Archive for February, 2010

I asked Danny to write up what he told me this morning, and I want to share it with you. Here goes:

Regardless of our goals, be it to lose weight, run a mile, run 10 miles, work out 3 times a week, make more sales calls, whatever, each day, each 24 hour period plays a vital role…To build to running a mile you may have to go out and run 1 lap each day for 5 days….to lose weight it would be to eat smart AND exercise – each DAY, each day that you successfully complete that component, look in the mirror and tell yourself, “Well done” …. It’s a cliche, but the old saying “nothing succeeds like success” works! Nobody else may be aware how hard you are working to achieve your goal, but YOU know. So tell yourself each day, reinforce the ‘good’ that you did EVERY DAY! Look in the mirror at the end of the day when you are brushing your teeth and tell yourself, “Good job”…reinforce the GOOD, each day, every day. If you screw up, have a bad day, drop the ball – whatever, tell yourself, “Today’s gone, just a speed bump, tomorrow – back in the saddle” and do NOT look back. Each morning tell yourself, “today’s the day” and if you string enough good days together, regardless of your goal, one day today WILL be the day! Make you believe in you, one day at a time!

Your body is a remarkable machine – it adapts to whatever stress it is presented and OVER TIME adapts to meet that stress. People start lifting weights, they aren’t bulging with new muscles in 3 days, you start a diet, you don’t lose your weight in a week. You begin a running program, it takes 7 weeks to build from zero to a 5K (doing it smartly). As you progress in any physical discipline the body adapts, but it also ‘learns’ to operate in the most efficient manner possible. So we need to continually ’surprise’ it with easy days and more difficult days (work out wise). For ex. if a man goes out and runs 5 miles a day he will burn up an average of 800 calories +/- each run. After a while the body will adapt and he’ll only be burning 400 or so each run. So keep variety – run 3 miles one day, 5 another, then 6, then 4 and AVERAGE 25 miles a week! One day lift heavy (heavy weight/low reps) and the next session reverse that (low weights – high reps). The body responds best when it is continually ’surprised’. For ex. if your run hard one day, easy another, long another, etc. the body will gear up for max energy burn for EVERY run because it doesn’t know what’s coming…keep it guessing for best results…..

To learn more about Danny, visit his website at: http://www.rununiversity.com/meetdanny.html

This morning I worked out with my new trainer Danny Haralson with Run University. It was a simple confidence-building ten minute walk on a treadmill and a couple of light-weight dumbbell exercises. It really did feel good afterward, physically and emotionally. I did good.

Coach Danny finishing up his workout. He's running in a half marathon in Mississippi tomorrow. Good Luck!!

February twentieth was the one year anniversary for whoatemyblog.com. There have been a lot of emotional and physical ups and downs, but no regrets. I have met a lot of wonderful people and lost one hundred pounds as a result of blogging. Honestly, I feel that this blog is my greatest accomplishment. I’ve laid everything out for everyone to see and I am eternally grateful to all who have read and commented on my posts.

Low Self Confidence

I am sure that most of you have noticed that I allow the scale to determine how self confident I am. If I lose ten pounds, I am ecstatic and can take on the world. If I gain ten pounds, it’s time to call it quits and I cannot do anything right. It is so bad during my downers that I doubt everything that I do, including my job.

Fitness Together

I really appreciate Jack Eyer and Donnie Warnock at Fitness Together at Patton Creek Shopping Center in Hoover, Alabama. We were doing a little trading of services. I would help them with their computers/website and they would train me. In the past few weeks, I have been too busy in the early afternoons to go workout with Donnie. Also, Donnie has been moved out to another FT location that is inconvenient for me to travel to twice a week.

Danny Haralson

I am going to start training with Danny Haralson, a local running coach. He’s best known for his couch to 5k program here in Birmingham, Alabama. Danny approached me last week about trading out services. I’ll take over his website, create a facebook page, a twitter account, and take pictures at various Run University events. Actually, I have been looking for a hobby, something that I love doing that won’t cost me anything, and it found me. Let me clarify, I don’t normally build websites because I’m not a programmer nor a designer, however I really look forward the social interactions and covering RU events.

Our First Meeting

Danny and I met on Monday to discuss what I will be doing. Here’s Danny’s plan:

• We are going to start slow to strengthen connective tissues and to build confidence. We are not aiming for instant results. He said that initially I may not lose any weight the first few weeks. So, starting out this first week I will walk a total of ten minutes every other day. Five minutes out, and five minutes back. As time goes by, Danny is going to increase my walking time, frequency, and speed. Eventually we will include weight training for upper body strength. Also, what’s going to happen is I will slowly adjust to walking long distances. Danny said that eventually I won’t walk less than 3 miles because I’ll feel that anything less won’t be worth walking.
• I will no longer look at future goals for confidence. I am going to look at past accomplishments.  So, in the future when my self-confidence is low, I can look back at what all I have accomplished.
• I will miss walking one day, but the next day is a do-over. There won’t be any consecutive days without exercise.
• Danny wants me to find a picture of what I eventually want to look like. Make three copies of it and post in my bedroom, kitchen, and office.
• While walking I am to tell myself that “I’m doing a good job”, and when completed, I am to tell myself  “well done”. Also, when going to bed I am to tell myself that “I did good today”.
• As we move along, we are going to come up with goals because we always must have goals.
• Right now we are going to focus on self-confidence and walking. Down the road we will get into nutrition. (pun)
• Danny and I will meet once a week. Also, If I’m feeling down or need to talk, I can call him or send him an email.
• Danny’s is a BIG believer in rewards. So, if I’ve done well for the week, there’s no issue with having a slice or two of pizza and a couple of beers. It’s all about moderation on the rewards.

Danny will be sending me an email detailing my plan. I will post more info once I receive it. I look forward to our training.

Hey everybody,

This is just a quick check in to let you know that I’ve recovered from the crud and that I’m back on track. I’ve already put in two good workouts this week and look forward to my next one in the morning.

Now, I need you to do me a favor and not look at my weigh in from last week. Due to feeling cruddy, I gained just a little weight. I’ll also note that you probably shouldn’t look at tomorrow’s weight in. The number will definitely be smaller than last week’s number, but I’m not gonna be happy until I get back down to 498 pounds, my lowest weight from last year. Anyhow, I’m back on track and I’m feeling good.

Finally, I hope to post a book review of The End of Overeating by David A. Kessler, MD tomorrow, but I might not be able to post it until later this week.

Have a great hump day!!

SHV

I have been a bad boy this weekend, but it’s okay because I’m sick. I’ve got a sore throat and chest cold. I have eaten a lot of stuff this weekend to sooth my sore throat. Shame on me. Ha ha ha ha ha!!! My weigh in will not be a good one this Wednesday.

I went to a doc in-the-box this morning, and I don’t have strep, but he did prescribe antibiotics. So now I must be patient and let the meds do their thang.

Dish Network

I finally switched over from cable to satillate. I decided to go with Dish Network because they have the lowest prices and the best DVRs. The tech came out and installed the service last Wednesday, the day after I placed my order.

I was very impressed with the tech that performed the install. He quickly installed the dish and did a neat job with the wiring. There were no loose wires and all connections were clean. I could tell that he enjoyed what he was doing. I even hired him to come back out today and run a network cable for me. I knew he wouldn’t run it when performing the dish install because it’s outside the scope of installing a dish. He quickly ran the cable in the crawl space underneath the house, and we got things running.

I needed the network cable for the slingbox, a network appliance that allows me to watch television anywhere through the internet.

SPEED Channel

One of the primary reasons for this upgrade to DISH was to get the Speed channel. I have missed out on a lot of NASCAR races and coverage because I didn’t have Speed, but no more.

This weekend I watched both the Rolex 24 at Daytona, a 24 hour endurance race for the Grand Am Road Racing league, and I also watched  the NASCAR Toyota All-Star Showdown in Irwindale, California, a race for the all-stars of the NASCAR divisions below the Truck Series.

My boy Moses Smith, driver of the #16 Hasa Pool Products Toyota Camry NASCAR Camping World West Series car, did not finish the Toyota All-Star race due to damage from a wreck, but I look forward to watching him in upcoming races.

Have a great week!!