Day 12 Max Phase (The Power of Goals)

Day 12

2 ½ Years ago I sent an email to the Army National Guard expressing my interest in joining. A short time later I received a call from someone at the National office of the Army National Guard and they asked me a series of questions to pre-qualify me for service. The last two questions that were asked were, “How tall are you?”, and, “How much do you weight?” I gave my answers and then she said in a sympathetic tone, “I’m sorry but you are not within the height/weight specifications to be considered for joining the military.” I was speechless, because I thought that there wasn’t that much weight that I could lose. “Well, where would I have to be?” I asked. “Within 15 lbs. of you target weight which is 183.”

After I hung up the phone the realization came to me that I would have to lose close to 70 lbs. before they would even consider me. I thought, “I just lost a job opportunity because I was too fat.” The sad part about it was that I didn’t think that I had that much to lose. I thought it was all muscle. I assure you it wasn’t. It bothered me that I couldn’t have a specific job because I was too heavy. I made a goal, and a change. The change was I would give up soda and run every day. The goal was that I was going to drop 10 pounds. My only regret is I didn’t put a time constraint on it. That would have given me more motivation.

Every morning when I would come home from work I would be dead tired but I would get dressed in my running clothes and jog out the door at about a 10 mile pace for about 1.5 miles. I have to tell you I hated running. I was exhausted from having worked the night before and most of the days I didn’t want to leave the house, but I had a goal. I wanted something that I couldn’t have because of my fitness level and lack of discipline. One morning as I ran around the school block, I passed a group of kids playing and one started to mock me by chanting, “Run, Tubby, Run!” I wanted to stop and strangle his scrawny little neck and then walk home in shame and frustration. But I just kept running. The first reason I didn’t stop was I didn’t want to go to jail. The second reason was I wanted to prove him wrong. From that day on whenever I wanted to stay home and be lazy or stop in the middle of my run and walk home, I would think to myself, “Are you going to let that little punk be right today? Are you going to be too fat to join the military today?” The answer was almost always, “NO!” Steadily over the next weeks and months I slowly worked myself into 4 to 6 miles a day.

That is the power of a goal. That is the power of determination you need to have. I didn’t know what I was missing by being out of shape. I didn’t know the energy that I was missing out on. I thought it was just normal for adults to be worn out and have energy or lung capacity to chase their kids on the playground. That is not normal! I had deceived myself so much to think that I only had maybe 20 lbs. to lose. The truth was that, I was 90 lbs. over weight. The truth was I was living below my potential. If you feel this same way right now, make a goal. Make one fitness goal and one nutrition goal. The key in goal making is, make it simple and measurable. Changes that you make to accomplish the goal should be small, simple and measure able. For example, “I’m going to give up Soda for good.” That is a small change that over a course of months could have a huge impact, depending on how much you drink. Avoid make huge changes. I’m not saying you can’t make them stick it’s just been my experience that a person can change for only a short time, if it’s too big.

I know you can do this. You may look at this as a hard thing, but just like my daughter learned yesterday, “You can do hard things!” Now go out there and act. It will make you feel big and strong. Remember small changes while bring great results if done consistently.

Day 11 Max Phase (Participate in Group Events)

Day 11

Today was a really fun day, and those are the kind of days you want when developing good habits for fitness and nutrition. My daughter and I ran in a race that goes through our home town. Most races that you sign up for have a fun run for kids with no entry fee. Race organizers do this so that kids learn the importance of exercise and so those kids as they grow up will continue to run in their races. If you plan on entering any races, which I recommend, and your kids what to participate, which I also recommend, the fun run will probably be where they should start. My daughter wanted a medal, which they don’t give out for the fun run so we ran the 6.2 mile race.

In preparation for the race she and I hydrated as you should before competing. As you can see in the pictures I also took a camelback so that we would have water throughout the race. When running with kids you want to have water for them. Most adults can run that distance without much water but kids really should have that water and it will cut down on them complaining to you though out the race or training run whichever the case may be. I also took a few supplements that add in the muscle accepting and increased volume of Oxygen as you work out. If you want to know what they are, send me a comment and I will let you know.

I can tell you from this experience that running a 10k with a 6 year is an exercise is patients more that muscular endurance. We both finished the 6.2 mile race and I was extremely proud of her determination and hard work. She finished 4th in the female runners under 20 years old category. I on the other hand finished close to the last of my catergory, but I will finished last everytime if it teaches my children to be active throughout their life.

Races like his help remind me that other people are doing the same thing I am. Some of the people are there to win the race and that is great for them but I am not at that level. I go because it gives me a goal, something for which to prepare. I saw the biggest change in my daughter. Throughout this last week as we trained and she frequently whined and sometimes cried because she didn’t want to run anymore. She just wanted, “to walk home.” As we ran in the race, the other racers would pass us and give her words of encouragement. Each time she received a compliment, she would smile and I could feel her confidence grow. On the rare occasions that we would pass another racer they would always express their admiration.

By the end of the race she was tired but she had the biggest smile on her face and the crowd literally went wild as she crossed the finish line. After she received her medal a nice lady came up to her and told her what an inspiration she was. My 6 year old recognized that she had done something special. She had set a goal and even though it was hard she discovered that she could do hard things, and she achieved what she had set out to do. The great thing about distance races is that, it’s an accomplishment to just finish. Give it a try and if you can’t run for any reason many races have a walk as well as a run. You can find a race near you at www.runningintheusa.com.

“…In the race for victory I am swift, determined and courageous armed with a fierce will to win…”

-The Infantryman’s creed US Army

Day 10 Cleanse Phase (Self Decpetion and a Support System)

Day 10

Today was the last day of the Cleanse Phase of the 24 Day Challenge. So I was busy trying to be good. Remember on Day 8 when I talked about breaking habits and how it might be a good Idea, if you are addicted to food like I am, to have a trusted friend that you can talk to and lean on when things get hard? Well I owe my success today to my friend who in this case is my wife.

Tonight we went out to eat at Arby’s after a church youth activity. When I got up to order I was about to order three roast beef sandwiches but I saw one sandwich that looked good so I got the one. I filled my drink with low calorie lemonade, because I try not to drink that many calories and headed for the table. After eating my meal, I thought I was still hungry and I wanted more. So I told my wife I’m going to get three Jr. Roast Beef sandwiches. She said something to the effect of, “are you really hungry?” and I said, “I guess not but I want them.” We went back and forth me lobbying for something I knew I didn’t need and she trying to get me to do the right thing. I finally relented to her, but that didn’t stop me from trying to distract her so that I could secretly sneak away to counter to buy more food. This happened several time and while most of it was done in fun there was a part of me that was hoping I could stuff my face until I popped.

This is the benefit of having a trusted friend that will help you make good decisions in your moments of weakness, which we all have. They will be able to see things that you are too close to see. In my case she was able to help me see that I didn't need more food, what I really needed was to stop. I was fully willing to deceive myself to my downfall. Don't let this happen to you. Find someone that is willing to be the bad guy. Find someone how is willing to tell you things that you may not want to hear, and when they tell you that which you don't want to hear don't get mad, realize that they love you, otherwise they wouldn’t say anything. 

On another note, these are a few products I am using to help my performance and energy. Advobar™ Raw is a great all natural choice for a snack. VO2 Prime™ bar is great for energy and performance in the gym. The Advobar™ AM bar is a perfect way to start the day and is my new favorite. If you like reading this help me keep the lights on and the posts coming by trying some of these products that have helped me find more energy and achieve my goals in fitness and life. Start with the Spark® drink, it’s awesome.

Remember that you were born to be a champion, but no champion is created by themself. We all need help and motivation to become the best possible version of ourselves.

“The Slaughterhouse of failure is not your Destiny.” Get out there and become a Champion.

Day 9 Cleanse Phase (Celebrate your Successes)

Day 9

Every day is a great day. Some days are just greater than others. I am an incurable optimist. I always try and see the good side of every situation. I think it keeps me sane, and I know that sometimes it annoys my wife who loves me but doesn’t understand how I can always be looking at the bright side of things when sometimes the situation is so decidedly bleak. Well I firmly believe what Shakespeare said in one of his plays, and if I’m wrong or you know which play it is please put it in the comments, “Nothing is good nor bad lest thinking makes it so.” So we choose if something is good or bad and that all has to do with perspective.

So before I went home this morning I stepped on the scale at work and it read 212 lbs. I’ve lost 5 lbs. on “the cleanse” so far. Needless to say I’m pretty pleased and excited. Some might say don’t be too excited everyone loses on a cleanse because your body is flushing all the junk out of your body and then you will gain it all back. While I understand that is the normal way a cleanse works, I also have never been on a cleanse where I ate as much as I have on this one. Previous cleanses that I have tried are the maple syrup and lemon juice cleanse and the 2 day water fast cleanse, both of which consist of a lot of water and next to no food. Each meal on this program is very balanced which teaches good eating habits if you stick to it. I’m not saying you have to use the 24 day Challenge program even though it is working for me. You need to find what works for you. I know for me I like to eat and previous cleanses made me sad because when I don’t eat it doesn’t help me change habits of bad eating, it just creates a bad habit of not eating much.

Whatever your goal is celebrate every step closer you get. Now when I say celebrate I don’t mean go crazy and break all those good habits you have just formed. I mean give yourself a pat on the back. Smile at yourself in the mirror and say out loud something like, “good job” or “I’m proud of you.” You need positive reinforcement. Successes snowball and when you reach a goal that is sufficiently difficult your body will release endorphins just as if you were working out and you will feel good.

You deserve to celebrate victories just like you deserve to be fit and happy. I promise that as you take notice of your small victories you will find that you can conquer, what seem to be large and unachievable tasks and goals, by degree. Here are two quotes that keep me going.

“By Small and simple things are great things brought to pass.”

“The Prizes in life are at the end of each journey not near the beginning, and it is not given to me to know how many steps are necessary to achieve my goal.”

“When other cease their struggle at the prescribed quitting time I will resist the temptation to depart. I will try again. Never will I allow my day to end in failure. In this I will plant seeds of tomorrow’s successes and gain an insurmountable edge over those who quit.”

Ok so three quotes.

Day 8 Cleanse Phase (Fighting the Addiction)

Day 8

I have to apologize for the first few posts this month. After writing yesterday’s post I realized that isn’t the way to write. You don’t really want to hear my food/workout diary. You might want an occasional product review but a list no. So, this is me saying “I’m Sorry.” From now on I’m going to strive to make my posts relevant, helpful and insightful in helping you progress and achieve.

So for today I’m going to address the topic of habits and how we can break them and make them. Today I visited my parents which is not uncommon because they live about 1 mile away. While I was up there I noticed something about myself. I have a bad habit, among many. When I enter the house I almost always go straight to the cupboard or the fridge. Usually I look for a granola bar or something like that. But to tell the truth sometimes I look for anything. And I always find anything. Today after searching and not finding my first choice (a granola bar) I found and accepted ginger snaps. I don’t recommend that choice. Not because they don’t taste good, they did, but because I wasn’t hungry and I was eating for the sake of taste and boredom.

Addiction is a difficult thing to get a handle on, and food addiction is a particularly difficult problem because we can’t just stop eating like someone stops smoking. I’m not saying quitting smoking isn’t hard, but you don’t have to smoke to stay alive. This makes food addiction a particularly tricky problem. But addiction is addiction and a lot of the techniques used to overcome other addictions will work for food addiction or addiction to a sedentary lifestyle or whatever you are trying to change.

Almost everyone will quote you the first step in addiction recovery. You have to recognize or admit that you have a problem. That’s not just the start to recovery but a technique for breaking the cycle of addiction. Most addictions are sub-conscious in nature meaning we do them without think about it and we don’t recognize we are doing it or have done it until it too late. Sometimes it’s like being in a trance like state.

What we need to do is identify or analyze the situation when we have relapsed or not taken action whichever the case may be, and see the triggers that were present. Sometimes we are bored, or tired or angry, or stressed. Whatever the case is, you need to be aware, and beware. When you find yourself in those situations, as I did today at my parents, you need to audibly state what you are feeling. For example had I caught it today I would have said, “I feel like eating right now because it’s familiar to me in this setting.” Now when we do this it no longer is a sub-conscious problem. We literally move it from the sub-conscious to the conscious and there we can fit it by giving ourselves choices. You may look crazy but state your choices out loud along with the consequences. For example, “I can eat those gingers snaps, or I can walk away. If I eat them I may eat too many and I will hate myself for doing it. If I walk away and choose something else to eat, if I really am hungry, then I will be able to celebrate a small success over my addiction.” When we state feelings and consequences out loud it’s not as hard to make better choices, and if you can say that to a trusted friend it will help that much more.

Day 7 Cleanse Phase (Water and Choices)

Day 7

For pretty much everything you may do that has to do with health water is going to be a key ingredient. Today I made the mistake of not drinking enough water and my program suffered because of it. On day one I spoke about planning and yesterday it was all about not giving yourself a choice. In all reality you want choices, but you want to make those choices well in advance so that when you get to the moment you don’t make a bad choice because you were too tired or your feet hurt, or (insert your favorite excuse).

One of my high school coaches among the hundreds of clichés he used he would periodically recite this little gem. “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” I still get annoyed at hearing that phrase but I can’t deny the truth in it and maybe that is why it bothers me so much, because I need to work on it.

Well my excuse today was water. I could have planned ahead and made sure I was well hydrated, but I didn’t. I could have made sure I had a nice fresh water bottle in my lunch but I didn’t. So that you don’t have to hear all the things I could have done, I’m going to tell you what I’m’ going to do from now on. I will be keeping a water bottle in my lunch box. I also will always have a Camelbak® in the trunk of my car from now on.

I didn’t work out today because I had a massive head ache from dehydration. I have only been seriously dehydrated once in my life and that was when I was attending Airborne School last summer. I was nowhere near that level but I still made up some excuse to be sedentary.

Even before I started the 24 day Challenge I was trying to be more conscious about what I was eating. Everything I have read or heard recently has to do with lean proteins. While protein is great, I am a little more inclined to believe that a balance of everything is the best. I think the reason that protein has been so big lately is because we chronically eat proteins that are really fatty, and that produces chubby bellies like the one I’m getting rid of. At the same time we can’t ignore fats either or the dreaded Carbs. There really needs to be a balance between these areas, as well as our fruits and veggies.

Now I’m not saying that my dinner today was balanced but, I did try to make my chicken burrito from Qdoba® as healthy as I could. Instead of white rice I chose the brown rice, I chose black beans, chicken instead of pork or beef, and grilled veggies including squash. I also chose the whole wheat tortilla instead of the white flour tortilla. The point of this is not the food but that I made a decision before I entered the restaurant that my meal was going to be as healthy as I could make it. That is why I turned down the cream goodness that is the Qdoba Queso.

The point is not that we have to give up those things that we think taste good, but we have to start moderating those things and make them healthier. Over time our taste buds will change and we will crave healthier foods. We just have to allow ourselves the time to change. We owe it to ourselves.

Day 6 Cleanse Phase (Making it a Family Affair)

Day 6

The Highlight of my day today was the run that I did with my daughter Etta. We are preparing for the Best Dam Run that is coming up soon. Everything else today was fairly pedestrian. Breakfast was a familiar meal of 6 eggs, 1 tomato, ¼ of an onion, and 1 red bell pepper. I did wake up this morning feeling well rested. My knee hurt slightly because of the stress that I put on it from the hike in Saturday. Before Breakfast I had my probiotic Restore ultra® and Strawberry Mango Spark®.

For lunch I was out and about in town so I was munching in sunflower seeds and I purchased a few Max Builders Bars by Clif®. The flavor on the builder bars is superb but they aren’t that filling and for a protein/meal replacement I need it to be more filling. It is a true meal replacement at 390 calories per bar.

My work out today like I said was running with my daughter. We ran for about 35 minutes at what I consider to be a slow pace. We were maybe running at 10 minute miles. The point of running with her isn’t to go fast. Last year I ran The Best Dam Run with my son Lliam and I had such a good time doing it. He received so much encouragement and esteem from other runners it was truly amazing. I have realized that the change must be to entire family. We must be active as a family. My kids are pretty active since we limit TV watching and Video game playing to one or two times a week, but I need us to do this together if it’s going to be a permanent change. I asked Lliam this year if he wanted to run in the race again and he said “No Dad, that race was too long.”

I didn’t tell him last year how long it really was and after about the first mile he was asking if we were there yet. Etta was pretty whiny about running the whole 35 minutes. I pushed her a little because I know she can do it but whenever this get uncomfortable she wants to stop and sometimes in life we can’t do that. The cool down was a simple stationary bike ride for about 25 minutes.

After the workout I was feeling a little run down so I made a Spark® with half a scoop of watermelon and half a scoop of Mango Strawberry. That is a very tasty combo if you are looking for a delicious pick-me-up.

Dinner was homemade chili with 2 slices of wheat bread and some steamed yellow squash. It’s really weird how our taste buds change as we get older. I used to hate, I mean detest all forms of squash and now, I prefer yellow squash to almost all other forms of vegetables. On the 24 day challenge I always end with the OmegaPlex®. This supplement contains 1000mg of omega-3 fatty acids. If you follow the link you can read exactly what these essential nutrients help you with.