It has been a while
Since I made the first entry to this BLOG, I've logged in nearly 1000 miles on foot, either running or walking and I've run in the Gasparilla in Tampa and the Sallie Mae 10K in Washington DC. Greg, my brother, has now signed me up for a Triathlon in Texas. It is nice to say I'm a long way from the couch and really beginning to love this "alternative lifestyle." I'm at least challenged by all of this and for the first time in a long time I actively want to succeed very much. I've lost nearly 50 pounds and have another 40 to go. The Triathlon training will help me accomplish this goal I'm sure. I plan to keep track of many things over the next several months and journaling should be a real adventure. I hope to record much of my thoughts, moods, attitudes, successes and the usual fair associated with such a quest. I'll be back later to fill in the details. I do have a plan of sorts in the works....not quite there yet but I'm getting closer. This is pretty exciting stuff for a guy at 57 years old. Let the adventure begin.
Where To Begin
This whole business of getting older comes with all its own challenges for sure. I don't believe that anything that preceeds getting older prepares you for this place in life, at least not physically and emotionally. You may be prepared financially if so inclined, that is if you are blessed with a job that leaves enough after each paycheck to even consider financial options. When you are younger, you can try to imagine what it is like to be over 50. You can even try to anticipate this time of life, but it has been my experience that until you live it you will never know what it is like or what it is all about.
The one thing I have learned already though, is to listen to people who have been here. It is wise to consider and heed much of the advice that typically will get passed from one generation to the next. This has proved true on so many levels that there is not enough room here to list all the testimonials to this truism.
What I have learned already is that being over 50 is a reckoning of sorts. All the good things I shoulda, coulda and mighta done when I was younger and didn't are catching up with me. Many of the things I have done over the years on the advice of my parents and grandparents are proving to be a solid foundation for living through my older years, save one...."Eat everything on your plate. There are starving children in China, India and Africa who would love to have this abundance of food" These words still echo in my head, sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously. This mandate which was given in the most loving and well intentioned manner, coupled with a slowing metabolism and my cultivated obsession with convenient, fast and salty foods has led to 80 pounds more of me wandering this planet than has a right or need to be here.
For reasons to be discussed later and throughout the life of this Blog, I edged up from a fairly fit 180 pound man in my mid-thirties to the imposing presence I now command at a blubber laden 260 pounds. I am down in weight about 10 pounds from my maximun of 270 pounds. At least nowI have finally become passionate about getting back to where I belong. Ergo, this Blog!
Where to begin? Well I think at the proverbial beginning is about right. The beginning of this quest, right here right now, is where I will start my journey. Where will I finish? Why at 180 pounds and maintaining.
This Blog will document my efforts, progress and all the by-products of this journey to lose 80 pounds of myself and in the process recover so much of what I have given up to get this weight which I never wanted to begin with.
