AKStafford

The Yellow Light

2012-01-24T17:14:00.001-09:00

The light turned yellow, just in front of him. He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.

The tailgating woman was furious and honked her horn, screaming in frustration, as she missed her chance to get through the intersection, dropping her cell phone and makeup.

As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up.

He took her to the police station where she was searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a holding cell. After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects.

He said, ''I'm very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the 'What Would Jesus Do' bumper sticker, the 'Choose Life' license plate holder, the 'Follow Me to Sunday-School' bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk, so naturally I assumed you had stolen the car.''

601 Geocaches

2012-01-02T09:00:00.000-09:00

Geocaching was born May 2nd, 2000 when the US government switched off Selective Availability, meaning GPS signals could be received by civilian owned handheld models with much greater accuracy. A man named Dave Ulmer hid a five gallon bucket near Beavercreek, Oregon and posted the coordinates on a Usernet group, challenging others to find what he had hidden and sign the log book within.

Others began to do the same and soon Jeremy Irish created a website where these "stashes" could be listed for others to find. To avoid any negative connotations that might come with the word "stash" it was agreed to call the hidden objects "caches".

Since then 1.5 million caches have been place in over 200 countries. Almost 5 million people enjoy geocaching, making 4 million finds last month. A geocache could be as small as a chapstick container or as large as a suitcase. Ammo cans make a good hiding container and would be considered a "regular" size container. Smaller caches simply contain a log book or sheet to be signed. Larger caches might contain "swag" to be traded. Swag can be almost anything not dangerous or illegal. A deck of cards, local souvenirs, small toys and fishing lures all make for good swag.

To participate in geocaching all you need is a handheld GPS, a free registration at www.GeoCaching.com and access to the internet. You can search for caches in your area, plug the coordinates in your GPS and you are good to go. Your GPS will get you within 10 feet or so of the hide and then its up to you find the cache. Some caches are large & obvious. Some very carefully hidden & camouflaged and can be hard to find.

Christy & I learned about Geocaching from Daren Lindley, who is a traveling minister that was speaking at our church. This was June 25th, 2005. It was shortly after Google Maps introduced their satellite view. Daren was going to be speaking at a Saturday night service and beforehand a bunch of us were hanging out and checking out the satellite views of different places. Darren joined in and was looking up various places in his hometown in Oregon. He then had us go to Geocaching.com and was telling us a little bit about geocaching. We looked and saw that there was several caches in the area and Daren mentioned that he'd love to find one after the service. Service didn't get done until late and I figured he'd forget all about it. But Daren is a super enthusiastic, energetic guy and he was ready to go. So Christy, myself, Scott and Daren headed to the Crevasse Moraine trail system about 10 miles away. After a short walk, surrounded by clouds of veracious mosquitoes we reached ground zero and made the find.

The next day, after speaking in our Sunday morning service, Daren was itchin' to find some more caches. Christy and I had enjoyed ourselves the night before and so we headed out again, finding 3 more caches. The follow Wednesday Christy & I bought our own GPS and became regular geocachers. Since June 25, 2005 we have 601 geocaches. We've cached in 12 states and two countries. We've cached in hip deep snow and through swamps. We've cached in -40 degree weather along the banks of the Chena River and in 100 degree heat in Dallas. We've cache in hurricane force winds and in a torrential thunderstorm along the Louisiana Gulf Coast. We driven & hiked miles in search of caches, chewed on by mosquitoes, encountering moose & bears.

Some of our best times together have been while caching. And, some of our worse fights have been while caching. We've seen some incredible sights and explored places we would've never been to otherwise. It's been a great form of exercise and gotten us up off the couch. For Christy, geocaching is the only time she can disconnect from the stress of her job.

You can read a little more about geocaching at it's Wikipedia entry or by watching the video below. And if you'd like to get started geoaching yourself, visit www.Geocaching.com and sign up for your free basic membership. You can also read more about geocaching here in the Mat-Su Valley by checking out the article I wrote for the MatSu Visitor's & Convention Bureau.

A Surprise at Taco Bell

2011-12-31T11:25:00.000-09:00

So normally at Taco Bell I get the steak taquito with no cheddar cheese, meaning it's just the meat & the tortilla. Being a picky eater, that's how I like it.

The other day I go to Taco Bell, order Christy's stuff and then order my taquito. The girl behind the counter informs me they've redone their menu and no longer offer the taquito... What?!? Why do places do that? They get something good on the menu and then mess around with it. (Update: They still will sell you taquito... they just don't list it on their menu)

But, I've still got options. They have a steak taco, but it's less convenient to order. With the taquito I could just say no cheese. With the taco I have to say no cheese, no lettuce, no tomatoes and no avocado ranch sauce. This makes it four times more likely that they'll mess up my order. I don't even bother with doing the drive through at fast food places any more. They always goof up the order and I have to go inside anyway.

But, none of this has anything to do with what my surprise was. It's been so long since I've ordered the steak taco, I had to go to Taco Bell's website to see what all is on the taco so I can be sure and list everything they need to not put on it. While on their website, I noticed they have a nutrition calculator. It allows you to build a customized meal and it'll adjust the calories for what you add or subtract.

So I started looking at the side items I get at Taco Bell. I plugged in Cinnamon Twists and learned that they have 170 calories. That's not too bad compared to 230 calories for a small fries from McDonalds, 380 calories for a medium fries and 500 calories for a large fries.

But my big surprise was when I looked at Taco Bells nachos, the ones that come in the little bag with a little container of cheese sauce. I don't do the cheese, but I like the chips. I was figuring that the chips would have less calories that the cinnamon twists since the cinnamon twists have a cinnamon and sugar coating. In fact, I've always kinda considered the cinnamon twist a dessert item.

I was shocked that compared to the 170 calories in the twists, just the nacho chips have 230 calories! I was able to save 60 calories by going with the cinnamon twists over the chips.

While typing this post, I see that McDonald's also has a food calculator. These are pretty handy tools to see exactly how many calories you are getting and where they come from. For example, eliminating the Big Mac sauce from your Big Mac will save you 110 calories. The BBQ sauce for the nuggets carry 50 calories for each little container.

Bottom line: we typically underestimate the calories we are consuming. The only way to really know is to do the research. Oh, and don't be afraid to think outside the bun...

The Journey: Am I Up To This?

2011-12-29T10:00:00.000-09:00

One of the blogs I follow is "11 Points." His humorous, sometimes off-color posts are full of useless trivia which are like candy to the brain. I didn't realize it, but the author has been on a Journey of his own. He talks about it here... I'd suggest reading it first before continuing on with my post.

When I decided to cut out soda, I did it 100%. I knew if I just tried to cut back it would lead to an epic failure. In the same way, the author of the blog made a 100% commitment to work out every day in 2011. He knew if he said he'd work out "most" days that he'd compromise one day at a time and before long he'd find he hadn't exercised in months. Which is EXACTLY what I've done over the last 6 months. It's so easy skip a day, promising yourself that you'll hit it hard tomorrow. Only tomorrow never comes...

So, after reading his post, I'm contemplating doing the same thing he did: commit that in 2012 I will exercise everyday. But I'm hesitant... And in the spirit of the original blog, I'll list the 11 reasons why I'm hesitant:

Am I too late? When I made the commitment to stop drinking soda, I gave myself a month and a half to prepare mentally. Every time I had a soda between early February and late March I was reminding myself that soon I'd be quitting. It was part of the process of retraining my thinking. If I make this new commitment, I've got just a couple of days to prepare.
It's not going to be convenient. Something like this never is.
What if I fail and don't make it the whole year? Do I really want to add another dismal failure onto the pile of failure that is my life?
If I do miss one day, will I have intestinal fortitude to go the next day since I would've already broken the streak?
What if I do go at it this hard and still see no results?
Is it wise in regards to health to exercise every day? I've seen studies that show your body needs periods of rest. Even God took it easy on the seventh day...
If I don't do this am I ever going to get some of this weight off?
What other demands on my time will I have to ignore to make this happen?
Why did I say I'd have 11 reasons? I'm starting to run out of things... How can I commit to a year of exercise when I can't even complete an 11 point list?
Going to the gym is pretty boring... Can I figure out a way to make it more engaging?
What if I fail... Yes, I know I've listed this twice, but it's a pretty big concern. Outside of my marriage & my walk with God, I've managed to mess things up pretty good lately.

So... Am I going to do it? I don't know. I've got three more days to decide. I'll let you know what I come up with. Unless I fail at that too...

My Family Christmas Letter

2011-12-25T11:26:00.001-09:00

I've been a little remiss in my blogging duties... So I thought I'd put up our family Christmas letter for your reading enjoyment.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!

So you may’ve notice that this Christmas letter has come to you after Christmas. You might be assuming this is an indication of laziness or procrastination. Well, you’d be wrong. You see, by the time you get this, Christmas will just be a memory. The stores will already be onto Valentines day stuff. The last of the leftovers will be molding in the back of the fridge. The tree will be mulch. But, by us sending our Christmas cards & this letter out now, we are helping you keep the spirit of Christmas alive for a few days extra. You’re welcome...

We pray that this letter finds you healthy & whole. As much as we love living in Alaska, it’s hard being away from family.

So, here is an update on what has been going on in our lives in 2011. We’ve been in our new house for two years now. We had gutters put on this summer & next summer we’ll have to get a yard put in. We are the last home on the block without grass. Luckily the house next to us has an old travel-trailer half tore apart in the yard, so we are not the most ghetto-looking place on the block.

Christy’s work has remained very busy. In addition to being bookkeeper, she is now the store manager and for the most part in charge of the whole company. It’s been a big challenge, but she’s making great strides to keep everything going. She works at Builders Bargains and they sell cabinets, countertops & wood floor. They offer a high end product at a low price.

Todd is still working at Alaska Air Balancing. He’s been there 2 1/2 years and has finally started to understand what “air balancing” is. Mechanical engineers design the heating & ventilation system for commercial buildings & mechanical contractors install these systems. Then balancers come in and measure & adjust the heating & ventilation system so they function as they were designed. Alaska Air Balancing is the only firm in the state of Alaska that are qualified to do what they do, so their 10 field technicians stay pretty busy. Todd works in the office doing the job bidding and getting the paperwork set up for the field technicians.

The highlight of our year was our first ever trip to Hawaii. We spent two days on Oahu, staying in Waikiki Beach, and then 7 days on Kauai. It was a great trip. We climbed to the top of Diamond Head, went snorkeling and spent time on the beach. At the end of the trip, Christy didn’t want to leave. Neither did Todd, but that’s only because he had sunburned his feet so bad he couldn’t walk.

The biggest change this year was our resignation from Wasilla Assembly of God. Todd had been there almost 16 years & for Christy it’s about the only church she’s ever know, having been there 23 years. It was an incredibly hard decision to make, but it was just time for a change. After the first of the year we’ll begin the hunt for a new church to attend here locally.

Back in 2010 we both started a journey to begin to lose weight. We cut out soda & focused more on what we were eating. In February we joined a gym and really saw some great results. We knew our trip to Hawaii was coming up and that gave us the motivation to hit it hard. Todd lost 55 pounds and Christy got to her lowest weight in years. After getting back from Hawaii, things haven’t gone as well. Between Christy being overwhelmed at work, Todd’s feet being fried to a crisp for a month and the stress of making the decision to step away from Wasilla Assembly of God we lost our momentum. But we haven’t given up. You can follow Todd’s journey at his blog, www.AKStafford.blogspot.com.

For Thanksgiving we snuck off to Oregon & surprised the family there. We got to meet our five new nephews & nieces: Trenton, Averee, Anna, Elijah and Esther and get reacquainted with Trent, Trevor & Levi. It was great to see a good portion of the family again. We are trying to put together another quick trip down over Memorial Day weekend.

The rest of our year was spent enjoying time with friends & family, relaxing at home and geocaching along the trails and in the wilderness of Alaska.

We are thankful to God for His provision & protection this year. We know that what ever is ahead of us, He will guide us and walk us through. We remember this Christmas season the ultimate gift that was given: Jesus Christ as our savior & lord; for the forgiveness of our sins & shortcomings.

We love & miss all of you.

~Todd & Christy

Dark Chocolate

2011-12-11T10:30:00.000-09:00

We all know how it works with Hershey's Miniatures...You buy a bag and dump them in a bowl. The Krackel & Mr. Goodbars go first, and then the regular milk chocolate. Now you are left with a dozen or so of the dark chocolate bars that linger in the bowl for the next two weeks until you either throw them out or eat them in a fit of self-loathing.

I've always assumed that I didn't like dark chocolate. But that's because I've only ever had the Hershey's dark chocolate. All of that has changed.

On our recent trip over Thanksgiving to visit family in Oregon, we took a couple of days & drove over to the eastern part of the state to visit some good friends that live in Milton-Freewater. It's a little town just south of Walla Walla, Washington.

In our room where we'd staying for the night, they put together a little welcome basket, full of all kinds of delicious snacks. Among the items was a bar of Dove dark chocolate. Now, I'm familiar with Dove chocolates. As I've been on the Journey I've develop some tricks to help along the way. To keep me from binging and devouring a whole candy bar, I keep some of the little foil wrapped squares of Dove chocolate in my desk. When I'm craving some sweet, sweet sugar, I'll slowly eat one of them, one little bite at a time. And since chocolate makes me thirsty, one little square eaten over time will cause me to drink a liter of water. Drinking lots of water is a big key to weight loss, so it all works together.

At some point that evening I was hungrin' for something sweet, so out of desperation, I tore into the dark chocolate. And while it wasn't as good as milk chocolate, it was good. It was definitely way better than the Hershey's dark chocolate.

I feel like I've discovered a whole new world. I went to my local mega-mart and got some of the Ghirardelli 60% Cacao dark chocolate. It's pretty tasty! Because the flavor is still a little bitter, just one little bite causes me to drink a lot of water & satisfies the sweet tooth for quite a while. This one 3.5 ounce bar has lasted me all week That works out to about 95 calories a day, which is equivalent to about half a candy bar. And who ever eats just half a candy bar?

So over time, as I can afford it, I'm on a mission to try out some the other dark chocolate options in the candy aisle. Hershey's will not be among the candidates...

The Journey: HCG Diet

2011-12-06T13:26:00.001-09:00

I'm back from my trip to Oregon & I've got a couple of different posts in mind to do, but I'm short on time...

However, I saw this in the news & thought it was worth passing on. The HCG diet is the current fad out there. It's not cheap, and now the FDA says that their claims are illegal and dangerous.

This post from Scott Hensley at NPR lays out the details.Here are the highlights:

HCG is a natural hormone made by the placenta during pregnancy. A prescription-strength version is given by injection as a part of fertility treatment.
But companies that sell the stuff in drops, sprays and pellets without a prescription claim it can recalibrate the body's metabolism, the FDA says. A dieter is supposed to take HCG to help curb cravings while adhering to an extremely low-calorie diet of, say, 500 calories a day. Stick with that and you're supposed to lose a pound a day.

"These products are marketed with incredible claims and people think that if they're losing weight, HCG must be working," Elizabeth Miller, acting director of FDA's Division of Non-Prescription Drugs and Health Fraud, says in a statement. But there's absolutely no proof of that, the agency says. "Any loss is from severe calorie restriction. Not from the HCG."

Aside from the issues with HCG, the FDA says a 500-calorie diet by itself is pretty risky. You can get gallstones and develop other health problems from such severe restrictions on what you eat.

MSNBC also had an article on it here...

Bottom line: There's no shortcut to weight loss other than proper diet & exercise. Which really sucks...

Oregon for Thanksgiving

2011-12-01T10:30:00.000-09:00

We decided to surprise my parents by showing up unannounced in Oregon for Thanksgiving. We flew the red eye flight and got to Portland at 6am Thanksgiving morning. After grabbing breakfast we woke mom up to let us in the house. She was shocked but happy to see us.

Because of everyone's travel & work schedule, we did our Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. There was over 20 of the family there. I got to see both of my grandmothers and all of my nephew & nieces. I had 2 nephews & 3 nieces that I had never met before. It's been 3 years since we've been down here. It was really good to connect with everyone. The one regret I have for living in Alaska is that I'm so far from the rest of family.

We'll be spending a total of 10 days here. We are spending time with my parents & getting some shopping down. We also took a couple of days to drive across the state to Milton-Freewater to see some friends who have moved there from Alaska. It was an incredible drive over & back along the Columbia River. And it was even better to spend a little time with some incredible people who we miss very much. I was going to include some pictures of the drive, but they are on another computer & I'm too lazy to get up...

The Journey will resume when I return home. The complete lack of results in the last month do not give me much motivation, but I can't give up... My goal a few months ago was to be back down to 315 for this trip. That was my weight before I lost momentum back in May. I completely failed on that goal. I was also wanting to be 299 by the end of the year. That's not going to happen either. I also wanted to be 271 by March 24th, 2012, which would be 100 pounds lost in 2 years. That goal *might* be doable if my body will start responding to the exercise.

I just remember I could grab the pictures off of facebook:

The mighty Columbia River

Mount Hood

Multnomah Falls

Our rental car. I've had it up to 108 MPH so far...

A recreation of Stonehedge built in 1918 as a WW I memorial

The vineyards behind where we stayed in Milton-Freewater, Oregon.

We saw hundreds of these wind turbines on the drive.

Worth it?

2011-11-22T10:00:00.000-09:00

From Seth Godin:

Worthit?

That's a question you hear a lot. "Was it worth it?"
Not certain what either "it" refers to, but generally we'resaying, "was the destination worth the journey? Was the effort worth thereward?"
The thing about effort is that effort is its own reward if you allow it tobe.
So the answer can always be "yes" if you let it.

After you've done your best

2011-11-20T10:00:00.000-09:00

From Seth Godin:

After you've done your best

(and it didn't work)
...then what do you do?
Slamming your six iron into the ground, yelling at yourself, cursing outyour staff, second-guessing, berating bystanders—there are plenty of ways wedemonstrate our frustration that our best didn't work this time.
But is it helpful?
Learning from a failure is critical. Connecting effort with failure at anemotional level is crippling. After all, we've already agreed you did yourbest.
Early in our careers, we're encouraged to avoid failure, and one way we dothat is by building up a set of emotions around failure, emotions we try toavoid, and emotions that we associate with the effort of people who fail. Itturns out that this is precisely the opposite of the approach of people who endup succeeding.
If you believe that righteous effort leads to the shame of personal failure,you'll seek to avoid righteous effort.
Successful people analytically figure out what didn't work and redefine whattheir best work will be in the future. And then they get back to work.
Let the guys at ESPN do the racket throwing.

The Journey: Why Am I Bothering?

2011-11-15T10:00:00.000-09:00

The one or two of you who even bother to read this blog may have noticed that I've been off schedule the last few weeks.

The truth is I'm horribly discouraged. I've hit the gym HARD for the last month. I've been careful in what I'm eating. I feel like I'm putting 100% effort in. Yet I'm seeing NO, zero, none, nada, nyet results. I'm STUCK at 330 pounds.

My goal of being 299 by the end of the year is completely unattainable at this point. There's just no way I could make up that much lost time.

I'm use to effort in equaling results out. Work more hours, get more pay. Drive faster and get there sooner. Up until now in the Journey this has been truth. The harder I've worked the gym, the more weight loss. But this is no longer the case.

I would give up completely, but then I think of a friend of mine who is a commercial fisherman. He works hard. The thing is, no matter how much effort he puts in, sometimes the fish just aren't there. But if he didn't put in the hard work, then the fish could be there and he'd miss it. So, fish or no fish: You have to put in the work to take advantage of when the fish are there.

Therefore, I will continue to put in the time at the gym. At least I will know I'm doing my part, even if the desired results don't come.

Don't Be Common

2011-11-09T08:51:00.000-09:00

I Do Not Choose to Be a Common Man

It is my right to be uncommon—if I can.

I seek opportunity—not security. I do not wish to be a kept
citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after
me.

I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to
fail and to succeed.

I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the
challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of
fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia.

I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for
a handout. I will never cower before any master nor bend
to any threat.

It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to
think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations
and to face the world boldly and say, “This I have done.”

~By Dean Alfange
*Originally published in This Week Magazine.
Later reprinted in The Reader’s Digest, October 1952 and January 1954.

The Honorable Dean Alfange was an American statesman born December 2, 1899, in Constantinople
(now Istanbul). He was raised in upstate New York. He served in the U.S. Army during World War I and attended Hamilton College, graduating in the class of 1922. He attended Columbia University where he received his law degree and opened a practice in Manhattan. In 1942, Alfange was the American Labor Party candidate for governor of New York and a founder of the Liberal Party of New York. Dean Alfange was also Professor Emeritus at UMass Amherst and a leading figure in various pro-Zionist organizations. Between other actions, in November 1943, he appeared before the House of Representatives and addressed them on the rescue of the Jewish people of Europe. He died in Manhattan at the age of 91 on October 27, 1989.

The Journey: Diggin' Deep

2011-10-29T10:00:00.000-08:00

THE ROOSTER AND THE HEN

Said the Little Red Rooster, “Believe me things are tough!
Seems the worms are getting scarcer and I cannot find enough.
What’s become of all those fat ones? It’s a mystery to me.
There were thousands through that rainy spell,
But now, where can they be?”

But the Old Black Hen who heard him didn’t grumble or complain,
She had lived through lots of dry spells;
She had lived through floods of rain.
She picked a new and undug spot, The ground was hard and firm,
“I must go to the worms,” she said. “The worms won’t come to me.”

The Rooster vainly spent his day,
Through habit, by the ways
Where fat round worms had passed in squads back in the rainy days.
When nightfall found him supperless, he growled in accents rough,
“I’m hungry as a fowl can be, conditions sure are tough.”

But the Old Black Hen hopped to her perch
And dropped her eyes to sleep
And murmured in a drowsy tone, “Young man, hear this and weep.
I’m full of worms and happy
For I’ve eaten like a pig.
The worms were there as always
But, boy I had to dig!”

I was going to just put the poem up for this blog post. But since it speaks to where I'm at right now, I need to give an update on The Journey. While on our trip to Hawaii in late April/early May I was at my lowest at 315 pounds. Coming off that trip, I completely lost momentum. I stopped going to the gym and wasn't weighing in regularly.

I stayed under 320 through May & June. In July I was up, but still under 325. I didn't weigh again until late September, when I was 329. By the time I started going back to the gym in mid October, I was up to 335 pounds.

In the last 19 days, I've been to the gym on 16 of them. I initially lost 5 pounds, but have since held steady at about 330 (give or take a pound) for almost two weeks. It's VERY frustrating to put in an hour to an hour and a half every day and see no results.

To be very clear, I hate going to the gym. It's inconvenient. By the time I get home in the evenings it's 7pm or 8pm. By the time I make and eat dinner, it's time for bed. But it would all be worth it if I was seeing results.

But I'm not seeing results. So... I can whine & complain. I can give up. I can join the idiots at Occupy Wall Street and demand that skinny people get fat too so I'm normal. Or I can do like the Old Black Hen and keep digging. So dig I shall.

The Journey: Stuff You Can Eat

2011-10-25T14:04:00.001-08:00

In the last few posts I've covered stuff you should avoid. Today I wanted to pass on a few things from the fine folks over at Eat This, Not That that actually isn't as unhealthy as they seem.

The fact is that sometimes it's not possible to solely dine on organic, all natural fruits, twigs & air. Sometimes you just gotta eat something good. So here's a few things that aren't going to kill you instantly: (Oh, and here's the link to the whole article)

The Super Roast Beef Sandwich at Arby's comes in at only 440 calories. A comparable hamburger would carry at least 600 calories.

Speaking of hamburgers; the BK Single Stacker from Burger King only has 380 calories. That's pretty light compared to the rest of their menu.

Or, if you are a fan of the Golden Arches, the McDouble only delivers 390 calories.

Looking for some upscale eatin'? The Steak Toscano at Olive Garden gives you a slug of protein for just 590 calories.

What about pizza? Two slices of The Works on original crust from Papa Johns has 460 calories, and two slices Hand Tossed Spicy Sicilian pizza from Pizza Hut has 480 calories.

Dairy Queen is known for their desserts, but they've got other stuff too. Their All Beef Chili Dog has a mere 330 calories.

Speaking of desserts; hungry for some ice cream? Haagen-Daz's Five Milk Chocolate ice cream only has 220 calories for 1/2 cup. Or you can do a small Original Frosty from Wendy's for 250 calories.

So, for those times when you just want some good food, there's options. You can splurge & still not go nuts.

The Journey: Just Don't Eat These...

2011-10-22T10:30:00.000-08:00

This is the second post (click here for the first one...) covering Eat This, Not That's 2012 list of worst foods in America.

As I've said, I'm not dieting as part of the Journey. And I'm not counting calories. But I am being more aware of what calories I'm eating and being more strategic about my calories. (See my "Tale of Two Meals" post...)

If you aren't careful, you can blow up a day's worth of calories in one meal. Remember, it's recommended that adults consume 2,000 calories a day. If you are a dockworker or coal miner, you can up that number. Take a look at four examples that could feed a dockworker AND a coal miner with a little left over for their tax guy:

With their Jalapeño Smokehouse Bacon Burger with Ranch, it's almost like Chili's was trying to see how many calories they could jam into one item. And at 2,210 calories, I'd say they did a pretty good job. Throw in the fries, soda, appetizer, & dessert and you can skip the next two or three meals. Oh, and the burger also has as much sodium as 6 pounds of McDonald's fries. (article link)

Speaking of appetizers... They aren't innocent either when it comes to the calorie count. Remember, appetizers were originally meant to be a small snack before the main meal. Well, there's nothing small about Applebee's Appetizer Sampler. It comes with chips, dip, wings & quesadillas. Oh, and there's celery sticks.... So, I guess it makes it healthy. Right? Well, at 2,430 calories, it's not healthy. Even if 4 people share this pile of food, it's still an extra 600 calories. That's a meal's worth of calories right there! (article link)

Ribs start off on shaky ground. The meat part of 'em are interlaced with fat. But that's no excuse for the 2,450 calories that come with the Caribbean Rockin' Reggae Ribs from TGI Friday's. But the sin here isn't the meat. It's the oily, sugary BBQ sauce that is layered onto it. (article link)

The 1,310 calories in the BK Ultimate Breakfast Platter from Burger King that I mentioned in the last post doesn't hold a candle to the Big Country Breakfast with Country Fried Steak & Country Gravy from IHOP. It packs 800 calories for every time they use the word "country" in it's name. That's over 2,400 calories total for those of you who don't like math. 2,440 calories to be exact. (article link)

To eat any one of these meals for a special occasion wouldn't be a big deal. But if you are eating stuff like this on a regular basis, the effects add up quickly. Let's say you start with breakfast at IHOP, lunch at TGI Friday's, and dinner at Chili's. That's almost 7000 calories for the day. Let's say you just splurge like that on Saturdays. Unless you exercise A LOT, you could easily pack on 50 pounds a year.

Looking at those numbers, I think I'm lucky that I only got up to 371 pounds. It could've been much, much worse.

The Journey: An Update

2011-10-18T10:00:00.000-08:00

I was going to do a second part of my last post, covering more of the Eat This, Not That's list of worst meals for 2012. But, I thought I would instead give you a quick update on where The Journey is at right now.

Last week I made it to the gym six days in a row. Sunday we had to go into Anchorage early, so I didn't get a chance to go then. Plus, I was hurtin' pretty good. I went last night (Monday) and the plan is go every night this week.

In the couple of months that I wasn't exercising, I went back up to 335 pounds. I'm not sure how it happened so fast, but it is what it is. I've managed to take back off 4 pounds already.

For now, I'll be working out 5 to 6 days a week. My goal is to be at 299 pounds by the end of the year. I don't want to start 2012 weighing over 300 pounds. March 24, 2012 will mark the two year anniversary of the beginning of the Journey and my goal is to be at 271 pounds by then, which will be 100 pounds lost.

For those who are just recently joining my Journey, you can go to my first post about it and then read forward. In a nutshell, though, on March 24th, 2010 I made the decision to cut out my 1,500 calories a day soda habit. I had hit 371 pounds and was only getting fatter each and every day. Just cutting out the soda helped me lose the first 30 pounds. I've also modified what I eat (but I don't diet) and have started working out regularly.

I've gotten as low as 316 pounds, a 55 pound loss. But then I had a month where I couldn't work out and it's been hard to get the momentum going again. But I think I may be back in the swing of it.

The sad thing is there's been 3 different times I've lost momentum. If I hadn't, I could've lost the 100 pounds in a year and I'd almost be at my goal weight by now. But, what's done is done. I can't undo what I've done; I can only do what I can do now.

What about you? What are you doing?

The Journey: Even more Eat This, Not That

2011-10-15T09:44:00.000-08:00

The fine folks over at Eat This, Not That have released their list of the worst foods in America for 2012. Here are some of the highlights...

Does TGIF stand for Thank God It's Fattening? It might if you order up their Loaded Mashed Potatoes. It's only a side dish but packs an astounding 930 calories. Yeah, that's about 1/2 your calories for the entire day. (article link)

Speaking of half your calories for the day, you'll get that if you order the Veggie Sandwich at Quiznos. That's right... 1090 calories in a veggie sandwich. It sounds like it should be healthy, but it's not. Oh, and it also slams you with a day's worth of fat. (article link)

They say it's good to start each day with eating breakfast. But if it's the Burger King BK Ultimate Breakfast Platter, you'll need to follow it up with a 12 mile run to burn off the 1,310 calories. Hmm... I'm pretty sure it would take me the whole rest of the day to even run 12 miles. (article link)

No one expects chili cheese fries to be healthy. But the Texas Cheese Fries with Chili & Ranch from Chili's seems like it's design to kill you. It packs in 2,120 calories. That's 106% of your daily calories and a week's worth of sodium. (article link)

Still hungry? In the next blog post I'll have a few more dishes to fill you up....

The Journey: The Blog

2011-10-11T11:14:00.001-08:00

When I lost my momentum on The Journey, I also floundered in putting up regular blog posts.
At it's height I had about thirty people who would read each post. Now that I'm blogging again, it's fallen to about half that.
So, in addition to getting serious about getting to the gym regularly, I'm also serious about doing my blog posts on Tuesdays & Saturdays. I can't guarantee they'll be interesting or entertaining, but I'll try.

The Journey: A Tale of Two Meals

2011-10-08T10:00:00.000-08:00

I love KFC. You know, K-Fry. Kentucky Fried Chicken. Yard bird. The Colonel's Cluckers.

Seriously. It's good stuff. You know in the Bible when the children of Israel came up out of Egypt & were travelin' through the desert? We all know that God fed them with manna. But here's what you may not know. If you do a proper exegesis on the original Hebrew word there from the original text, you'll see that the manna was actually KFC biscuits. Really. And when God sent quail... Yep, it was actually KFC chicken. Original recipe. And when Moses struck the rock & water flowed out. That was actually KFC gravy.

Now, as I've said; I'm not doing any special diet while on the Journey. I have cut out sugar soda and try to limit the amount of junk food I eat. And I know fast food isn't the best for you. But life gets busy, and sometimes fast food is the only choice. So the key is to make smart choices in your fast food feasting.

For the purpose of today's example, we'll assume that you are on the road. I will admit that I've eaten chicken off the bone while driving. In a stick shift. Looking back the only way it could've been less safe is if I had been drunk. Or on the cell phone. Or on a drunk cell phone... But I digress. So, since we are looking to be responsible behind the wheel, we will keep to the boneless stuff.

Our first option is KFC's Crispy Chicken Strips. Those come with the Potato Wedges & a wonderfully fluffy biscuit. This option will deliver 860 calories, almost 1/2 of your daily allotment of 2,000 calories. Option two is the KFC Original Recipe Boneless Breast Fillet. We'll pair that with the Potatoes & Gravy and stick to the biscuit. What's our calorie count here? A mere 500 calories, for a savings of 360 calories. Michelle Obama probably still disapproves of it, but at least we are trying.

Now, I will grant you that eating mashed potatoes & gravy on the road isn't exactly convenient, but it's doable. You will need to use your cup holder. And you'll want to take small bites.

So you don't have to give up hittin' the drive through when you are yearnin' for some tasty vittles. You just have to visit the joint's website and do a little research ahead of time.

Now if you'll excuse me, I hear Fourth Meal calling my name...

The Journey: Not giving up...

2011-10-04T15:44:00.000-08:00

It Tuesday. According to my self-imposed blogging schedule, it's time for a post on The Journey. Or maybe I should call it The Good Intentions To Be On A Journey But In Reality I'm Sitting On Bench Eating A Twinkie.
Well, not really eating a Twinkie. I'm not a huge Twinkie fan. Oh sure, I'll have one if it's offered to me, but I haven't bought one of those yellow sponge cakes filled with cream in a long time. I'll tell you what I am craving though... An Orange Hostess Cupcake. Most of you have no idea what that is. You are probably familiar with Hostess's Chocolate Cupcake. Well, they also make an orange flavored one. It's so good. But they don't have them everywhere. I've found them in Oregon, Arizona & Hawaii. They don't normally carry them in Alaska, but last year Walmart had them for Halloween. I haven't had a chance to check and see if they have them this year...

Okay... Today's post was not suppose to be about orange deliciousness. That was just a distraction. This post is actually the 3rd one in a row that is on schedule after almost two months with no posts. And I probably wouldn't be posting now if I hadn't gotten an email from Tom. Tom is a great guy. He has an excellent blog and is a published author. I highly recommend giving his blog, Wilderness Blues, a read. Tom noticed that I hadn't blogged in a while, so he sent me an email, just checking up on me.

So, an update on the Journey... I made it to the gym a couple of times early last week. My weight has crept back up. At my lowest I was at 315. I'm now at 330. If I had lost what I've gained over the last 6 months, I'd almost be below 300 pounds for the first time in years. And if I had kept the momentum I had I'd be at about 270 pounds.

Looking at the numbers can be pretty depressing. But, as the blog title suggests... I'm not giving up. Not yet.

Oh, and I've checked at Walmart. The orange cupcakes are back. There's no way that this is going to go well...

The Journey: More Eat This, Not That

2011-10-01T11:12:00.000-08:00

I mentioned in my last post I'm a big fan of the Eat This, Not That people. So I thought I'd share some more stuff from them.

Every one talks about how healthy green tea is, but not if there's a bunch of sugar in it. The SoBe Green Tea pictured below, for example, packs as much sugar as in 4 slices of Sarah Lee Cherry Pie. (article link)

Are you running late, so you're just going to have a muffin for breakfast? If you grab a Otis Spunkmeyer Banana Nut Muffin you are looking at 460 calories and 32 grams of sugar. That's the same sugar as a 3 1/2 Rice Krispies Treats. You are better off grabbing a Vitalicious Apple Berry Muffin which will only be 100 calories. (article link)

Are you looking for something easy for dinner, so you grab a Marie Callender's Creamy Parmesan Chicken Pot Pie to throw in the oven? You are looking at 1,060 calories, over half of what you should get in a day. Plus you get sodium equivalent of 8 small bags of potato chips and the fat equivalent of 23 strips of bacon. Instead you can grab a Marie Callender's Oven Baked Chicken and only consume 360 calories. (article link)

Are you thirsty and looking for something healthy? Snapple Agave Melon Antioxidant Water sounds like it's a good choice. Except that it has 33 g sugars which is like eating 3 bowls of Honey Comb cereal. Your better choice is Dasani Plus Orange Tangerine Vitamin Enhanced Water. (article link)

Salads are healthy, right? Maybe some spinach, a little chicken? IHOP's Chicken and Spinach Salad contains a staggering 1,600 calories!! You could snarf down six pancake short stacks and still take in less fat. (article link)

Okay... One final comparison. Headed out to Chili's with your friends? You want something with some spicy so you order the Big Mouth Bites with Jalapeño Ranch. Those four little sliders will deliver 1,540 calories. And that's without the french fries. That's more calories than two Burger King Whoppers.

Bottom line: before you consume, take a look at the details behind what you are eating.

The Journey: Eat This...

2011-09-27T10:30:00.000-08:00

I've become a big fan of the Eat This, Not That people. I haven't read any of their books, but I follow them on Twitter and have read quite a few of their articles from there.

I like that they go beyond the obvious in their analysis. Any idiot knows that having green tea is more healthy for you than a soda. But they go much deeper into it...

For example... Let's say you've got a hankerin' for a bowl of cereal. You look in the cupboard... You've got a box of Frosty Sugar Sweetness, a box of Cheerios, or a box of Quaker Natural Low Fat Granola with Raisins. Which one is better for you? Obvious the sugary stuff isn't. And Cheerios doesn't sound nearly as healthy as the Quaker stuff. I mean it's got raisins. And it's low fat. And it's got granola. It's like it was designed by Richard Simmons!! Surely the Quaker cereal is the way to go!

WRONG!! The healthy soundimg Quaker Natural Low Fat Granola with Raisins has 315 calories in one cup. For comparison, a Snickers candy bar only has 275 calories. Yeah, you'd be better off enjoying the candy bar for breakfast.

Oh, and the Cheerios... Only 100 calories for one cup. For reference, here's the link to the article...

And speaking of granola bars... Have you ever thought about what holds them together? That's right, it's sugar. How is that healthy? Okay... what about dried fruit? I mean, it's fruit. How can you go wrong with fruit?!? Well, often times the makers add a bunch of sugar to it in the process. And bran muffins? Made with sugar & refined flour and can have over 400 calories. Lot's of things that we have been told are "healthy" aren't necessarily so. You can read more here...

I've probably depressed you by now, so I'll end it here. But in future posts I'll highlight more fun stuff from the great folks at Eat This, Not That.

The Journey: An Update

2011-09-25T14:56:00.001-08:00

It's been over a month since my last post... And almost two months since the I've been to the gym or stepped on a scale. I'm still not drinking soda, and I'm still being somewhat careful about what I eat.

Well, I did go to the gym on Friday. I was only there for about 40 minutes, and did that time on the elliptical machine. I've got a spot in my neck where a nerve gets pinched and it was killing me, so it was a short work out.

And I'm headed to the gym after I finish typing this post for a couple of hours. I've still got at least 120 pounds to lose. I don't watch what eat closely enough to do it just through diet. So I've got to exercise. Before going to Hawaii back in late April I was going about 5 days a week. In July I went three days a week for 3 weeks.

Work has been busy and I've been working some overtime. But it's not so much overtime that I don't have time for a good work out.

I'm not at a point where I'm ready to declare The Journey a failure. It's only a failure when I give up. And I haven't given up. Not yet... I've got some ideas for some good posts in the future, so now I just need to get consistent again on blogging.

The Journey takes quite a bit of focus and the past couple of months my focus has been on other issues. But now that those have cleared up, it's time to get back on track.

The Journey: Gym People, Part 2

2011-08-13T12:19:00.002-08:00

As I mentioned in part 1, to keep my mind off the misery of working out, I spend my time at the gym observing those around me. I've begun to label & categorize some of them...

Smelly Guy: I don't say this to be cruel... But dude, you stink. How can you not smell that? It's like a skunk ate a bunch of garlic and then set itself on fire. And then hopped on the treadmill. I'm struggling to catch my breath, and I haven't even started working out yet.

The Fashion Diva: They're not just here to work out... They are here to look good. From their shoes to their head band, they are color coordinated & shiny. And it's not just limited to the ladies... There are some guys there that are sportin' the look too.

Rebels Without A Clue: This is the three teenagers running around. And for some reason, it's always three of them. Not two, not four. They'll spend a few moments in the weight lifting area trying to see who can lift the most. And then they spend the rest of the time running around acting like idiots. There's an upside though. The dumber they act, the less likely they are to ever get the chance to breed & reproduce. So it works out.

The Mixologst: I'm not sure what these people are all about. They've got 55 gallon drums of a powder mix in their gym back and they spend a lot time mixing up these protein drinks. They say their goal is to get bigger. Shoot, I think a few Big Macs would do the job faster...

People Like Me: We range from chubby to really chubby. We are just there to erase the guilt of the donut binge from the night before. And we hope all of the work will show some results. After all, we are having to put up with these Gym People all around us.

The Journey: Retrain Your Brain

2011-08-09T10:55:00.002-08:00

I read this great article the other day on retraining yourself on how you look at food and eating. You can (and should) read it here.

The article says that are brains are hard wired to eat fatty foods... "To avoid dying in a famine, the brain is wired to pick up on signs that calorie-rich foods are nearby, which helps explain why that piece of cake on the plate in front of you is so irresistible, or why seeing a sign for a doughnut shop draws you in even when you know you need to watch your diet."

But more than that, it also says "that while we're born with certain cravings, there's also evidence we start to crave whatever we eat in large quantities."

So in the sort term, dropping the junk food in favor of healthy fare is hard, but in a short amount of time we can retrain the brain to crave the healthy food. And that's important to remember when you fighting the craving for a bag of M&M's. Those feelings will soon subside. You won't have to live in denial forever.

The article goes onto to suggest some tricks to help the process along, which include cleaning the junk food out of the house so it's not as accessible and keeping plenty of healthy snacks on hand.

Financial Peace University in Wasilla

2011-08-07T09:52:00.002-08:00

I've locked in the details for my next Financial Peace University.

This time around the class will be held at the Working Place in the Meta-Rose Square on Yenlo Street, near Carrs in Wasilla. The free preview is on August 23rd at 6:30 pm.

The classes will be on Tuesday nights from 6:30 to 8:30, starting August 30th and going 13 weeks to November 22nd.

The cost of the Membership Kit is $100. Kits may be purchased from me. If you purchase from www.DaveRamsey.com, the cost is generally higher.

Class size is going to be limited, so if you are interested, go to www.DaveRamsey.com/FPU to register.

This class will teach you everything you need to know about dumping debt, building wealth, and changing your family tree. More than one million families have attended FPU with amazing results.

We also invite you to join us on facebook.

The Journey: Best Idea EVER

2011-08-06T10:47:00.000-08:00

My little brother is a GENUIS! He recently posted this idea on Facebook:

Someone should open a donut shop named The Gym. That way I could post everyday on FB "at The Gym" and feel good about myself.

They could name their maple bars "cardio" - then I could say "at The Gym for some cardio". or "I hit The Gym hard today and am really feeling it in my abs."

Of course, this is coming from the guy who when in Bible College named his bed “prayer”. That way when he was tired in class he could say that he was tired because he spent all night in prayer.

The Journey: Gym People, Part 1

2011-08-02T10:23:00.001-08:00

Going to the gym for a work out is an essential part of The Journey, but that doesn't mean I have to like it... To keep my mind off of the misery I'm putting myself through, I've begun to evaluate & categorize the people you'll find at the gym.

The Ghost: This is the person who signs up for a cardio machine but then NEVER actually shows up & uses it. And they always sign up for the good machines. I'm too much of a rule-follower to just hop on anyway. I'm afraid the gym police will show up...

Awkward Naked Guy: A certain amount of nakedness is required in the locker room, so I'm not being a prude. I'm talking about the guy over at the sink brushing his teeth in the buff. Or the three guys discussing politics while wearing nothing but a smile.

'Gave Into Peer Pressure' Chick: This is the slightly chubby, out of shape girl that's there with a couple of skinny, fit friends. She has no desire to be at the gym. She's only there because she neglected to listen to Nancy Regan and just say no! She's easy to spot by the "what the heck am I doing here" look on her face.

The Butterfly: I don't know if they are ADHD or hopped up on energy drinks. But they go from the treadmill to the stretch area to the weights to the bike to the stair stepper. All in 5 minutes. They burn more calories in transition then they do working out.

The Chandler: If you've never seen "Friends" you probably won't get this reference... This is the guy that has signed up for the gym but this will be the one and only time he works out. He's signed up for the reoccurring payments directly drawn from his bank account. Four years from now he'll still being paying his monthly fee.

The Socialite: They aren't at the gym to work out. They are at the gym to hang out with people who work out. They can be a little hard to spot, because they are dressed in work out gear. But if you watch, they never actually work out.

There's more than just these five types, but we'll start with this... There's more to come, including Smelly Guy & the Fashion Diva.

Our Anniversary

2011-07-29T17:26:00.001-08:00

Fifteen years & eight months ago today I was in Wasilla for the first time. I had driven through it headed from Fairbanks to Little Beaver Camp in Big Lake a few times. But this time I was here for a three day visit to decide if I was going to move here.

On that Wednesday night I attended my first service at Wasilla Assembly of God. Afterwards a bunch of us went to the Kashim Restaurant, which is now called Tailgaters. Among the group was Christy Lucus, who was to become my first wife. And yes, she's my only wife. I just like the reaction I get when I refer to her as the first wife...

A couple of months later, on January 12th, 1996 I made the move. I was attending a school of ministry at the church and very involved in the youth group as a leader. That August, we did a missions trip to Barrow. Christy & I were assigned to work together on VBS for kids. Up to this point we had just been friends. But while working together on that trip I begin to realize what an incredible, beautiful person she is.

I went directly from the Barrow trip to a summer camp in Kodiak. While there I realized how much I missed being with her. A couple of weeks after the Kodiak trip, I went back to Afognak Island to work in the timber industry for a few months. I was pretty broke and needed to earn some money.

I had made arrangements with Christy to check my mail while I was gone, which gave me a perfect excuse to call her often. On September 29th, 1996; 14 years and 10 months ago we decided this was more than just a friendship and we began dating.

Two years later, on September 29th, 1998 at Point Warzoff as the sun was setting behind a snow covered Mt. Susitna I proposed. To my great joy, she said yes.

Ten months later on July 31st, surrounded by friends & family we were married. This weekend we are celebrating 12 wonderful years of marriage.

Christy, I love you. Thanks for all the great times. There are many more ahead of us!

The Journey: The Best Day

2011-07-23T10:00:00.002-08:00

As I look back over this Journey that is now 16 months along, my best day was just a few months ago. Christy and I were spending two days on Oahu, staying in Honolulu. We'd flown in the evening before, picked up the rental car and made our way to the hotel. When staying at a new place, you are never sure what you are going to get. But the place we stayed at was great. It was just a few blocks from Waikiki beach.

After we checked in we walked down to a restaurant for dinner and then we got to bed early. We wanted plenty of sleep for the big day we had planned. And it was this next day that has been the best day of the Journey.

We got up and out the door early. We were headed to Diamond Head to hike up to the old WWII observation post on the crater rim. (You can read the details here... Oh, and there's puking involved...). It was a strenuous hike, but I made it. After wards we drove over the north side of the island.

For lunch we stopped at a Subway and used a gift card that my Aunt Jackie & Uncle Roger had given me for my birthday. Granted, Subway isn't as healthy as Jared would like you to believe, but it's better than fries & a burger.

We spent the rest of the day driving through paradise, with a stop at a beach to enjoy the water. That evening we took a walk through bustling Waikiki and watched the sunset over the beach.

I was at my lowest weight at this time... I had been hitting the gym almost daily for two months. I was in a beautiful location with my favorite wife. It was perfect.

And that's my motivation for the Journey... I want to have more perfect days like that. But it's not going to happen being overweight, clothes barely fitting, sitting on the couch eatin' chips and drinkin' soda. So as much as I dread going to the gym, it has to happen. Period.

The Journey: The Levi Jacket

2011-07-19T18:59:00.001-08:00

I spent my 8th, 9th, & 10th grade year living in a logging camp seven miles outside of Hoonah, Alaska. Hoonah was a small fishing village of about 800 people. At the time I would've told you living there was the worst torture ever devised by a parent, but looking back through the lens of time I can see that it wasn't so bad. I was able to experience the wonder that is Southeast Alaska.

There was a handful of us kids that ran around together. It wasn't so much that we liked each other; but we were all we had. With such a small population you didn't have a lot of options in friends. Looking back though, those were some of the best friendships I ever had. (Am I the only one hearing Richard Dreyfuss's narration from "Stand By Me" in their head?)

The outerwear of choice for us was a Levi jean jacket. I always wore mine with the sleeves rolled up 2 1/2 times. For the weather of Southeast, it wasn't a great choice. When it got wet, it absorbed the water and tripled in weight. And since we lived in a temperate rain forest, it got wet a lot.

But all the pockets were great. You had a spot for your wallet, Walkman, a soda & and a candy bar. Oh, for those of you under 30; you'll want to click here and see how we used to kick it old school...

These jackets had a little red Levi tag on the left breast pocket. The tag was folded over and you could tease the fold and open up a little loop. We would take a .22 bullet and slip it into the loop. It took some patience & and a little pressure to get it in there because it was a tight fit. This may sound a little silly, but for us it was high redneck fashion. And since we were 1,500 miles from a decent mall, it worked.

And it couldn't be just any .22 bullet. It had to be a hollow point, preferably Remington brand. I'm not sure why we did that... I seem to remember some discussion about it being a bullet of last resort. But It's not like you were going to take out a bear with a .22. And even if you happen to have a .22 rifle in your hands and a bear was charging you, there was no way in the world you were going to be able pull that bullet back out of that loop. It was wedged in there way too tight.

What does this little trip down memory lane have to do with the Journey? A few years back, in a fit of nostalgia I bought myself a Levi jean jacket. I got the biggest size they had and it fit at the time. But as a I got fatter and finally hit 371 pounds, it was a long way from fitting. I could get it on, but there was no way I was getting it buttoned up. Or moving my arms.

So a couple of weeks ago a friend called me up and asked if I wanted to go out shooting. As I was gathering up bullets & guns, I reached into the closet for a coat & grabbed the jean jacket. When I put it on, I was shocked. The thing was huge on me!! I almost didn't wear it because it fit so loose.

Yes, I've stalled on the Journey since returning from Hawaii in early May. And yes, I still have at least 100 pounds still to lose. But putting on that jacket reminded me that I had lost 50 pounds. I've come a long way. It hasn't been easy, but it's been worth it. Oh, and for the record, my current jacket doesn't have a bullet in its little tag. But that's only because this particular style of jacket doesn't have the tag.

The Journey: I climbed the Butte...

2011-07-10T09:09:00.001-08:00

A couple of months ago I mentioned I'd like to climb the Butte this summer. With the Journey going nowhere, I wasn't sure if it was going to happen.

For those of you who do not live in the Valley, the Butte is a land formation east of Palmer. It rises about 900 feet and the West Trail is 1 1/2 miles from the parking area to the top. It sits in the middle of Matanuska River plain and can be seen from most points in the Valley.

It's a favorite hike for many people in the Valley. I've been here 15 1/2 years and almost everyone I know has climbed it. I've wanted to hike it ever since I moved here, but I never got around to it. And as I gained weight, it became less and less likely that it would ever be possible.

But now that I've lost some weight, I had it on the to-do list. This morning the sister-in-law called and said they were going to climb the Butte this morning. I knew that it would be a challenge. Hiking Diamond Head in Hawaii was hard enough and I was in better shape then.

The trail starts out tame enough and I started off at a good clip. And then the trail started to climb up. And up. And up. And then it got steep... And then we got to the stairs. I think there was at least 100 steps, Christy's guess is there was only 50. Eitehr way; it was plenty. And after the staris it got really steep.

But I made it. I hauled my 320 pound hind-end up there. And the view was totally worth it.

The Journey: Happy Independence Weekend

2011-07-03T09:48:00.000-08:00

The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shows, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

John Adams' famous letter of July 3, 1776, in which he wrote to his wife Abigail what his thoughts were about celebrating the Fourth of July

The Journey: Still stuck...

2011-06-21T15:45:00.001-08:00

I haven't posted in a while, and really didn't intend to post anytime soon. But, I've had a few people comment on the lack of updates.

There's been no updates to my progress in the Journey. I still haven't gotten back in the habit of going to the gym. My weight has held steady, which is good. But if I had stayed in the groove, I could have been below 300 pounds by now.

It's been 15 months since I've had a soda. I still get hit with cravings for it all the time. It's crazy... I was never a drinker or a smoker, so this is my first experience with self control. It makes you wonder if the cravings will ever go away.

I need to get back at the gym and having progress to report here on this blog...

The Journey: A little more humor

2011-06-10T14:33:00.000-08:00

HEALTH MESSAGE

1. If walking/cycling is good for your health, the postman would be immortal.

2. A whale swims all day, only eats fish, drinks water and is fat.

3. A rabbit runs and hops and only lives 15 years.

4. A tortoise doesn't run, does nothing, yet lives for 450 years.

AND...YOU TELL ME TO EXERCISE?

From Steve Sanderson via www.mikeysFunnies.com

The Journey: a little humor...

2011-06-09T09:35:00.001-08:00

I should have figured it out sooner.

It's the shampoo I use in the shower. When I wash my hair, the shampoo runs down my whole body.

Printed very clearly on the shampoo label it reads, "FOR EXTRA VOLUME AND BODY."

I have gotten rid of THAT shampoo and I am going to start using Dawn dish detergent.

Its label reads, "DISSOLVES FAT THAT IS OTHERWISE DIFFICULT TO REMOVE."

Problem solved! It sure pays to read the label...

from JR Whitby via www.mikeysFunnies.com

The Journey: Don't ruin the bag

2011-06-07T17:01:00.000-08:00

Here's an update on the Journey... It's a week into June and I've only worked out a few times since getting back from vacation. In the constant struggle between what I should do and what I do do, being fat is winning the battle.

I had gotten down to 316. Then when I stalled out, I went up to 319. I'm back down to 316. So I'm holding steady, which is pretty amazing considering the crap I've been shoveling down my throat. I think one of life's biggest injustices is the fact that junk food tastes so amazing while healthy food... well, we all know how healthy food tastes.

I've gotten inconsistent in my blogging again because of the lack of progress. Good news we shout from the mountain tops. Bad news we try and ignore and hope it'll go away. But it doesn't... It's like the time I was in Anchorage for Youth Convention. I was leading the youth group at the time, and we were staying at a hotel while attending the weekend event.

In the evening, after service, we'd swing by the store & everyone would buy some food to eat back at the hotel. I bought some crackers & a pack of lunch meat. When I got to the hotel, I realized the lunch meat's packaging had been torn & was no longer sealed. I didn't want to eat tainted meat, so I threw it in my bag with the receipt so I could go get my money back the next day.

Only I forgot it was there. I came home from the event, pulled out my clothes & threw the bag back into the far back of a deep closet that we didn't get into very often. A year & a half later my wife decides to go through the closet. As she digs deeper & deeper, there's an odor that gets stronger & stronger. It smells like a skunk ate poo and then died and decomposed. It was wretched.

The meat had mummified long ago, but it's rotting order had infused itself into the bag. And it was a really nice bag. Christy did her best to get to the stank out, but it wasn't happening. We finally had to throw the thing in the dumpster.

So if you are own a Journey of your own, don't just ignore the stuff you don't want to deal with. It's not going to get any better. And you'll ruin your favorite bag.

The Journey: I drank a soda...

2011-05-29T12:11:00.000-08:00

The month of May has been a complete waste as far as the Journey is concerned. I came home from Hawaii with my feet fried and I wasn't able to work out for three weeks. Even now, a month after getting sun burnt, the tops of my feet are still a little tender.

The last week or so I've made it to the gym a couple of times, but it was a struggle. Both mentally & physically. But I've completely lost the momentum I had before Hawaii. I've gained back the three pounds I lost while in Hawaii. Not only am I not working out, but because I've lost my focus & drive, I've been horrible about what I'm eating.

And as the title suggests, I drank a soda. But this isn't a bad thing. I didn't cave in, grab a Mountain Dew and suck it down. That would be a complete failure of the Journey. And while I've lost momentum, I haven't completely given up...

No, a friend of mine was coming through Canada and picked up a bottle of this awesome Strawberry Cream Soda Crush. It's very tasty but you can only get it in selected parts of Canada and he put some effort into hunting it down. So in honor of his kindness, I purposely enjoyed it with a great dinner.

I know someday I'll be able to go back to drinking soda again in moderation. But if I had a Mountain Dew, or Coke or Dr Pepper now, I know I would not be able to resist the desire to keep on drinking it, and it's readily available. The stuff he brought me from Canada is 581 miles away.(Yeah, I've checked. It would take me 11 hours to get there.)

May is almost gone, so I need to get my head ready to get back into the Journey in June. I've made some tweaks to my work schedule that should make it more convenient to get the gym in the evenings. And it's summer in Alaska, so there's tons of hiking that can be done. We've got some of that planned, and I'll post pictures as it happens.

So the lesson you should draw from this if you are on your own Journey? When you have momentum; don't lose it. When you lose momentum; do the hard work to get it back. It's as much mental as it physical.

And, if you haven't been following the Journey since the beginning, go to the first post here and read forward.

The Journey: One possible method...

2011-05-24T08:54:00.000-08:00

A man was terribly overweight, so his doctor put him on a diet.

"I want you to eat regularly for two days, then skip a day. Then eat regularly again for two days, then skip a day. Repeat this procedure for two weeks. The next time I see you, you should have lost at least five pounds."

When the man returned, he shocked the doctor by having lost nearly 60 pounds!

"Wow, that's amazing!" the doctor said. "Did you follow my instructions?"

The man nodded. "I'll tell you though, I thought I was going to drop dead on the third day."

"From the hunger, you mean?" asked the doctor.

"No, from the skipping."

From Kathleen Marion, via www.mikeysFunnies.com

The Journey: Back to the Gym

2011-05-18T19:34:00.001-08:00

I made it back to the gym... finally. It's been a month since I had been there. Leading up to our trip I missed a few days before because of being busy getting ready to go. And then I missed 10 days while we were on vacation. And then I came home with my feet burned to a crisp.

Monday was the first day I was able to function without constant pain. If I bump them or get my shoes tied too tight they still hurt, but nothing like they have been hurting. So, as much as I didn't want to, I knew I had to get back in the gym.

It was a short work out. Sometimes after I've been on the elliptical machine for about 20 or 30 minutes something pinches in my upper back, right between my shoulder blades. It hurts like crazy... Normally I push past it, but this time I just didn't have the mental fortitude.

At least 60% of the Journey has been more mental than physical. It was a month between when I decided to quite soda and when I actually quit. And I spent that month preparing mentally for the battle.

I've also set some more goals. I want to lose 8 to 10 pounds a month. I also want to be able climb the Butte and Lazy Mountain before the end of the summer. I've never done either, and I hear the view from the top is pretty awesome.

And, as much as I hate running, by next year I want to run in a 5K. I'm not worried about how well I do, I just want to be able to say I did it.

Stayed tuned for future updates as we get serious again about the Journey. The plan is to post every Tuesday & Saturday. Granted, this post is going up on Wednesday night, so sometimes I'll be late...

The Journey: Reincarnation

2011-05-14T09:44:00.002-08:00

I don't really believe in reincarnation... But if it was true, I think the worst thing you could come back as is an alarm clock.

Think about it... There you are, sitting on the night stand. As your owner goes to bed they set you to go off in the morning. For the next seven or eight hours you wait in eager anticipation for the designated moment. And it finally comes! This is it; this is what you were created for.

With a loud beep, or perhaps a confident buzz you announce the morning and time to get up. And you do so with great pride. You have completed your mission, and while you were just merely doing your duty, you figure some "atta-boys" are in order.

But what happens? Instead of a thank you, your owner screams at you and starts blindly slapping you! What the...? Why are they hitting you?!? You're just waking them up like they asked you to last night. Okay... So they are little grumpy. So you figure you'll give them 5 or 10 more minutes of sleep. And when you go off again, the yelling & hitting happens again. This little scene repeats itself several times over the next half hour until they finally get up, mumbling & grumbling.

So, the next morning you decide to try something different. You weren't sure what you did wrong the day before, but obviously you made your owner mad by trying to wake them up. So this morning, you are going to let them sleep. That should make them happy, right?

Well, it doesn't. If anything they were more mad when they woke up several hours later than they should've. They yelled, screamed & said words that can not be repeated in polite company. Yep, if you are an alarm clock, there's no way to win.

Why? Well, because people are crazy. We set our alarm clocks at night knowing we won't want to get up in the morning. We buy gym memberships and then don't go. We say we are dieting and then super size our meal at McDonald's.

Plato said that in our heads we have a rational charioteer who has to rein in an unruly horse that "barely yields to horsewhip and goad combined." Paul said in Romans chapter 7: So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am!

The key to my Journey, or anybody's Journey is to get both sides of our personality to work together. That is why I highly recommend the book "Switch" by Chip & Dan Heath. And if you are too cheap to buy it, you can read the first chapter for free on their website.

You can read the first chapter here...

Shifting the blog schedule

2011-05-13T09:45:00.000-08:00

Just an update... I'm going to shift from have my blog posts up on Monday & Friday to having them up on Tuesday & Saturdays. This will work a lot better with my life right now...

My feet are still in the healing process, but we are getting closer. Working out is still on hold, but I need to get back to it as soon as possible.

I will have a full post up tomorrow. In the meantime, take a look at my first three Journey posts to see where it all began...

Introducing You to the Journey

What led to the Journey?

What sparked the Journey?

The Journey: Post-Hawaii Update

2011-05-09T15:39:00.000-08:00

We've been home from vacation for a week now. Unfortunately the Journey is still on hold. As I've mentioned in my last post, the top of my feet got severely sunburned on our second-to-the-last day there. I've spent the last week mostly in pain.

So, hitting the gym is out of the picture. Just walking is hard enough. I think I'm on the mend, but it may be a few more days before I can get back on track. And I need to get back on track. Both with my exercise and my eating. So far my weight has held steady at 316 pounds. Which is great considering I'm not working out and not paying too much attention to what I eat.

Not paying attention is why I'm in this situation in the first place... That's how I burnt my feet. The whole trip I was keeping myself out of the sun. There was just one hour where I lost focus, and that's the hour my feet sat in the sun. And got fried...

Leading up to the trip, I was focused on a goal weight before the trip. Now my focus is not just a number on the scale, but on getting into clothes that haven't fit, being able to work out harder, having more endurance and generally being able to enjoy life more.

I'm ready to get past being fat. At work, some of the guys are doing a softball team. They were short on players and trying to figure out who else they could get to be a part. But in all their discussion they never asked me to play. I'm not bothered that they didn't include me, and there's no way I'd have time to do it. But it is one more example of what life as a fat person is like. And it's a life I'm done with.

And for your viewing pleasure, here's a picture of my feet at their worse:

The Journey gets a sunburn...

2011-05-03T06:39:00.003-08:00

First I must apologize for not getting a post up last Friday. My goal for this blog right now is to have a post each Monday & Friday. We kept a pretty busy schedule while on vacation, and I just didn't get to it on Friday. Today's post is later than normal too. And the only reason I have time to do a post today is because I've stayed home from work.

I was actually looking forward to getting back home and getting back into the routine with work and the gym and church. Vacation is nice, but usually by the last couple of days I'm ready to get home. I love my life. I don't go on vacation to hide from my life. I go on vacation to enhance it. I refuse to be on of those people who constantly whine & complain about their life and are just living for their next escape from reality.

So why am I not at work? Because I'm an idiot. I have very fair skin, thanks to my Scandinavian heritage. Which makes the sun my natural enemy. Seriously... I can sunburn just by hearing the song "You Are My Sunshine". So why in the world would I go to Hawaii? Well, Christy & I have an agreement: She'll live with me where it's cold if I'll let her vacation where it's hot.

Because of my fair skin, I know I need to take precautions. Which means putting on sunscreen. Which I hate doing. It's greasy and slimy. But if I don't use it, I fry. I did really good for the first part of the trip. My arms got a little toasted, but nothing too serious. But then on the second to the last day we went on a snorkeling cruise. It was an awesome trip. We saw spinner & bottle-nose dolphins. We also saw humpback whales, which is rare this time of year in that area.

On the way back in is where my stupidity shines. It started out innocent enough... I was sitting on the back of the boat, talking with this guy from Chicago. He was pretty interesting to talk to and I wasn't paying attention to how much sun I was getting directly on my feet. The sunscreen applied earlier in the day had apparently worn off and after an hour or so I realized my feet were FRIED. I'm talkin' crispy red.

And if you've ever had a bad sunburn, you know that the pain and heat builds over the next day or so. They also swelled up. I couldn't get socks or shoes on. I could only barely get flip flops on a little bit and then walk in extreme pain. We spent most of the next day in water which felt great. But then Saturday evening we started the journey home.

It was a miserable trip. My feet were swollen and red and burning. I had to walk barefoot everywhere. It sucked. Most of Sunday and all of today I've had to keep my feet elevated with cold wash clothes on them. If I swing my feet to the floor the rush of blood to them is excruciating. If I'm standing I have to constantly shift my weight.

But, I'll have to go to work tomorrow. My boss has this silly policy... He only pays you if you actually work. I know.. It's crazy. Doesn't he know this is America, where people expect to get paid for doing nothing?

Other than the fried feet, we had a great trip. So I guess it was worth it. I think...

Oh... An update on the Journey: I managed to drop 3 more pounds while in Hawaii. That puts me at 317 pounds. Tomorrow's number probably won't be so good. All I've done today is sit around an eat. And at one point today I had the most intense craving for a Coke. I could taste it in my mouth, and feel it bubbling down my throat. It was crazy. It's a good thing I couldn't walk or I may have been headed to the store...

UPDATE:
And for your viewing pleasure, below is my fried feet and a blister, which I've named Bobby.

The Journey goes to Hawaii, and then pukes.

2011-04-25T10:16:00.004-08:00

We are in Lihue on Kauai Island! It's been a great trip. Christy and I spent two days in Waikiki before meeting up with my parents here.

The first morning in Waikiki we hiked the famous Diamond Head trial. Diamond Head is an extinct volcano crater adjacent to Waikiki. There's some old military observation bunkers on the crater rim that you can hike up to. But, it's a heck of a hike.

Elevation-wise, it's only about 720 feet. But it's almost straight up. So the trail goes up in a series of switchbacks. It was pretty strenuous, but I was making it. It was hot. Way too hot for this Alaskan boy. After the switchbacks, there's a set of 54 stairs. Then you go into a tunnel that's about 100 feet long. The trail at this point is barely wide enough for one person. So when you meet someone one coming down, you'd have to squeeze past each other.

After the tunnel was 99 steep steps. After a quick rest and a large drink of water (which we'll later see was a huge mistake...) we started up. Half way through I wanted to stop and rest, but there was people behind us & people waiting to come down, so there was no stopping.

At the top was a spot to kinda get a little out of the way, so we paused there to rest. And at that moment I realized I was going to vomit. There was a little drainage trench at the side, so at least I wouldn't puke all over the trail. After a few moments of rest, I wasn't feeling any better, but I hadn't vomited (yet) and I wasn't feeling worse so we pushed on.

After another short tunnel there was two stories of spiral stairs and then you came into the bunker. We paused there for a moment but it was hot & muggy in there, so we figured we'd get out into the open where the wind was blowing. To get out, you had crawl out through the observation slit.

From there was a trail that goes up on top of the observation post, where you have a 360 degree view of the island. Half way up the trail I paused, trying to suppress the urge to heave. From the top of the trail was one more set of steps, with about 10 steps total. Half way along those I knew at the top that I was going to lose it.

Luckily for everyone else, there was a large trash barrel at the top. I made a beeline for it and then all systems went in reverse. I had drank almost a liter a water at this point and it all came up. It came up hard and fast enough it was coming out my nose too. Christy had gotten to the top a few seconds before me and was off to the side. She couldn't see the trash can, just me bent over puking. She thought I was just letting it splash all over the ground, so she was staying away.

Once it was all over, I felt way better. I was a little lightheaded, but at least my stomach didn't hurt.

The view from on top was worth the pain though. And the sense of accomplishment. All the guide books warn that the hike can't be done by people who aren't in shape. Well, we did it. But I guarantee I couldn't have done it if I hadn't started the Journey when I did.

**UPDATE:

And here is the picture looking up the 99 steps...

The Journey goes on Vacation... and the scale went with us.

2011-04-22T09:33:00.002-08:00

We are on vacation... As you read this we are enjoying Hawaii. I made my goal and was 320 the morning we left. The seat on the plane was still pretty tight though. So I'm thinking if I hadn't started the Journey when I did, I wouldn't have been able to go on a trip like this.

Today we are hiking to the top of Diamond Head and then driving to the North Shore. Tonight we'll go to a fireworks show & and a luau.

So today's post is going to be short. 'Cause I'm enjoying being 51 pounds lighter than I was before.

But I do want to point out we brought the scale with us. Some people have mocked us for that (and you know who you are...), but I don't want to get home and be surprised by a big weight gain.

We didn't bring the scale I normally weigh in on. It's pretty heavy and we were trying to pack light. We have a second scale that we bought a while back. But it only went up to 350 pounds. When I began the Journey, I was above that so I couldn't use that. We had to get a scale that went up to 400 pounds.

So we are off to enjoy Hawaii. And to continue on the Journey...

The Journey: A Deeper Look

2011-04-18T10:49:00.002-08:00

I've been asked by a few of you for some details on the Journey. So, here they are:

The Gym:
My goal is to get to the gym every day of the week. Most weeks I make it there 5 times a week. Once or twice it's been 6 times and a few times it's only been four times. Lately Christy and I have taken advantage of the beautiful spring weather to go for a walk/hike instead.

At the gym I always try to do about an hour of cardio, although sometimes it's just 40 minutes worth. I do the cardio on the elliptical machine. I get a good work out without the stress on your joints that a treadmill can cause. I keep the resistance as high as possible and push it as hard as I can.

Every other day I do the Expressway circuit work out. They use the Nautilus machines and it only takes a 1/2 hour to get a good overall strength training work out.

If I had the time, I would swim every day. But either the pool is too full for laps, or my schedule doesn't allow it. So I only swim about twice a week.

The Diet:
I'm not doing any special diet plan or program. I know there's plenty out there and I know they can work. But I'm trying to keep things simple. I'm not counting calories, but I'm certainly careful about how many calories I eat in a day.

I always eat breakfast. It's usually a bowl of cereal or a peanut butter sandwich on whole wheat toast. I try and keep dinners light and not too late. I also try and keep the fast food to a minimum. Of course I still don't drink soda. I noticed I was eating a lot of potato chips, so I've try and keep that under control too. And the biggest thing is I try to drink as much water as possible. At a minimum I drink a gallon a day. It sounds like a lot, but I always keep water near me and drink it constantly. And yes, it means I pee constantly too.

I also try to each as much fiber as possible. The bread we buy has extra fiber, and I also eat Fiber Plus bars. I also try and eat at least one apple a day. I like the Pink Lady variety.

I'm not "dieting." I'm not starving myself, or just living on lettuce. So many people give up on losing weight because they get tired of denying themselves food. But this doesn't mean I eat anything and everything. I do say no to myself a lot. But I don't say no because I can't have it.

Usually my motivation for saying no is because I know what I weighed that morning. I know what I've already eaten today and how much I'm going to get to work out. And I know what I want to weigh tomorrow. And so if having a candy bar means I miss my goal for tomorrow, it's a lot easier to say no. It's more like I'm saying yes to a good number the next day.

And finally, an update. I've hit 321. I've lost 50 pounds since the beginning of the Journey. Since joining the gym in mid-February I've lost 23 pounds.

The Journey: Updating my progress

2011-04-15T10:07:00.000-08:00

Time has slipped away from me this week and I wasn't able to do some of the posts that I wanted to do. Instead I will just give a quick update of my progress thus far. Lately I've started snapping pictures of the scale when I weigh and have good results. I mainly do this because I'm so groggy in the morning sometimes I forget what it says.

When I was flipping through the pictures on my phone, it was kinda cool to see the progression. Here they are below...

These aren't a daily weighing... Sometimes there was gap between when I took them.

Here's what my weight loss for April looks like so far:

I've lost 8 pounds so far in April, and 22 pounds since beginning to work out in mid-February. Since I've begun the Journey, I've lost 49 pounds. I'm one pound away from the 50 pound mark.

Thursday we leave on our first vacation in 2 1/2 years. My goal was to be at 321 before we left. I should make that. But next week I'm working a ton of hours on Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday to make up for not being there Thursday & Friday. So getting to the gym will be hard. And I'm not sure how things are going to go while on vacation. Honestly, my goal for that week is to just not gain. I'll let you know how that works out.

The Journey: Reaching goals feels good.

2011-04-11T09:35:00.001-08:00

There's an old saying... "Aim for nothing and you'll hit it every time." Which means for most of my life I've been a raging success. I've always aimed at nothing, and I've always accomplished nothing! But, if you are on a Journey, you have to know where you are heading and when you need to be there, or you'll never know if you are making progress.

I've had three immediate goals in front of me, and I've happy to announced that I've reached two of them. (By the way, if you are just joining us, you can go back and start reading about the Journey here and work forward.) Last week I talked about the bag full of jeans I have that got too small a few years back. Well, the jeans didn't get too small... I got too big. But it's funny how we say something got "too small." Like it's the clothing's fault....

This weekend we were Anchorage hanging out with Donnie & Joy. Before coming back to the Valley, Christy wanted to swing by Fred Meyers. I wandered over the fat boy section (they kindly call it "Big & Tall" but we all know what they are really wanting to say) and noticed they had the same Levi's 560's that I'm hoping to be able to fit into soon. I hate trying on clothes, but I decided to see if these fit. I was thinking maybe the ones I've got at home shrunk a little bit from being washed...

So I go into the fitting room and give it my best. But they just weren't going to button... But, that night when we got home, I happened to walk by the bag. On a whim I grabbed the pair on top and tried them on. And while it took some effort, they buttoned!!! Granted, they were too tight to comfortably wear, but they buttoned. So, that goal is accomplished!

On the 21st, the wife & I leave for our first vacation in over two years. We are headed to Hawaii. Flying and squeezing into the tiny seats are a pain for everyone, but even worse when you are fat. If you've ever been stuck next to the fat person on the plane, we are suffering even more than you are, so shut up and deal with it...

A while back I stated I had a goal to be 325 before going to Hawaii. Why 325? When I made that goal, it was a number that looked obtainable in the time that was available. Goals have to be obtainable or else they are just a daydream. Also, 325 represented a milestone for me... Six or seven years ago Christy & I got on a work out kick, and I remember being 325 at that time. By getting to 325, I would know it was the lightest I've been in that many years.

Here's what this morning's reading on the scale was:

That's goal #2 achieved!!

My weight loss so far in April looks like this:

The orange line represents what my progress needed to be in order to be below 325 by Hawaii. I'm way ahead of that. So I added a 3rd goal of being 321 by Hawaii, as shown by the pink line. 321 will mean that I've lost 50 pounds since starting the Journey. I have at least another 100-130 pounds still to lose but at least I'm on my way!

The Journey: The Bag of Hope

2011-04-08T10:52:00.005-08:00

You are probably wondering what this bag is all about. Growing up we called them "sea bags". Dad was in the Navy years ago, and I guess these are the type of bags they carried their gear in. You can buy them from any military surplus or outdoor store. Growing up, these bags are what we used for luggage. They were easy to pack. You just shoved everything in there. Unpacking was simple too. You just dumped them out.

So, I've still got a couple of these things. My wife thinks they are ugly. And they are. That's half the fun of it. When we moved into the new house last year, this one got loaded up with my jeans. But these aren't just any jeans. They are Levi 560's. They are my favorite type of jeans. But the ones in this bag don't fit.

They used to fit. And then one summer I got to where I was wearing shorts most of the time. And I had some shorts that were way too big. They had a belt, but it wasn't the kind with notches. It was the type you could cinch up to where ever it fit. So as my waist line expanded, I never noticed. Until that fall when I went to go back to pants and almost none of them fit. And the few that did fit, did so less and less every time I put them on.

Eventually I had to buy bigger jeans. And then even bigger. Those were getting tight right around the time I started to make plans for the Journey. When the fat jeans don't fit, it's time to do something about it.

Right now I'm at a point where the fat jeans are absolutely too big. The in-between jeans (which are still for fat people) were getting too big, but I washed them in hot water & dried them on high, so they shrunk up quite a bit. When I lost ground in the Journey from September to February those started getting a little tight again. Now that I've dropped back down, they are fitting good.

The jeans in the bag still don't fit. Not yet. But they will. I have a goal, and I've got a plan to make that goal. Remember, a goal without a plan is just a day dream. And trust me... When I get to the point where they fit, I'll be celebrating it here on this blog.

And finally: An update. Since starting at the gym in late February, I've lost 17 pounds. My total weight lost since starting the journey is 44 pounds.

Back to the Journey

2011-04-04T09:39:00.002-08:00

It's been more then a few days since my last post... I've fallen into the trap that sometimes catches bloggers... We'll have a theme we are excited about, so we do a plethora of posts in a short time. But then we lose steam, or we get burnt out and then stop posting altogether.

Jon Acuff, the master blogger, had a post a little while back on a better strategy. So, with that in mind, my new strategy is two posts a week, sometimes 3. I'm going to try and have a post up each Monday and Friday. If there's a bonus post, it'll be on a Wednesday or the weekend.

And, again, thanks for reading this. And thanks to those of you who have been giving me feedback. I appreciate it.

So, for today's post, an update on the Journey is due. The last time I posted, it was my birthday and I had hit my goal of 331. After that I hit 330 on a couple of days, but also had a couple of days where I went back up to 332. I'm still hitting the gym four to six days a week. On Saturday's Christy and I have joined friends and went for a walk/hike/geocaching adventure.

Here's what the last part of March looked like:

The first few days of April, I've been on a consistent losing streak:

And this illustrates a point about the Journey. Sometimes you lose ground, sometimes you plateau and sometimes you have some great progress. The thing to remember is that it's a marathon, not a sprint. You have to look at the overall picture, not just one day. And even though I lost a pound a day for three days in a row, I know that could mean there's a plateau ahead. Which means when the plateau comes, I can't get discouraged. The Journey is not about short term gains, but about long term life change.

The Journey is one year old!!

2011-03-24T09:34:00.002-08:00

It's March 24th, which is my birthday & the one year anniversary of the beginning of the Journey. If you are just now joining us on the story of the Journey, you can start here and read forward.

As I stated when I started blogging the Journey, my immediate goal was to be back at the 331 pound mark for today. That'll mark 40 pounds lost and put me back where I was when I lost momentum 6 months ago. So, did I make it?

I don't know... I'm doing this blog post the night before. I could do it in the morning, but I don't function too well in the morning. And it's hard enough to get up to be at work on time at 7am. But, I will do a quick update to let you know if I made it or not.

Obviously one of two things will happen. Either I'll make or I won't. It's really out of my hands at this point. Well, it is as long as I don't eat a bunch of junk before I go to bed tonight. The question isn't what the scale is going to say tomorrow; the question is how am I going to react.

If I make the goal, I'm going to be pretty excited. Reaching a goal always feels good. Reaching a goal you've been working hard at feels even better. If I don't make the goal, life goes on. I'm not going to drop into a depression or anything. Life isn't about the failures, but how you respond to the failures.

Either way though, I'm not backing off of the Journey. In fact, hitting 331 might be more dangerous than not. Sometime when we see a short term success, we forget the long term goals and back off of our intensity. As great as hitting 331 would be, I have a goal to hit 325 by April 21st. And by Memorial Day I want to be at 310. Those are some big loses. I'm going to have to keep after it if I'm going to make it.

So, we'll see you in the morning with the update...

****Morning update: Here's what the scale said:

That's close enough for me.

What to do when the Journey isn't successful...

2011-03-22T19:36:00.000-08:00

I'd love to sit here & tell you that the Journey is nothing but success & sunshine & butterflies & unicorns pooping Skittles. But that is just not the truth. The reality is sometimes you don't see the results that you are working so hard for.

Need an example? Take a look at how March went for me:

(click on picture to see it full size)

March 24th will be the one year anniversary of the launching of the Journey. My immediate goal was to be at 331 pounds by that point. And I was well on my way. On the 18th I was just a couple of pounds away. The orange diagonal line shows what my average weight lose rate would need to be to hit the goal.

On the 19th I went up a pound. I wasn't too worried, because you'll see that there was some up and down. But then on the 20th I was still at 333 pounds. And then on the 21st I went up another pound. Then today, the 22nd I went up another pound to 335.

I'm still working out. I'm still not drinking soda or over indulging on junk food. There's not obvious reason for the loss of progress.

Why am I sharing this? Maybe you are on your own Journey... And maybe you've hit a wall. It's tempting to give up. It's very discouraging. It makes all your effort up to this point seem worthless. I know how you feel... I'm there right now.

But I (and you) really have two choices. Either we give up, or we go on. And I'm not giving up. And neither should you. Let's get about the business of going on.

The Journey requires a blog redesign

2011-03-18T09:41:00.000-08:00

Today's post is going to be short...

In light of the new focus for the AKStafford blog, I've made some redesigns to the blog. I'm hoping it's a little easier to read. The one thing I'm trying to figure out how to do is to create an easy way for someone just discovering the Journey to start reading at the beginning and come forward.

Let me know what you think of the redesign. I'll probably be tweaking it a little more as time goes on.

Two more things for today's post... First, one of the books in the recommend reading list is Switch from Dan & Chip Heath. If you are endeavoring to launch your own Journey, give it a read. It's all about effecting effective change.

And an update. Today's weight was 332. I'm losing a pound about every three days. So I should be right on track to be at 331 by my birthday on the 24th, as long as I stay focused. I killed it on the elliptical last night, pushing it harder than I ever had on there. And I'm feeling it today...

Here's what my weight loss has looked like lately...

So it's a little up, a little more down and slowly losing. The orange line is there as a general guide for me to see how my progress matches my goal. And remember, a goal without a plan is just a dream...

Every Journey needs some help...

2011-03-17T09:09:00.013-08:00

Journeys are not traveled in a bubble... Almost any Journey is going to involve others. God has placed people around you to encourage you and motivate you. I want to take this blog post to say thank you to some of the people God has placed in my Journey.

First & foremost is my incredible wife. Christy has been amazing through this whole process. She's been supportive and encouraging. Part of the reason I didn't tell her when I first stopped drinking soda was because I knew she'd hold me to that commitment. There would be no cheating allowed. And there was times when if it wasn't for her holding me accountable I would've caved.

Now that we are working out, she's continued encouraging me to push it hard even when I don't feel like it. And she's on her own Journey and working a lot harder at it than I am. We both are trying to get to the gym as much as possible, and we have very different schedules. So for right now, the Journey means we see a lot less of each other. And while that's been hard, Christy has been very understanding.

As I've blogged this Journey, there have been those who have commented here & on facebook. That helps. It's encouraging, and it makes me accountable to a wider community. So, feel free to leave a comment. Let me know about your Journey. There is also those who have offered to help with diet plans and work out tips. And even if I haven't taken you up on your offer, I still appreciate it.

I have to mention my sister in law Kerry & her husband Nathaniel. They are the ones that hooked us up with a week pass to the Alaska Club before we joined. And since then they have helped push & support us in the Journey.

I'm sure there are others that I haven't mentioned... My brain is starting to shut down for the evening... Yesterday I pushed it pretty good at the gym. I did some weights with my upper body, an hour of cardio on the elliptical and then 30 minutes of swimming laps. It wiped me out. Today I was doing the elliptical and when I went to push it for a sprint, my legs simply would not go any faster...

Just as an update: This morning (the 16th, there is a day delay on the posts...) I was at 333 pounds. By the 24th I want to be at the 331 mark. That'll be 40 pounds lost so far and have me back down where I was when I started losing ground 6 months ago. By April 24, I want to be at 325.

And, if you are just now joining us for the Journey, go back to the first post and read forward for the full story so far...

Where does The Journey go from here??

2011-03-16T18:29:00.000-08:00

(I apologize... This post was suppose to go up this morning...)

At this point I stop to ask: Where do I go from here?

The Journey continues. That's not what I'm talking about... I'm talking about this blog series. I started this blog before facebook & Twitter became such a huge part of our online experience as a way to get my thoughts out there. I've talked some about Geocaching, some about Personal Finances, and I shared our house buying experience.

I've done a daily post for the last 18 or 19 days. It gives me great respect for bloggers like Jon Acuff or Seth Godin who put out incredible blog posts everyday. Doing a daily blog takes some effort. Doing a *good* daily blog takes a lot of effort and some talent.

So, should I continue to post daily? Some days would just be a short update of the Journey's progress for that day, including my weight & workout. I could also facebook as a tool to get that out there.

Why am I even sharing the Journey? One is for self-accountability. I've put it out there for the whole world that I'm trying to lose weight. If I don't do it I'm going to look like an idiot. I'm also hoping to inspire others to take their own Journey. Maybe it's losing weight, but it could really be anything. We've all got some growing we can do.

I want to thank those who have been reading. But I know it's just a few of you (hi mom!) and I wouldn't want to over do it. And, if you are just joining the story, go back and read about it from the beginning.

So, give me your thoughts. Should I do a daily posting? Or maybe just a few a week?

I want to close with a quote that I've always liked:

We may, indeed, be sure that perfect chastity-like perfect charity-will not be attained by any merely human efforts. You must ask for God’s help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection.

Taken from “Mere Christianity,” by C.S. Lewis

The cost of the Journey

2011-03-15T09:54:00.037-08:00

We've joined the Alaska Club as part of the Journey. And it's not cheap. I want to take this post to talk a little bit about the cost of the Journey.

For a while I resisted joining the gym because of the cost. I teach a personal finance class and I've dealt with way too many people who are in debt up to their necks, living on credit cards & home equity loans; all while spending a fortune on entertainment, hobbies and things like gym memberships. I wasn't going to live my life like that. It's just ridiculous. Normal in America is being broke, and I refuse to be normal.

So we had to sit down and adjust the budget to make the gym work. But we were able to do that because we aren't making payments on a bunch of stuff. And think about this: A trip to Anchorage, a movie with popcorn, candy & soda, and dinner at Chili's will run you about $100. That's about what the Alaska Club cost for a month. So, one less night of entertainment & extra calories a month will pay for the gym membership. And there's cheaper options than the Alaska Club. Body Renew has plans that start at $14 a month.

Since we've made this commitment to losing weight, we are eating less fast food and saving money there. In the long term, being a healthy weight will mean less health care costs as we age. Fat people clothes aren't cheap either. Being able to shop at regular stores will save some money.

Yes, it cost money. But it's all about priorities. And right now, the Journey is the priority.

The Journey: Further details on the plan

2011-03-14T09:24:00.004-08:00

In the last 14 or 15 posts, I've brought you along a years worth of the Journey. If you've been following along, you know the Journey started with cutting out soda (I was drinking about 1600 calories a day...) and has evolved into a membership at the gym.

In the first 6 months I lost 40 pounds, but then put about 13 back on. Now that I've been doing the gym for 3 weeks, I'm closing back in on the 40 pound mark. My goal is to lose at least 2 pounds a week. That may not sound like much, but in a year I could lose 100 pounds.

Now, if I hadn't lost momentum last fall, I could be an additional 40 pounds lighter, weighing about 290. But I'm not going to cry over spilled milk. It is what it is. I'm on track now.

Let me give you some more details on how the Journey looks. Yes, I cut out soda. But, at this stage, I'm not counting calories. I'm being more aware of my general calorie intake, though. Did you know that a Big Mac Value Meal at McDonald's has over 1000 calories? That's about half of what you should have for the whole day.

And I'm not changing my diet too much... I'm a super picky eater. I don't like salads or vegetables or fruits or oatmeal or pasta or cheese or rice or seasonings. Since my menu is so limited, there's not a lot of changes to be made.

What I'm trying to do is show that anyone can lose weight with just a few modifications to their life. Now, there are some good tools out there. There's special meal plans and food and shakes. And a lot of them work. I'm not trying to bash them at all.

But I'm trying to show that even without all that stuff, there's no excuse for not losing weight. Other than just not trying. Which is what I've done for a long time. I just wasn't even bothering to try.

And yes, we did join a gym. And it wasn't cheap... (I'll talk more about that in another post...). But taking a walk around the neighborhood is cheap. Grab the bottle of laundry soap and work the arms. Stop doing laps around the parking lot looking for a spot right near the store. Park at the far end and walk in. Take the stairs.

I'm on my Journey. What about you?

The Journey's Plan

2011-03-13T10:26:00.003-08:00

In January I got on the treadmill two days in a row, but that was it... Why? If you'll go back to my earlier posts you'll remember that when I quit drinking soda, I didn't tell Christy about it at first. I didn't want to make a big deal about. I hate being a center of attention or having people making a fuss.

My plan was to do the same thing with the treadmill. She normally works until about 7pm each evening, so my plan was to get home and get some time in on the treadmill before she got home. And that worked on Thursday night. But on Friday Christy was not feeling well and came home from work early, getting home before me. So, no work out. And then Saturday I slept in, didn't get time on Sunday, and I don't remember what happened the after that, but obviously I didn't make it back on the treadmill.

Not in January. I did in February. Twice. One time on a Saturday morning before Christy got up. And then that afternoon we went on a 1 1/2 mile hike on the Palmer Hay Flats, geocaching. There was about a foot of snow on the ground and if you've never walked through snow like that, it's quite the work out. By the time we got back to the truck I could hardly walk... Since I didn't want to look like a complete loser in front of my wife because I couldn't walk a simple 1 1/2 miles I told her I had been on the treadmill that morning. The cat was out of bag... So now there was no need to dance around her schedule. Even still it was almost a week later before I got on the treadmill again.

For years Christy & I talked about joining a gym. A couple of things held us back. One is the that they are stinkin' EXPENSIVE! Which is bad enough. But even worse is to join the gym, spend the money, and then never use the membership. Once Christy puts her mind to something, she's doing it. So if we joined a gym, she was going. I'm the one who lacks in commitment. But when she saw the effort I was putting into this, we started talking about joining a gym.

Her sister had joined the Alaska Club a few months earlier & had a one week guest pass that was about to expire. So we decided to try it for a week. I'm proud to say that I worked out 6 of the 7 days. By "working out" I mean an hour on the elliptical machine. Not exactly "Biggest Loser", but still... it's better than sittin' on the couch. After our free week was up, we bit the bullet and joined the gym. (...some of you have an episode of "Friends" running through your mind right now...)

So, that's the Journey's plan. If you are my friend on facebook, you may have noticed me checking in at the Alaska Club almost every day. Has it worked? Well, let's see the chart for February & March...

(click on image to see all of it...)

The Journey needed a plan...

2011-03-12T10:33:00.003-09:00

I forgot where I first heard it from... Maybe Matthew Barnett of the LA Dream Center... Or Zig Ziglar... I'm sure it was somebody wise...

The saying is this: A goal without a plan is just a dream. We kick butt at setting goals. We set goals all the time. To lose weight... To drink less... To be a better husband/wife/parent... To get to work on time... To stop picking our nose in public...

But what we don't kick butt on achieving those goals. Why? Because we don't make a plan to get there. We are adrift in a sea of vague dreams with nary a chart or compass among us.

Or, if we do happen to make a plan, we fail to map out how we are going to make the Journey... In October of 1957 the Soviet Union leaped ahead in the space race by launching Sputnik, the first man made object to orbit the earth. In response, President Kennedy announced in 1961 that by the end of the decade, the U.S. would put a man on the moon and bring him safely back.

If the U.S. Space Program would've been conducted like most of us set goals, the closest we would've gotten to the moon is a good jump on the trampoline... But they had a plan. They started by getting a capsule into space, then capsules with animals in it, then capsules with people. Then we sent an empty spacecraft to circle the moon and come back, and then a spacecraft with people in it that circle the moon without landing and come back. Along the way were many little successes and some potentially devastating failures.

Finally on July 20th, 1969 Neil Armstrong sealed the deal. We had a plan with measurable goals. And we devoted a massive amount of resources and focus on achieving the big goal by fulfilling thousands of little goals along the way.

And that is how the Journey will be successful. The big goal is to get to a more healthy weight. The first little step of the Journey was to cut out soda. Then it was to start getting more exercise with hikes in the evenings & on weekends. I cut back on sweets and upped my fiber intake. I met some goals, and had some setbacks. When progress stalled I knew it was time to refocus, and it started with those two days on the treadmill. And it got serious from there...

The Journey Re-Launched!

2011-03-11T10:05:00.001-09:00

First of all, I want to thank all of you who have read this blog and left comments. And, if you are recently joining us, you'll want to go back and read the 13 previous posts on the Journey...

From September to January I hadn't lost any additional weight. Even worse, I had piled back on 10 to 12 pounds. If I was going to give up my beloved soda, it had better be for a good reason. And to not lose any additional weight was not a good reason.

Yes, I was excited that I had lost some. But I was still 340 pounds. Unless you are 9' 6", that is NOT a healthy weight. There was still work to be done. Cutting soda out had got the Journey going, but now it was going to need an additional kick in the pants.

So, if you'll notice in the previous post, my weight chart for January had some notations...

It's a little hard to make out in the picture (and I just realized that when viewed in the blog, Blogger crops the picture. Click on picture for full view), but on the 26th I did 30 minutes on the treadmill. It was a Wednesday, and I was preaching that night for our Wednesday night service. I already had my message together and I ran home to get something to eat.

We have a treadmill sitting in the garage that I see every time I go in or out of the house. We've had if for several years... When we first got it, I used it pretty consistently for about a month. And then I had a huge transition in my life. The church could no longer afford to pay me full time as an associate pastor and I had to go back to driving school bus. My schedule was now very different, getting up at 4am each morning. I was driving school bus 8 hours a day, and still putting 4 or 5 hours a day at the church.

So the treadmill fell into disuse. Until that Wednesday. On the way to the house from the church I decided I was going to do 30 minutes on the treadmill. This wasn't like when I quit soda where I thought about it for almost a month before I went for it. This was very spontaneous.

The next night after work, I did another 30 minutes. My plan was to do at least 30 minutes each day. But then Friday my schedule got knocked out of whack and it didn't happen. But I knew that if the Journey was going to be anymore than just a dream, I was going to have start getting regular, consistent exercise. And as I've said before, a goal without a plan is just a dream. It was time to get a plan in place...

The Journey begins to creep into reverse...

2011-03-10T10:36:00.001-09:00

After 6 months and 40 pounds lost; October, November & December saw a stagnation of the Journey and even some lost ground. And January wasn't any better...

(click on image to see all of it...)

You can see that when I was weighing and monitoring my weight, I did a lot better. And that shows the power of accountability, even if it's just being accountable to yourself. The gap there from the 18th to the 24th has a reason behind it.

Our bathroom grout wasn't done right and so we had to have it redone. Afterward we weren't suppose to walk on it for a few days. And the bathroom is where the scale is it. True, we could've moved it to the other bathroom, but I think a part of me didn't want to see what was going with the weight. And, once again some pounds creeped back on.

I still wasn't drinking soda. I wasn't counting calories, but I was generally avoiding candy, sweets & junk food. Well, I kinda was. Mostly....

By this point some clothes that were fitting better back in August & September were starting to get tight again. I could tell I was losing ground. And just like the Journey started with a big step back in March 2010 when I cut out soda; I knew it was time for another big step... But was I willing to do it?

The Journey stalls out...

2011-03-09T09:59:00.002-09:00

After losing 40 pounds and hitting 331 pounds in September, and then backing off the journey in October and losing ground; you think I would've learned my lesson. But take a look at November:

(click on image to see all of it...)

Yep, I did the same mistake again. I stopped watching what was going on and got all the way back up to 344. That's 13 pounds up from the 331 mark I had been so thrilled to hit. You'll notice on the chart that as the weight dropped, I had to adjust the parameters of the graph. For November though, I had to add additional lines back on top the chart because my weight had gone back up.

You'll notice on all the previous charts there are orange and sometimes black diagonal lines. These lines represent that various rates or goals I was shooting for. For November though, I had no goals. And even if I had a goal, I had no plan. And a goal without a plan is just a dream.

And December wasn't any better:

(click on image to see all of it...)

I needed to get a plan and step up my efforts. Giving up soda was good, but if I wasn't going to get aggressive, and get after it, I may have gone as far as I could.

The Journey in September

2011-03-08T09:44:00.048-09:00

If you are just now joining our story, take a moment to start at the beginning and read forward.

So, here is what September looked like:

(click on image to see all of it...)

There's a couple of things going on here. Good & bad.

The good: I hit 331. Twice. That's the 40 pound mark. That was pretty exciting milestone for me. And I did in less than 6 months.

The bad: A few days later I ticked back up to 335. And then I dropped back down. And then I stopped keeping track. And for some reason I stopped keeping track for about a month. And I lost ground by not paying attention to what happen. Take a look at October:

(click on image to see all of it...)

Don't ask me what I was thinking... Looking back it was stupid to let it happen. I worked so hard for so long; and then because I slacked off I stopped making progress and even started losing ground. Yes, it was only a few pounds that I went back up, but the point was to lose weight, not gain.

I still wasn't drinking soda. But I wasn't getting as much exercise as was during the summer. Things at Christy's work got really busy and so we weren't getting out in the evenings. We've got a treadmill in the garage, but for whatever reason I wasn't using it. And as bad as things were looking, it can always get worse. And it does...

The Journey in August and beyond

2011-03-07T10:17:00.002-09:00

If you are just now joining us, go back six or seven posts the read about the Journey from the beginning...

So by August we had done a lot of hiking, I hadn't had a soda since late March and I was closing in on the 40 pound mark on my weight loss. When I had started the Journey the goal was to lose weight by cutting out soda. I was feeling pretty good. My parents were coming up to visit in mid-August. I was wanting to hit 331 by then, and I almost made it. But after losing 38 pounds I wasn't too worried about just being 2 pounds shy.

Here's what August looked like:

(click on image to see all of it...)

Up to this point my focus was on getting to my parents visit. There was a couple of reasons for this. For one, I knew how hard it was going to be to give up soda. By setting a defined, short term goal it was easier to stay motivated. Also, on their visit we were going to be road tripping to Valdez and going to Alaska State Fair. I couldn't see doing a road trip with no soda and I really couldn't see going to the fair with no soda. The whole point of going to the fair is to overindulge yourself.

As hard as not drinking soda was (and is) by this point I felt I could keep on doing it. And while almost losing 40 pounds was nice, I still at least 110 pounds more that I needed to lose. I began to realize the Journey had only just begun...

The Journey in July

2011-03-06T10:21:00.002-09:00

After thinking some about my last post, I remembered that although we did a majority of our hiking & walking on the Mat-Su Greenbelt trails; that's not where it all started.

It started out at Scout Ridge above Cottonwood Creek & the Palmer Hay Flats. There's a really cool overlook there and a one mile loop trail. The view from the overlook is pretty amazing.

There's a cache a short way down the mile loop trail that we decided to hit. We spent some time searching and came up empty. Once we got back on the trail, we decided instead of going back the way we came, we'd do the full loop. Doing a full mile was a little intimidating at the time and about halfway around we came to a steep little hill that was completely muddy.

This may sound silly, but being able to navigate around that and finish off the mile loop in decent time was a huge confidence boast for us. It was after that we begin to hit the trails hard, doing 1 to 3 miles at a time, 3 or 4 nights a week. One weekend we did a five mile excursion and seven miles another.

And it was paying off. I posted some good numbers for June & July:

(click on image to see all of it...)

So by the end of July it's looking like I could hit 331 by the time my parents got up here in mid-August. That would be 40 pounds lost in 5 months. Again, it's not Biggest Loser numbers; but it's better than heading towards 400 pounds, guzzling down soda by the gallon.

My clothes were fitting better, I was sleeping better, I could get around better. I still craved the soda, but I was excited about the progress.

June was a good month for the Journey

2011-03-05T09:02:00.002-09:00

If you are just now joining us in the story of the Journey, go back the first post and read forward from there...

So, as we saw in the last post, I made some progress initially, but then stalled out in May. And I was glad I was no longer gaining weight, but the goal was to get back down to a healthy weight... And if I was giving up the soda that I so dearly loved, it needed to count for something!

So here's what June looked like:

(click on image to see all of it...)

Finally... Some progress!! But it didn't just happen. There was more going into now than just not drinking soda...

The wife & I enjoy an activity called Geocaching. It's pretty much a high tech scavenger hunt using a GPS. It's a great activity that everyone can enjoy. Some of the caches are real easy to reach and others require some hiking & walking to get to. We've been doing it since... 2004 I think... And for the most part we'd go after ones that didn't require too much walking to get to. But in late May/early June we discovered a great network of trails between Palmer & Wasilla called the Mat-Su Greenbelt Trails. And so we begin to walk & hike these trails in the evenings and on the weekends to find geocaches. We did quite a bit of walking that month!

I also begin to watch my diet a little better and increased my fiber intake. Fiber helps to prevent the absorption of fat & sugars in the intestines. I still wasn't eating super healthy though...

And I'm still not. I'm a SUPER picky eater. I don't eat vegetables or fruit. I don't like cheese, or tomatoes or pasta or soups or fish. So yeah, all the stuff that I should be eating; I don't. Obviously that is going to work against me... But I still believe this is possible. It will happen!

What are the results of the Journey?

2011-03-04T10:14:00.002-09:00

Well, in one sense, the results are incomplete... The Journey continues even this day with no end in sight.

But let me give you an idea of how the Journey has progressed thus far.

As I said, I haven't had a soda in almost a year. But the big goal is to lose some tonnage off of my rotund frame. I knew that I would need to track this carefully. It's been said that goals without a plan are just a dream.

I coordinate a personal finance class and we teach people that the first step of getting a handle on your finances is write out how much you owe, how much you make, and how much your monthly bills are. And then for each paycheck have a written game plan for each dollar. The principle is that if you don't track this stuff, dollars will seem to float away. It's like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall...

So, with my weight, I needed to track it. I started at 371 pounds. Pretty hefty, huh? That's about twice as much as I should weigh. But it is what it is. I didn't let it discourage me. If anything I let it motivate me a little bit. You can whine & moan about the mountain in front of you, or you can man up and climb it. So I started climbing...

Below is what the first month looked like:

(click on image to see all of it...)

So I started off good... And then I flat lined a little and even gained again. But in the first five weeks I lost 10 pounds. I know... On the Biggest Loser, they lose that in a week or less. But at this point I wasn't really exercising at all. And I wasn't working too hard to watch my calories either.

So, then onto the second month:

(click on image to see all of it...)

So May was nothing to brag about... But, I should point out that at least I wasn't gaining weight anymore... But if I was going to start losing weight I was going to have step up my game...

The Journey... Was it possible?

2011-03-03T10:28:00.001-09:00

Over the last four or five posts I've detailed my decision to do something about my extreme obesity, starting with cutting out the ridiculous amount of soda I was drinking.

So, was I able to do it? Yes. So far so good. The last time I had soda was almost a year ago on March 24th, 2010. Well, that's not totally true. About a month after I start a friend of mine brought me a Crush Creme Soda from Canada. It's pink and kinda has a strawberry taste to it. You can only get it in Canada and it is about the best thing EVER! I let it sit in the fridge for a few days and then made the decision to go ahead and drink it.

It didn't seem right to let it go to waste considering the effort it took to get it. And I viewed it as a little test. If I could drink just it and not go back to drinking soda regularly, that would show me that I was getting a handle on this thing. And I didn't even drink the whole bottle.

I've also have the occasional diet soda since Thanksgiving. I held off to Thanksgiving just so it wasn't like I was trading one addiction for another. Yes, diet soda has no calories, but it's still not good for you. And not just because of the chemicals and acidity.

The artificial sweetener in the soda causes your body to think that it's getting a ton of sugar and you body ramps up to deal with it. They've seen, in people dealing with diabetes, the body having negative reactions to the diet soda, just like if it was a dose of real sugar.

Also, because it's not real sugar, the brain is disappointed. It got the signal it was getting sugar, but it never gets it, so it craves it more. They've found that people who drink diet soda tend to binge on other sugary foods to get that fix the brain expects.

So now, if the corn syrup people don't get me, the diet soda makers might. I'm not scared though... Bring it on!!

Has it been easy? No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Heck no. It has completely sucked. People ask me how I feel now that I quit. I know they expect me to say that I feel great, but all I really feel is the desperate need for a soda. It's pure misery to be near someone drinking a soda. I can smell it from about 20 feet away. I swear there are times when I'm walking through the store that I can smell the soda through the bottles. Just talking about makes me want one.

So, what type of results did I see? Stay tuned to find out...

Was the Journey possible?

2011-03-02T12:20:00.002-09:00

I ended my last post by asking: "Could I quit drinking soda?" It was obvious I was drinking wwwaaaayyy too much. If I could just cut out this one thing, would that be enough to have an effect on my ever expanding waistline?

It in was mid-February, 2010 when I was contemplating this. My parents were coming up in mid-August. My birthday was a month away in mid-March. I decided if I gave myself sometime to prepare, I could do it. So I picked my birthday, March 24th as the last day I would have soda. I was going to quit at least until my parents were here. That would be 5 months.

From that day until my birthday I reminded myself constantly that, on the 24th I was quitting. Every time I cracked up another sweet, wonderful can of sugary happiness I marked it as being one closer to being done with it. And to not be wasteful, I spent until midnight of the 24th drinking every bit of soda I had in the house.

Well, I tried getting rid of it all. I hadn’t yet told anyone of what I was going to attempt. That way when I failed as usual, there would less people to mock me. I didn’t even tell Christy. I wanted to see if she’d notice the difference.

So she, not knowing what I was attempting, did a very nice thing on my birthday. She got me the gift she knew I would love the most. A 12 pack of soda. I had it all planned out to drink up my hoard by midnight of the 24th. When she handed me that lovely box of goodness, I felt like Monty Brewster when his friends made him a bunch of money while he was trying to get it all spent. (It’s a great movie… you should go rent it tonight…)

And that gift highlighted a big concern. How was I going to avoid soda? It’s EVERYWHERE in our culture. Go to any social gathering. There’s usually soda available. Here at work there’s a fridge with sodas available to buy. Try getting something other than soda at a fast food place. Or a restaurant. Or a convenience store when driving. Yes, there’s always water. And I drink a lot of water during the day. But sometimes you want something other than water. And yes, there’s fruit juices. But I don’t like ‘em. Never have. I don’t drink coffee or energy drinks.

So I knew I had to plan carefully to avoid soda. The first part of my plan was to not have any soda in the house. That’s why I engaged in my binge on the 24th,; to clean the place out. I also knew I would be increasing my water intake & my milk intake. But for my main alternative, I switched to something I knew I liked and that’s Tropical Punch Kool-Aid. I drink it ice cold, and for a little bit of sparkle, I use a couple of cans of seltzer water when making it. I call it my nicotine patch. It’s still has some sugar in it, but it’s not as much as soda, and it’s not high-fructose corn syrup.

I had read a study where they fed two groups of rats an equal amount of calories, but the one group got it in the form of sugar, while the other got it in the form of the high-fructose corn syrup. The rats that got the sugar gained less weight than the other group. And the group that got the calories from the high-fructose corn syrup gained all their weight around the middle, where it does the most damage. I’ll probably have to watch my back now to avoid getting whacked by the Corn Grower’s Association…

So, did it work? Was I able to quit? Did I wake up with a bloody ear of corn in bed from the Godfather of the corn growers? We shall see...

What inspired the Journey?

2011-03-01T09:05:00.005-09:00

The decision to embark on the Journey had several inspirations.

Among them was every mirror I caught my rather rotund reflection in. And the pants that wouldn't button up. And the wheezing that accompanied every trip up a flight of stairs.

Now this is going to sound a little cheesy.... But, another big inspiration was the TV show "The Biggest Loser." I'll probably lose some man points for admitting that. But seeing the results the contestants got planted a glimmer of hope that it's possible to undo years of bad choices.

The final kick in the pants came about a year ago. I was listening to a message from Perry Noble of Newspring Community Church. One of his pet peeves is preachers who will condemn others for indulging in alcohol when they themselves haven't been able to touch their toes since the Carter administration.

He tells a story about an experience he had while in college. At the time, he was extremely overweight. One day in class they had a discussion about overweight preachers and how it seemed hypocritical that they would preach about self-control when it was obvious they had never said no to an extra piece of pie.

Later, as he and some classmates were driving around, they were discussing this, they all agreed they needed to do something about their own weight. They pulled in to get some gas, and Perry went into the convenience store and got a diet soda. Another friend went into the McDonald's next door and came out with the biggest milkshake they had. Perry was amazed that moments after every one of them had made a commitment to watching their health, one of them was showing that commitment with a jumbo size sugar bomb.

I was listening to the message and I asked myself: "Could I quit drinking soda?" Could I give up drinking that sweet nectar of life? The source of all happiness? How could I resist it's sugary Siren call? Would it be possible? There was only one way to find out...

What sparked the Journey?

2011-02-28T10:12:00.003-09:00

As I explained in the previous post, about a year ago I came to realize something had to change. I had gone past the point of being charmingly plump. I was now more in the range of a disgusting pile of lard. And more than that, I was a disgusting pile of lard who consumed at least 1,500 calories a day in soda.

Yeah, you read that right. At least 1,500 calories a day in soda, and often times it would be more. An average adult should consume about 2000 calories a day total. I was getting almost all of that just in soda. I love me some soda. Coke, Mountain Dew, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, A&W Root Beer, Sprite, Sunkist.... Love it. LOVE it. Loooooovvvveee it.

I could down a 2-liter with a meal, plus almost a six pack and several 20 ounce bottles a day. One of the local convenience store/gas stations has 44 ounce fountain sodas for 99 cents. One or two of those were also in the mix each day. I was an expert at watching the sales and getting my best deal so I could buy as much soda as possible with what I had budgeted for my habit.

Other than the occasional candy binge, I wasn't eating a lot of sweets. I didn't eat bigger meals than anyone else. In fact I've got several friends that would easily consume more than me when eating. Granted, I wasn't a poster-boy for healthy eating, but it didn't seem that bad.

Obviously a big step in the right direction would be to cut out the soda. Not cut back, cut out. Completely. I knew I couldn't cut back. I couldn't just have some. At various times I had halfheartedly tried to cut back. If anything I wound up drinking more.

It was time for a drastic change. And I wasn't looking forward to that.

What led to the Journey?

2011-02-27T12:18:00.002-09:00

Last post I introduced the Journey. Now is time to begin to elaborate on what I'm talking about.

I'm fat. I know that may come as a shock to some of you, but it's true. Some have used the term "morbidly obese". But I think that doctor was just trying to be a meanie. I've been fat most of my life, with a few exceptions.

My freshman & sophomore year of high school I was in wrestling and thanks to Mr. Short's coaching I was in decent shape. My first four years out of high school I worked in the timber industry and it was an extremely physical job. I was actually in really good shape then.

And then I moved to Wasilla. For the first time in my life I had easy access to fast food. And I continued to drink large amounts of soda. Although I was active, I wasn't nearly as active as when I was logging. And because I had always been at least chubby, I didn't notice that I was getting fatter & fatter until it was too late.

Well, that's not entirely true. I noticed. Everyday there was reminders that things weren't right. But I did my best to ignore them. It's like people do with personal finances. They know they are in debt, but avoid actually adding up how much because the amount will scare them. But that doesn't fix the problem. Often it makes it worse. Denial isn't just a river in Egypt.

So there I was a little over a year ago. I was down to just a few clothing items that actually fit. Physically, more and more things were getting harder and harder to do. It's not a good thing when you can no longer get bent over to tie your shoes.

I knew things had to change. And I knew it wasn't going to be easy. And I'm a big fan of easy.

So, I began the Journey...

Introducing You to the Journey

2011-02-26T12:17:00.001-09:00

This begins a new theme to this blog. My posts up to this have come in spurts on a variety of topics. And I will continue to post on Geocaching, personal finances, and pursuing God.

But I am now going to also focus on a Journey that is already a year in the making.I'm talking about my transition from a man to a woman using hormone treatments and eventually surgical gender reassignment.

Ha! I'm just messing with you! I got your attention, though... I'm way too ugly to be a woman.

So, what is this Journey? Stay tuned to find out...

Are You a Nail or a Bullet?

2011-01-22T19:00:00.000-09:00

A successful nail is one that does it's job by staying in one place for a very long time.

A successful bullet is one that does it's job and then gets out of the way for the next bullet to get in there and do it's job.

A bullet makes a lousy nail. A nail makes a lousy bullet.

Using a bullet when you need a nail is bad. Using a nail when you need a bullet is bad.

Trying to be a nail in the chamber of a rifle is not good. Trying to be a bullet stuck in the wall is not good.

Bullets are useful. Nails are useful. Figure out which one you are, or what your situation requires. Don't get the two mixed up.

Ironic, Isn't It? Part Three...

2011-01-14T22:08:00.000-09:00

From Uncle John's Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader:

"At the head offices of the National Association of Telemarketers in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, a sign is posted on the front door that reads "Absolutely NO SOLICITING"

Anyone that has ever had dinner interrupted by a telemarketer not only sees the irony here, but the glaring hypocrisy. They represent a group that regularly intrude into our homes and workplace via the ringing of a telephone; but they themselves do not want to bothered.

A few years back we dropped our home phone. The wife & I both had cell phones and that's how most of our friends & family would contact us. The only calls we got on our land line phone were telemarketers.

I work in an office of a company that does the testing, adjusting & balancing on commercial HVAC systems. During the course of any one day at least 30% of the calls are telemarketers. It's incredibly annoying.

I'm sure there's some clever lesson I could draw out of the irony here, but just talking about gets me all riled up... Grrrr....

Ironic, Isn't It? Part Two...

2011-01-08T11:49:00.000-09:00

From Uncle John's Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader:

"After actress Brittany Murphy, 32, died of a heart attack while taking a shower in December 2009, First Look Pictures immediately recalled and replaced the DVD cover art for her recently released film, Deadline. The reason: It depicted Murphy as a lifeless corpse lying in a bathtub."

The lesson we can take from this: Sometimes things just happen. Now, I deeply believe there are times when things happen for a reason. Sometimes what we want to call a "coincidence" is God orchestrating His divine plan for our lives.

But, sometimes things do "just happen." Some people would read this story and say: "Well, she cursed herself by letting herself be depicted dying in a shower." The truth is people die in the shower every day. In fact, my grandfather passed away in 1995 after having a heart attack in the shower. And to come at it from the other side, every day actors in film, theater & TV regularly "die" without dying.

If every actor who died in real life died the same way they died while acting, then we could say Brittany Murphy's death was not a coincidence. An example of this is the "Madden Curse." Almost every NFL star who has appeared on the cover of the Madden NFL video game box art has experienced a decline in performance, usually due to an injury.

David McRaney at the "You Are Not So Smart" blog talks about the Texas Sharp-Shooter Fallacy. (David is a genius. It would be well worth your time to read this post...)

The basic premise is that with hindsight being 20/20, we take what are really random events and force them into an picture that makes sense to us. We don't like randomness.

The hard part is discerning when something is a random coincidence and when it's not. And if you figure out how to do that, let me know so you can teach me...

Ironic, Isn't It? Part One.

2011-01-01T12:39:00.000-09:00

I"m a huge fan of Uncle John's Bathroom Readers. They are full of articles on history, science, pop culture and other assorted stuff. All pure brain candy...
This will be the first of a series of short posts from an article in the "Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader."

"A 2010 Indiana University study found that anti-drinking commercials that use scare tactics tend to bring out "feelings so unpleasant that alcoholics are compelled to eliminate them by whatever means possible." According to the study's respondents, they cope by drinking. Result: "Alcoholics actually drink more that if they hadn't been exposed to the ads in the first place." "

Anyone that has ever inhaled a gallon of Rocky Road ice cream while watching the Biggest Loser finds this as no surprise.

The lesson for leaders/teachers/preachers: Guilt & scare tactics are not effective motivators.

The lesson for the rest of us: Know what triggers your bad behaviors and be prepared to react differently.

Is it a Puzzle or a Mystery?

2010-12-24T21:50:00.000-09:00

Dave says that if you want to be rich, you have to do rich people stuff. If you want to be skinny, you have to do skinny people stuff. So I've been reading smart people stuff, hoping to become a smart person. (Side note... It doesn't appear to be working. I'm still pretty stupid...)

My current read is "What the Dog Saw" by Malcolm Gladwell. It's a collection of 19 essays he had previously released. So it's smart stuff broken up into little bite size stories. The only way it could be better is if he threw in some Archie comics.

So, onto the point of this whole thing. When looking at questions, problems, or hashing out life's issues; you have to be able to discern between puzzles & mysteries. If it's a puzzle, then it means you are still missing pieces of information that you must track down before you can make a decision. If it's a mystery, then you have all the information you need; you just need to do a correct analysis of it.

When investigating the Watergate Scandal, journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward were looking for missing pieces of information in their investigation. They found that information in the details provided by "Deep Throat." They were dealing with a puzzle.

When it came to the Enron Scandal, all the information was there in Enron's financial statements. Nothing was hidden. It just took someone to correctly analyze the data to realize the energy giant was in serious trouble. They were dealing with a mystery.

It's important to know what you are dealing with. If you treat a puzzle like it's a mystery, then you'll make a decision based on incomplete information. If you treat a mystery like it's a puzzle, then you'll fail to make a decision because you are still looking for answers that are not there. Misreading the situation will either lead to a bad decision, or being frozen.

So the first step will always be to decide if you are dealing with a puzzle and you need more data OR if you are dealing with a mystery and you need to analyze the data you've collected.

Parenting: Should a license of some sort be required?

2010-12-02T15:27:00.000-09:00

Think about it... If you want to drive a car, you are required to get a license. Fly a plane. License. Get paid to give someone a bad haircut. Yep, you need a license.

But... want to make new human beings? All you need is the basic equipment God gave ya and you're good to go. Procreate away! Churn out new humans like a Xerox machine on crack.

Now, I'm as "Anti-Big Government" as the next guy. I'm down with "Don't Tread On Me." So I'm not saying we need DBM (Division of Baby Makin') offices with long lines and grumpy employees. Still, it seems like there should be some sort of screening process...

Full Disclosure: I don't have kids. Which means I can freely judge your parenting skills without fear of it coming back to bite me on the rump...

DON'T Act Your Wage...

2010-11-27T10:40:00.000-09:00

Earlier I had a post entitled "Act Your Wage." The basic premise is to live according to your means.

In discussing this post with Pastor Scott, he threw a twist in for me. His thought was "don't act your wage." But he wasn't referring to spending habits; he was referring to your work ethic.

What do I mean? If you are flipping burgers at minimum wage and you work like you are getting paid to flip burgers at minimum wage, then you may be flipping burgers at minimum wage for quite a while. And typically you'll do so while whining and complaining about how your are underpaid and unappreciated.

But if you'll flip burgers like they are paying you $15, $20 dollars an hour, training you for a management position, you'll work differently. You'll work harder with a better attitude.

Maybe you are already a mid level person making $15 or $20 an hour. Work like you are making double that. Have an attitude that reflects that you are making double that.

Now some people would push back from that and say: "Well, I'm not going to be a 'Company Man'. If my boss wants more out of me, he needs to pay me better." Alright there, Bubba. You keep going with that attitude and see how far it gets you.

John Miller in his great book "QBQ!" says that we ask the wrong questions. Instead of asking "why aren't I getting paid more?" how about you ask "what can I do to show that I'm worth more?" (And if you are going to order the QBQ! you also need to get "Flipping the Switch"")

This isn't a new concept. Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:41 to do double what is expected or required of us. I know, it's probably not fair for me to Jesus Juke you like that... But hey, it's in red letters, so it must be right. You could probably throw the whole concept of sowing & reaping in there too... The old saying is plant what you want to harvest.

So, in your spending, act your wage. In your earning, don't act your wage. See how far this takes you. You'll like where you wind up.

Keep the Driveway Shoveled...

2010-11-26T15:22:00.001-09:00

Having the heart of a teacher, I look for lessons in everyday experiences.

And today I saw a teachable moment as I was shoveling our driveway after a fresh snow.

I try to shovel the snow off before anyone drives or walks on it. If not, the snow gets compacted into a dense ice. Now, for most parts of the country, that's not a big deal. In a few weeks the weather warms up and it all melts.

But, here in Alaska we still have a whole lot of winter ahead of us. If I don't stay on top of keeping the driveway clear, by spring we'll have a mess of thick ice.

In life, whether we like it or not, sometimes we get dumped on. Instead of snow though, it's things like anger, hurt, disappointment's, unforgiveness, and bitterness. When it happens, we have two choices. We can either deal with it quickly and shovel it out of the driveways of our life; or we can let it build up and build up. And if we don't deal with it quickly, it will build up into a thick, hard mess.

That's why the bible says to deal with anger quickly (Ephesians 4.26) and to make things right with others (Matthew 5.23-24).

Life happens. Deal with things as they happen. Ignoring them will not make it go away.