I Struggle

I struggle, because sometimes, willpower is not enough. Determination is not enough, neither is persistence, or even promises of a better life. When you kick your ass consistently, eat right, remain mentally in tune with your goals, and then get bashed in the face with a brick of weight-loss reality, it brings you teetering to an edge. I've gone through this more times than I care to think about, probably because I hold my goals up to such a high level. I see other people do this as well, and it is scary to see them struggle to maintain any sort of consistency with such weighted shoulders. I once heard that trying to subdue an eating disorder is like trying to quit Heroin, except much worse, as you need to have at least some food every day, whereas with drugs, they are not necessary. In a lot of ways I believe this is factual, most of us use food to escape something, and becoming disappointed in ourselves because of ill-fated goals creates a near-inescapable snowball process. The snowball is manageable to a certain point, but as it grows larger it becomes harder and harder to control. Sometimes, when you feel as if your doing everything right but not seeing results, it is either because your body is readjusting and becoming a more efficient machine, or your diluting the facts of your own accomplishments/failures. I struggle to be aware of this, to constantly ask myself whether or not I'm being honest of my accomplishments. I struggle to avoid excuses, to motivate myself, to abstain from delicious, succulent past-times that I once so temporarily enjoyed. I am not perfect, and neither is anyone else. There are two things that I know are fact:

1. Numbers don't lie
2. When buying toilet paper, you get what you pay for

Point is, if you write down every single thing that you do, monitor (closely) what you eat, and remain in a reasonable-for-your-body deficit every single day, the numbers won't lie... but there are particular X factors that occur within your body that you will NEVER understand as well as your body does, and that is why expectations do not always see consistency or even time-allotted accomplishments. I struggle to remember this whenever all seems lost and in vain.


But I will not give up. I will adapt. I will allow my body to change, find a niche, and stay there as long as my body wants to stay, and when it is ready to change once again, I will struggle to remember exactly how I feel right now, ready to change with it.

Wednesday's are just so much FUN.

Dude, my shoulders are torn to high heaven. So are my abs. At least it was a nice day today, it made the three hours of shoveling dirt almost bearable. After work I went to work out and we had to haul ass, my lifting buddy had somewhere to be at 7, so we did our two hour day in about an hour and a half, and we started earlier. And his sister was baking cookies upstairs... it wafted slowly down into the man den, coaxing us upstairs. Mike ate like 7, and I abstained. That kid can eat anything, and never gain a pound. Fucking bastard. So my parents are gone for the rest of the week, and the house is silent. I love it. Gives me time to concentrate on stuffs and no more pressure to eat my moms amazing home cooking. You've no idea how hard it is to come home from college, after eating nothing but ramen noodles and soup for the last two weeks of school, during finals. My mother is evil, I know it.

On the plus side, I'm always busy, which is great, because it gives me less time to think about terrible foods, and I exercise when I'm busy. I really want to pull of a show-stopper for the Missouri 60... this is my 5th day in. OH YAY ONLY 55 MORE TO GO... I'd sure like to be at most of my goals on a consistent basis by then. I'm also excited to see the before and after photos. I'm gonna post another before/after pic on Monday, just to see where ten days has gotten me. Taking pictures is like, the greatest thing you could ever do if your trying to lose weight and get in shape. The subtle differences that occur over a week really begin to show when you look at them from one side to the other, and whenever your feeling down or the scale is being gay or whatever, you can just go back and look at the progress. Works great for me, anyways. Well, I'm out. Time for some oven roasted chicken.. mmm.

Tired, tired. I'm tired.

Gah no time to blog. Back to work, at gym after... by the time I get home, I'm completely fried. Everything is back on track though, haven't missed or screwed up anything yet. I am having a really hard time motivating myself to do cardio, mostly because I forgot the charger for my Zune up at school, and it's so hard to run, let alone without music. So my parents are going out of town for a week, which should be nice, having the house to myself and no parents trying to either stuff food down my throat or get on my nerves. I can only take my family in small doses, it will probably be good for all of us. This weekend is, of course, July 4th, and drinking will probably be an issue I will have to face. Also, hamburgers and hot dogs. But, getting through ym vacation makes me feel like it is entirely feasable, and in fact, realistic. But, I have no energy, I'm going to bed. Sorry for such a boring post, have a really long day tomorrow. Good luck with the rest of the week everyone.

10 Day Before/After and Missouri 60 Photos

June 16th Front

June 16th Side

June 26th Front

June 26th Side




So I finally found my camera chord. I have been taking pictures every day, but I think I will do these before/after on ten day increments. My perspectives in these aren't the same because I was on vacation and it was difficult to find a place to put the camera to mimic the angles at home, but I tried. The next batch should be much more accurate. God, my posture has improved.

Forgot to mention, I will be using the June 26th photos for The Anti-Jared's Missouri 60 Challenge. So, there they are everyone. I can't wait to see the results 58 days from now!

Day 6-7: Hilton Head Challenge, Complete. Mission Accompished.

MMM...KAY

All right, so Friday was great. I missed posting because I passed out on the couch whilst watching Die Hard 2. Then we drove all day yesterday, during which time my eating was also perfect. I would have to say that of the entire vacation, Friday was probably the worst nutrition wise because for lunch I had half a Turkey sub.... on white bread. It was delicious.... but by eating that sugar I basically told my body I didn't want to burn fat for the next two hours... which was a bit disappointing. I did go on a two hour kayaking tour that morning though, and it kicked my ass. Probably because I did arms on Thursday, but I made it. Beautiful scenery. And then my parents and I went to Hudson's for dinner. I don't know if any of you have ever been to Hilton Head, but if you have, you've probably been to Hudson's. The food is amazing, the drinks are flowing, and they have literally, hands down, the world's greatest Hush Puppies. I actually think they have won several U.S. titles for them. I mean, they are delicious. Out of this world, amazing, and they come free with dinner. Like rolls. And... I didn't eat one of them. And for dinner I had Stuffed Shrimp (crabmeat), brown rice, veggies. I had two of the shrimp, half the rice, and half the veggies. It was the most tempting night I had the entire vacation. And then, I went and worked out for two and a half hours afterward. Now, according to the scales at HH, I lost something like 4 pounds while I was on vacation, but according to the scale at home, it's reading a loss of 8.5 pounds from last Friday. Two things... I haven't been keeping track on a consistent basis or scale, and I weighed myself at night a week ago, and then this morning. I'd say there is something like a 2-3 pound difference, so I'm going to weigh myself tonight. At least I came back from vacation better than I started, so in my book, mission accomplished. And I rpomise, as soon as I find that retarted cord, I will post pictures here. Thanks for reading everyone. Good luck this upcoming week.