Reporting Week 2 Post Competition

Another week of post competition and I am realizing that I need to give myself a harder deadline to reach my next goal. The past two weeks I have increased my exercise but I also ate more. I am noticing that I have been eating kind of in a hurry and that is making it easy to eat more than I should. I have to readjust the pace of my meals. The other thing that I need to do is plan my desserts. Every week seems to have one or two nights that I know I am going to see sweets on the menu, usually not at our house. If I plan it in I am usually okay. If I keep my portions small it does not kill my over all plan.
The mental click that I have to work with is when I go to my mom's house for family get togethers. Family get togethers usually mean munchies. Thank goodness this does not happen more than once a month... for the most part. And even though I ate more than I usually do I filled up on mostly the veggie tray to start with.
Moving more does not bother me nearly as much as it used to. The ability to move more is the reward for moving more when you did not want to. This week I jogged 4 days, Tuesday was my favorite day because I jogged 2 miles while on vacation in Wellington, Utah, did Yoga 1 day I swam for an hour one night, and I got to hike on Saturday. Hiking was incredible, it was rewarding, and a reminder of why I want to keep doing cardio. It gave me a glimpse at the freedoms I have been recapturing. I am excited to see the other incidental freedoms that I have created for myself by doing what I did not want to do.
This week I thought I might have gained weight again, but not being in town on Saturday morning kind of made it hard to know one way or the other. My scale at home makes me feel like I might be back on track but I have not been on the official scale so hopefully next week I can post my numbers again. I feel like my body is going through some major adjustments so we shall see where it is taking me. I have increased the use of weights when I am at home watching T.V. and sitting on my exercise ball.
So, even though I felt like my eating was out of control, mostly because of the two vacations and Easter, I look back and I think I did pretty good. My exercise felt off, but an honest evaluation says I moved more just in different ways and different places. I may not have sweated as much, but as long as I am staying active and doing what I can I will count that as a plus.
Eating Less and Moving More is bringing me new freedoms I could not imagine only 3 months ago. I am excited to see what else I can do this summer.
Keep on keeping on. I apologize for no numbers the past couple of weeks. Saturdays don't seem to work for weigh ins anymore so I am either going to have to change the time or the day of my weigh ins, but I will keep you posted.  

Crashing Is Part Of Life

Every once in awhile we hit a wall. We just feel like throwing in the towel and giving up. But something inside us whispers the slightest encouragement giving us the strength to keep going. Sometimes it just happens. We just have to pick ourselves up and remember why we started in the first place. All the sweat and pain we go through will pay off if we just don't quit. So you scraped your knee. So someone hurt you. So, you pulled a muscle. All are good reasons to quit, but if you do you lose all that you really want.Those things are going to happen, accept it and stand back up and keep moving forward. If we allow our emotions to rule our lives we will end up in a heap upon the floor. Sometimes you have to do those things you do not want to do and tell your emotions to take a back seat. When you hit that wall you have to tell it to move. And if it doesn't then you have push through it. Do not let it stand in your way. Peace and Happiness awaits you on the other side. 

Reporting Week 1 Post Competition

I have given myself a week off. Not completely off but I did not expect to lose this week. I did not weigh in on the "official" scale this week, but next week I will start anew.
This week was DeeAnn's second week on here Belly Fat diet. I am not following it completely, but as she is on it I am somewhat on it as well. Some of the menu calls for more than I can eat now a days. However, we had a couple of bumps in the road. A Thursday Wedding reception, was by the biggest bump, but in reality it was not off my "diet" it was just a temporary concentration of sugar. :) I enjoyed it very much and knowing that I can do it again makes it easy to not need more for a while.
Tonight we went to Ruby Rivers for dinner with Joel and Joy Nelson. We ordered the steak and coconut shrimp, and we split it. It was extremely filling even cutting it in half.
As far as moving more I have to say that I did not do very well toward the end of the week, but next week will promise to be different. At the beginning of the week DeeAnn started jogging so I spent my time with her and I will call that extremely effective. With school out I wont have to take the kids to school. So I will be doing a little extra. I need to reach my 50 lbs lost mark in the next 2 weeks. So we will continue to show the progress. Sorry, about no pic this week. I had an early Convention this morning and was unable to get to the scale. I doubt that there was a loss this week, but I will guarantee it next week. 

Knowing The Signs Of Our Times

We have signs that help us maintain order and civility. We have signs that help minimize the danger. We have signs that give us information. And we have signs that let us know where we are at. Some signs have words and some signs have symbols.Each sign as a role to play in making our life a little easier. But we must also be aware of the the signs that are posted to distract us from our destination.

Learning to read God's signs can help us see past the distractions of life and keep us on course. Knowing the signs of the times will help us minimize danger, maintain order and civility, and not only helps us know where we are, but who we are.

Thinking Beyond Your Own Comfort...

There are some subjects that make me nervous talking about. Not that I don't have my own opinion or that I am afraid to share it, but that I am not exactly sure how to share it with the reverence that it deserves. One of those subjects is homosexuality.

I do not understand homosexuality, but that does not mean that I am completely ignorant. It just means that I have to take some things on faith until my understanding can be turned into a perfect knowledge. Until then I have come to separate the homosexual, someone with same gender attraction, and homosexual acts. I do not believe that being a homosexual is a sin. That to me would go against everything I know about God. I believe God loves all his children despite their challenges. That being said I believe that homosexual acts, just as any other sexual acts outside the bonds of marriage are a sin. I also believe that man's attempt to redefine marriage does not redefine God's law of marriage nor His definition.

It would be unfair of me to condemn a man for his challenges, when I suffer from my own. Nor is it fair for me to assume that my challenges are greater than anyone else's, so I won't. I was introduced to a blog that I would like to share with you. It is www.gaymormonguy.blogspot.com. This man discusses the challenges he is facing as a practicing member of  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I am grateful for his willingness to share his insights into overcoming temptation and his feelings on some very tough issues that he faces on a daily basis. In principle I believe that we might all relate to him with our own challenges.

Sometimes we have to look beyond our own comfort to understand our own faith and when we are willing to do this our own faith is increased and our ability to love is increased. And that my friends is what life is all about.

Ignorance breads fear and anger that leads to hate and violence, which will destroy our faith. We must look past our own comfort for understanding so that our faith may be confirmed.

A New Beginning- The Next Time You See Me......

Well the contest has come and gone and now it is time to renew my commitment. As I started this competition I realized that I would have to make some changes that I could live with, or I would end up right back where I started from. So, though the competition is over the journey is just begun. My next goal is to get to 220lbs and then evaluate whether or not to go lower. I weighed 220 as a senior in High School, but when I am done I will probably be a lot more firm than I was in High School. So we shall continue reporting in as I learn along the way....

This morning DeeAnn and I got up and together we started a new chapter in our lives. As we dawned our shoes and a our sweat jackets we stretched, walked out the door, and we started jogging together. I have never been so proud of my wife as I watched her struggle past her pain and jogged her first 1/2 mile. I then jogged another half mile with DeeAnn walking/jogging behind me.

The greatest thing I have learned in this contest is that I could do it. I don't need a gym membership, nor do I need a nutritionist or a trainer. What I did need was the will to start. Once I had the will to start then I needed the hope of finishing. Another thing I learned was that God has given me information to prepare me for this very journey and my bet is that when you make your decision to do the same you will begin to remember things that will help you as well. Mental clicks, are those ideas, ah has, or light bulbs that suddenly make things make sense, and will help you solidify your commitment to yourself.

Making myself accountable to my friends on facebook did two things. First it created an expectation of success in myself and in others. And second, it set me up to be encouraged, because I know my friends. Encouragement gave me the energy to do a little bit more than I thought I could, because deep inside I knew that it was giving inspiration and encouragement back to my friends.
As you lose weight you begin to realize the freedoms that you gave up by allowing yourself to get in such poor health. You also begin to respect yourself for doing what you know you should. Is there a value you can put on that? I sure can't.

I still feel that stressing out about weight will kill you faster than the weight itself, but certainly the stress of the weight you carry will kill you. So, don't stress about it, just get up off the couch and start Moving More and Eating Less. Find out for yourself what it means to be free of the emotional crap you are literally carrying with you. It is time to get out and see more of what God has given us by Eating Less and Moving More. Don't Give Up on Yourself!

Eating Less and Moving More and More. 

Becoming Physically what You already already are Mentally.

Reporting in Week 12- The Final Judgement

Before and After
I am The Biggest Loser 

This is the final week of the contest. However it is not the final week of my journey. What started as a fun competition has turned into a life changing experience. From having a hard time walking up stairs to jogging 5 miles without stopping this week has given me the confidence that I can do whatever I want to push myself to do.
I am not a health guru and I can not say what I have done is "technically" correct, but I truly believe that if you listen to that voice inside of you it will tell you what you need to do to get started. It doesn't take much, but it will ask you to do a little more than you think you can. In my case it asked me to give it 10 minutes and I answered the challenge. I have had my struggles and in reading my blog you may see those struggles, but in the end I have been able to push through and conquer myself.
We will begin our report on Saturday this week. With General Conference comes some traditions that might have spelled danger for me. After Priesthood Session my brothers and I have a tradition of going to Dairy Queen for ice cream. I happen to like the Pecan Mudslide. However, this time I ordered a small Hawaiian blizzard substituting banana for strawberry, I ate only half of it. On Sunday we have breakfast together, biscuits and gravy, french toast, bacon, eggs, fresh squeezed orange juice, and fruit. Normally this is a challenge but this year I took one of each and ate more fruit...okay I ate more than one piece of bacon, but the protein was necessary for my workouts this week.
Monday started out with a mile jog. It was Tuesday that I found out how close the race really was so I jogged 2 miles in the morning with my sauna suit on. After work I sent DeeAnn home with our van leaving 5 miles between me and home. The clouds were rolling in for our next storm so I jogged the 5 miles without stopping it took me just over an hour and at the end of the jog I continued my traditional 75 yd sprint. That I felt was a turning point. On Wednesday I dawned the sauna suit and jogged my 2 miles. That was probably the hardest 2 miles I have jogged yet. At work I worked my abs pretty hard on my exercise ball. On Thursday morning I jogged the 2 mile rout again with my sauna suit. On Friday I was going to treat this day as a last chance opportunity and take half a day off of work, but circumstances did not allow it. I ended up doing the full 3rd week Biggest Loser Yoga with my sauna suit on. I was going to jog as well but weather was against me. So, when I came home from work an opportunity to run opened up and I jogged my 2 miles before heading to the West Valley Rec Center to have some fun with the family in the pool. I swam 4 or 5 laps and did some misc. exercises along with playing in kiddy pool with the boys. Saturday I was unable to jog again, but I dawned the sauna suit and did the Biggest Loser Cardio Max with my buddy Bob. I tried to go through the second work out but I was completely drained at the end of the first. I thought I would try the Biggest Looser Yoga to finish my work out, but I got through the warm ups and I had no ability to balance. My legs were done.
This week my 2 mile jogs were almost harder mentally than my 5 mile jog. The 5 mile jog was harder to start and easy to finish, while the 2 miles were easy to start but harder to finish. I went through more teeshirts this week and have never sweated so much except maybe during High School two-a-days in the August heat.
My goal was to lose 6lbs that would make it a 2 percentage loss and I figure that would be pretty hard to beat at any level. Funny thing was I kept thinking that I weighed in at 260 lbs last week. Mentally I was already there. So when I weighed in I was pleasantly surprised with my second biggest weight loss since week number one. So the finally weigh in....

Final Weigh ins 254.4 lbs making my total
weight loss for 12 weeks 46.4 lbs
Eating Less and Moving More
Becoming Physically what I already am Mentally! 

Flirting With Temptation

Flirting with temptation is like seeing how close you can get to a fire before you get burned. The premise of your experiment is designed that you burn yourself. Not too smart when you look at it that way, is it?

Sometimes we have to learn the hard way, but more often than not we can look around us and make our choices based on observation. A scientist uses rats to experiment on because he knows that what he is doing could be harmful. Yet we seem to know that somethings are harmful to ourselves and we do it anyways. 

When we think we are the exception we simply become another statistic.  There are no exceptions when we deal with the devil. If we want to be the exception we should strive to be exceptional.

Divorce Is No Savior

When our hopes and dreams of a happily ever after are shattered by the nightmarish aspects of reality, where do we turn for help? When sickness enters our marriage, whether physical, emotional, spiritual, or financial, where do we look for healing? If divorce is necessary, are we looking for divorce to save us?


While divorce is necessary at times, if we look for it to be our savior, we may find that it is anything but our savior. Divorce may break our legal bond. However, if we have children, it does not release us from our common responsibility of parenting. And we will still have to work together in raising those children. Divorce only complicates that responsibility.

Divorce is a great gamble, sometimes it is necessary to protect our children or ourselves from physical or mental harm. However we must measure the consequences of staying verses the consequences of leaving. Often we want to ignore the consequences that we may face on the other side of divorce. Sometimes we may benefit from the divorce, but it may be at the expense of our children. It is hard to measure the damage our children experience when we seek divorce for our own peace.

Is divorce our savior? No. Can it bring healing? No. Divorce has no power to heal. Divorce has no power to alleviate our pain. There is only one source of healing and that is through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It is only through him that we can begin our healing process. Often times we look at the source of our pain as being our spouse, and by getting rid of them we can get rid of our pain. However the actual pain is within us, and when they are gone we can no longer blame them, but we still have the pain. And the danger is in thinking, they are the only one who needs to repent and call on the atonement to change.

There are certain phrases that may expose the reality of who we have chosen as our savior. Phrases such as; "I just need to get away from them so I can heal" or "I just need to get divorced so I can move on with my life,"  then we may need to ask ourself who our savior is? The legal action of divorce is not that difficult, it is a signature on a paper and a declaration of divorcement. The consequences however, are not so simple.

To choose Christ as the Savior of our marriage is not easy, it requires more than physical work. It requires our faith, our forgiveness, our patience, our willingness to try one more time than we may think we can. It will require all we have to submit to the will of God. But in the end we will become a better, happier person whether our marriage works or not. And if our marriage does not work we can honestly say we have done everything possible. And that will help in the healing process.

If divorce is needed to save ourselves or our children from harm then we must do what we have to do. But, if we need healing, we can not turn to divorce. We must turn to God and through the Atonement of Christ we will find the strength to be healed.

When is it okay to get divorced? I can't say. But I can say this, I truly believe God would like to heal your marriage before he accepts your divorce. 

Reporting Week 11

This week was good. Sunday was Fast Sunday and we participated in a Break-the-fast at the church. I think potlucks are good to have once in awhile. The hard part is portioning things out. However, I feel that my new attitude toward food is working for me. I do not starve myself. I am conscious of calories, but not obsessed by them. I pay more attention to how I feel as I am eating. I never have eaten a ton of junk food, but I have cut back considerably. I use to drink a can or 2 of soda per day. I don't do that anymore. Water is good too me and good for me. I am not afraid to drink a soda once in awhile, but I can't think of why. We as a family are eating better, not a real big change in menu, but have added a few more vegetables to our plates.

Moving more has come to mean more in that I am realizing that you have to mix things up or not just move more, but move in more different ways. Thus far in my journey I have done cardio, Tai-Chi, exercise ball, yoga, upper body, lower body, abs, swimming, walking, and jogging as an arsenal of methods to move more. I still have other methods that I think I will explore. As I get lighter my ability to move in different ways increases. I do not have money for a gym membership so I am doing this all on my own. So, if I can do it just about anybody can do it with a little self motivation. I am not generally a self motivated kind of guy so it does not take a lot if you focus on the feeling of being healthier. I look forward to hiking this summer.

As I have watched myself melting in the mirror I can see the vision of what I saw from the beginning happening. As I shed pounds I have found that I have lost more than weight, I have lost some bad habits along the way. I have also lost some poor self images that I have created for myself. There is a lot of work still to go, but I am beginning to see myself as capable of more than I thought I ever could be before.

This week my primary form of exercise was jogging. It started off slow with a .5 mile jog, but increased everyday until Saturday when I jogged 3miles without walking and at the end of each run this week I ended by running the last 75 to 100 yards. I thinking that I might be able to enter a 1/2 marathon by Fall of this year.

This week I also actually added sleep as part of my routine. I set 10:00pm as my goal and made it to bed before 10:30 nearly every night. I still had a hard time waking up in the morning, but I felt better all day long.

Some of the benefits I have found so far. I don't huff and puff walking up stairs. I can touch my toes without interference. I can tie my shoe while standing up. My asthma has decreased significantly. I can get closer to my wife when I hug her :) I can fit in clothes that I have not been able to wear for a long time. In fact, I may have to go shopping soon. I feel like healthier. I feel more capable of dealing with things more often. I feel younger, more agile, and limber. I have more energy, and I sleep better.

262 lbs still dropping.
That makes my running total 38 lbs lost since January 15th of 2011

Eat Less, Move More. Becoming Physically what you already are Mentally.