier.

I find myself discouraged today because I have a substantial appetite but a small calorie budget. This is going to be a rough week, I know it; yet the need to make a down payment on the rest of the month is blaring like a siren in my brain. It's a conflict, it is, and I am unhappy. What would make me happy in the short term is going out of the house right now and downing a huge hot breakfast. But instead I'll choose not to, and I'll have something like a 230-calorie pack of breakfast biscuits instead in an attempt to make a down payment that will more than likely fail anyway. That is the challenge. What will make me happy long term is posting a losing number on this blog; the challenge is prioritizing that over daily satisfaction. I'll be honest; anytime I find myself in a situation like this (new job, and probably a new home in the next couple of months), eating is the last thing I want to worry about, and I tend to make sure I'm satisfied in that regard because the new job is so stressful. I don't know how to deal with that.

I am deathly afraid of gaining weight during the holidays. More so than that, I am afraid of admitting that I gained weight. I am going to do my best day by day (and I'm not going to bake a bunch of cookies, which kills me!), but one thing I haven't learned yet is how to deal with life when all you want to do is eat. Ugh. I'm so ashamed of this and I really want to succeed. I don't feel strong enough. Or, I don't feel that my stomach is small enough. I don't know. You can see the conflict there. On the one hand I'm beating myself up, and on the other hand I'm saying, "It's natural. You can't kill yourself over this. You need to do what you do and let the chips fall." I'm a mess.

Be that as it may, here are the top songs of 2012 via a Spotify playlist (they are in order to the best of my ability): Top Songs of 2012

Weigh-in delayed until next week.

Due to some things happening with me that I know will skew this week's weigh-in, I'm postponing until next week. By then, everything should be normal and it should be an accurate number.

Daily calorie totals for the next week will be posted here.