My Top 5 New Favorite Health and Fitness Things

July 7th, 2011 by Chad 2 comments »

As I’ve recommitted myself to healthy living and weight loss, I have a few new favorite things that I thought I’d share with you this week.  First, a quick update: at my last weigh-in, this past Tuesday (the day after July 4th – and hot dogs, potato chips, and ice cream), I was up .9 pounds to 257.3 pounds.  This week, I’ve been lax with exercise, but I’m getting back in the swing.  I’m doing some strength training tonight, and I’m planning a run in the morning.  Also, I had to make the difficult decision to withdraw from the Marine Corps Marathon…  I hated to do it, but I’ve been assigned to a case at work that includes routinely working 60 hour weeks, and that will only get worse as we near a deadline in the fall.  Training for a marathon just isn’t in the cards for me right now.  So be it.  I’m still in this to win it!

So, what are some of my new favorite things?  Here’s a list of the top five: » Read more: My Top 5 New Favorite Health and Fitness Things

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Another week – need to step it up…

June 19th, 2011 by Chad 1 comment »

So I’ve made it through another week, and I’m doing well.  I had lost another pound as of last Monday, my weigh in day, and I got in three runs this week.  Overall, I’m back on track with my nutrition and exercise after a few months of pretty much ignoring it while I acclimated myself to my new job.

But…I’m a little worried about the intensity of my training for the marathon.  I’ve created new habits of early morning runs, and I’m proud of that.  But those runs now need to pick up in length and intensity, with longer periods of running and less walking, and farther to go.  I have a calendar that my trainer put together for me a couple of months ago, and I haven’t really been following that just yet.  The goal for this week is to be a little more » Read more: Another week – need to step it up…

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One Week Down, 140 Days to Go: Scoring Me vs. Old Habits

June 12th, 2011 by Chad 1 comment »

Okay – so I’m extremely pleased with some things that happened this week. I’m not so pleased with others. So here’s a little scorecard for myself with 140 days left before the Marine Corps Marathon.

Running Schedule (weekdays) – Chad, 1 – Old Habits, 0

I’m very happy with my running schedule during the week.  I’ve begun waking up much earlier than I used to, and I got in weekday 6:30am runs.  Wow – there are actually other people out at that time of day!  This is news to one who has always slept for as long as possible in the mornings – clinging to my blankets until the last possible second.  This change is proof that you CAN make lifestyle changes, and I’m looking forward to my morning runs this next week!  All this in the midst of working on a case where I’m having to bill 50 hours a week, meaning nearly 60 hour work weeks for me.  I’m rocking this weekday schedule!

Running schedule (weekends) – Chad, 0 – Old Habits, 1

I’m not nearly as pleased with my running schedule this weekend.  I didn’t run.  Ugh.  Yesterday, I slept in till 8:45, then I had to go into the office for a little while, and then I had a noon lunch.  After all that, I had some grocery shopping to do, and barely had time to breathe at home before I got ready for my evening plans.  Today was church, lunch, and then an afternoon spent with the dog.  I did take her for a long walk in Piedmont Park, but it was, truly a walk in the park.  Better than no exercise but not a run.  On the upside, Greta enjoyed it (even if this photo is a little dark!):

Running Intensity – Chad, 1 – Old Habits, 1

I’m going to call this one a wash for now.   Since it was my first week out, I’m not going to be hard on myself, but » Read more: One Week Down, 140 Days to Go: Scoring Me vs. Old Habits

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Staying Positive

June 7th, 2011 by Chad 3 comments »

I’m laying here on the couch, blogging from my iPhone, having just finished watching Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition. I see this 23 year old guy who lives in the next suburb over from where I grew up, who lost over 200 pounds in a year. He was such a nice guy, and I was so incredibly happy for him and proud of him.

But I also felt a little envy and self-doubt creeping in. Any form of jealousy comes from a place of insecurity, and I guess I felt a little jealous of his accomplishments because I’m still unsure whether I’ll ever accomplish what I truly want to accomplish with my weight and fitness. This guy had lost his mom to cancer when he was just 18; I’m blessed to still have a wonderfully supportive and loving mother. He had much more weight to lose than I did (and still do). Yet he seemed to tap into something I haven’t had for a while. My trainer calls it the secret sauce.

I had found the secret sauce just after I started this blog and began my transformation, and I remember what it felt like. I knew I had to lose weight to save my life. I started to see consistent results with mainly diet alone. I got myself out of immediate danger. But as I started to slim down and gain confidence, I got complacent. I began using food to comfort myself again, thinking I’d reached a stable weight I was happy with, but my weight crept up a bit.

This morning, I was about four pounds lighter than last week. I was ecstatic. I ate fairly healthily today. Good portion control, mainly clean and nutritious food. And then tonight I came home from an 11.5 hour workday, and I did well, but I allowed myself to eat a few cookies that I shouldn’t even have bought, an I got mad at myself. I threw the rest of them away, and I realized I was using those cookies as nothing more than a drug. I know I have a tendency to emotionally eat, but it’s still a little discombobulating when you realize what you’re doing while you’re doing it.

It was clear I was feeling stressed with the long hours at work, with the anxiety I have about possibly failing at this whole marathon thing, and with some uncertainty I have in a couple of newer personal relationships, too. So how do I conquer these stressors and get that secret sauce back?

Accountability seems to be the biggest thing for me right now – hence the return to blogging. And also getting more rest. I know that sounds simple, but it’s hard for me to stay positive and confident when I’m exhausted. My new job has long hours, and I’m a night owl, so I’ve been operating on far too few hours of sleep each night. Which is why I’m off to bed early now. (Anything before midnight is early for me.)

How do you find your secret sauce?

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I’ve been high – I’ve been low – I’ve been yes, and I’ve been oh, hell no!

June 5th, 2011 by Chad 3 comments »

Alright friends…it’s on! This running beast is back. No more highs, lows, yeses and nos – just flat out good nutrition and training to conquer this marathon! This afternoon I took my first long run in a long time. Forty-five minutes through my neighborhood. I waited until the heat of the Atlanta summer had broken – and I didn’t go out until about 7:30, but it was still hot. Music gets me through running better than anything else, and today was a mix of The Killers, Rihanna, and Train’s cover of “Save Me San Francisco,” that I strangely connected with on my up and down journey of weight and fitness. Love the video, too!

Ahh…such a fun video! Meanwhile, back in Atlanta, I was planning on a relatively easy jog/walk, but I ended up challenging myself with a few sprints, too. The first was self-imposed. The second and third came for other reasons. With the second, I had planned to stop one run at a telephone pole, but I came up on a woman running with her dog, and I wanted to look all bad-ass, so » Read more: I’ve been high – I’ve been low – I’ve been yes, and I’ve been oh, hell no!

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Marine Corps Marathon: 148 Days and Counting

June 4th, 2011 by Chad 3 comments »

One-hundred and forty-eight days.  That’s all that stands between me and running my first marathon, the Marine Corps Marathon, in Washington, D.C.  on October 30th, 2011 (my thirty-second birthday!).  It’s hard to believe that a) it’s been nearly two years since I started this journey of reconstructing my life when I turned thirty, b) I would even entertain the idea of doing something as unlike my former self as training for a marathon, and c) that I’ve fallen off the wagon bigger than any of my past minor slip-ups and am going to have to conquer some of my same, no good, stubborn bad habits in the process of getting ready…

I can, and will, talk in what will be I’m sure excruciatingly painful detail about my marathon training as the days go by, but for now, let’s start with c), above: my falling off the wagon.  The last time I wrote here, I was promising a comeback to blogging…my weight loss was as great as it had ever been, and I was loving life.  I had hit some hard times with a layoff from work, but so much was going well that I was really feeling good about myself and where I was going.  One thing I didn’t talk about last time, because I just didn’t have the confidence to do it yet, was to share in this forum that part of my reconstruction, was in finally accepting the fact that I’m gay.  For me, my weight and my sexuality had been inextricably intertwined for many years.  On some subconscious, and probably even conscious level, being fat was convenient for a closeted guy.  No one questions why you don’t have a girlfriend when you weigh over 300 pounds.

From the time I began losing weight, I knew I would have to face myself and my truth to live an authentic life.  I was shedding the armor that I thought was protecting me from the pain that awaited me should I decide to live honestly and openly.  So I hid behind an apron of adipose tissue.  As the weight came off, the confidence grew, and I knew I didn’t have to hide anymore.  I came out first to my friends, then to my parents, and then to the rest of my family.  It was truly the most exhilarating and exciting time of my life.  I felt as if I had never been so alive, and I’d never been more proud of myself!  It was (and continues to be) amazing.

However, » Read more: Marine Corps Marathon: 148 Days and Counting

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Weekly Weigh-In #44: Live Life Today!

August 28th, 2010 by Chad 13 comments »

Okay, so this post is going to seem a bit all over the place, but it really all comes down to the same premise, so I’ll do my best to tie it all together.  First of all, today was my 44th weekly weigh in, and I came in at 235.2 pounds!!!  That’s a 2.9 pound loss from last week, and I’ve now lost 72.8 pounds total from my starting weight of 308 pounds on October 30th of last year.  Yay.  Woo-hoo.  Go me.  Now down to business.

Not that I’m minimizing my loss this week, but here’s the deal: I know how to lose weight.  I’ve been doing it consistently for nearly a year now.  This journey is about weight loss.  But it’s also about getting healthy and fit.  And exercise is a big part of that; it’s not all about nutrition.  While I was studying for the bar exam, I also ended up experiencing a layoff.  That’s something I haven’t yet talked about on this blog, but there you have it.  It’s pretty common, unfortunately, in this economy, and between that and trying to get on track for the bar exam, I completely lost my exercise mojo.  I’d get in a stray run every now and then – maybe once a week at most – but nothing consistent.  My awesome trainer and nutritionist started encouraging me after the bar to just get back into it, and it brought back the old Nike slogan, “Just Do It!,” which I love for all kinds of reasons.  In fact, I remembered this Nike commercial this past week as I was trying to get back into gear with exercise:

Don’t you love that?!?  Seriously, what was I waiting for?  I lost this weight for a reason – to be able to do things I couldn’t before, to be healthier, to be more confident, to enjoy my life more, to enjoy my family and friends more, to be the person I always knew I could be if I only had the confidence to move forward.  And by putting exercise on hold because of these other circumstances that had me stressed out, I’d done the new me (that had always been there, just waiting to get out) a disservice.

So yesterday, I began » Read more: Weekly Weigh-In #44: Live Life Today!

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Weekly Weigh-In #43: The Complacency Trap

August 21st, 2010 by Chad 13 comments »

I had planned today to blog about exercise, its importance, and getting back on the exercise wagon after some life circumstance that throws you off.  Then I stepped on the scale this morning for my weekly weigh-in, and it became apparent there was another blog post in me that was much more apropos and pressing.  It’s what I fell into over the past two days: The Complacency Trap…

This week went pretty well.  I rededicated myself to healthy eating, and I did really well with eating low-cal, healthy, and nutritious meals, with very light snacking.  That was through Wednesday.  I woke up Thursday morning and weighed, and I was » Read more: Weekly Weigh-In #43: The Complacency Trap

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The Comeback: Let’s Get It Started!!!

August 14th, 2010 by Chad 13 comments »

I’m ba-ack!!!  And I couldn’t think of a better anthem to return to ReconstructingThirty.com than the Black Eyed Peas’ “Let’s Get It Started!”  I mean, any hip-hop group that has fans spanning from the pre-school set, to we thirty-somethings, to the baby boomers, is pretty frackin’ awesome in my book.  So here goes…

As I mentioned in June, I needed to take a summer break from blogging.  I sat for the bar exam in late July, and I had to really dedicate a couple of months to studying, without the marvelous obsession distraction that is blogging.  Now begins the long three month wait for the results [sigh].  So, you may ask, how does the guy who used to weigh 308 pounds, and used food as his drug of choice, get through the stress of a bar exam?  Did I gain twenty pounds?  Did I get too stressed to eat and drop thirty?  Did I break out like a 16-year old before a big date?  (Answer to that last one: almost – pimples here and there – but no full-on break out).

So what’s the verdict on my weight loss?  Well, » Read more: The Comeback: Let’s Get It Started!!!

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On Hiatus

June 4th, 2010 by Chad 12 comments »

Well – my blogging has rather expectedly, but unintentionally, fallen behind. I’m studying for the bar exam this summer, and my schedule is simply no longer my own. Time to blog, and regrettably to stay up to date on other blogs, is a luxury that I just don’t have right now.

The reconstruction is continuing, though I’m having to find a new groove with my schedule since I’m taking evening bar review classes and studying every waking hour. So rest assured I’m still on the wagon, even if I’m having to relearn how to drive it a bit for the next couple of months. I’ll pop in here from time to time, but I won’t be blogging regularly again until August. In the meantime, if you don’t already follow me on Twitter, you’re much more likely to find me there over the next couple of months. It’s a quick distraction, and I’ll try to keep you up to date, and keep up with you, there! Just click on the link on the top right of this page.

So see you on Twitter, and back here more regularly in August!

You’re all awesome,
Chad

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