So I haven’t spoken too much about it here, but I’ve put into motion a plan to dramatically overhaul my life. About four years ago I started examining my life, and there seemed to be a lot of glaring irresponsibilities that I was just glossing over, or justifying (lamely). I spent way too much time invested in the wrongdoings and immaturity of the people I hung out with at the time (and by the way, they were not nearly as bad as I thought back then, and more importantly, it was wrong of me to judge them.)
In order of things I’ve tackled (along with help from my wonderful wife), these things have already been put into motion:
- I gave my life to Christ, and began a walk so far apart from the life I had been living previously.
- I got serious about my career, and as fate would have it, I have now been working at a Church for over three years.
- I got serious about my love life, and married the most wonderful woman I have ever met.
- I am becoming more eco-friendly. Ryanne and I have switched all our household light bulbs to the more energy efficient CFL bulbs, have started unplugging anything not in use, we only have one car, we purchase organic products wherever and whenever we can, for the most part we try to buy local produce, and we are just now beginning to recycle. I am also taking this responsibility to my work, where I intend on at least setting up recycle bins in my area, hopefully everyone else will catch on with time. I personally have moved to only printing documents when absolutely necessary, and always use double-sided printing (having a printer that supports this makes life so much easier).
- We have become more socially responsible. We’re donating money to causes, donating time to causes, buying organic (read up on it… it’s amazing how much you’re helping others, in addition to yourself by buying organic products), I only drink fair-trade certified coffee, and the easiest thing we have done to do a better job with this; pay attention. We try and watch the news or read a newspaper more often than in the past where we just lived in a bubble, and hadn’t the slightest idea what was happening in the world around us.
- I am becoming a well-informed citizen and getting more involved in the political process. I believe without a shadow of a doubt the biggest threat to the American Democracy is the attitude of “all politics and politicians are evil, there is nothing I can do to change it, so why should I care.” The wool has been pulled from my relatively new Christian eyes, and I no longer believe that just because I am a Christ-follower, I am also a registered card-carrying right-wing republican.
- As of Wednesday, July 11th I have undertaken quite possibly the biggest challenge I may ever face in my life; I am on life-changing quest, no longer can it be simply called a “diet.” I have fooled around with this idea for long enough. I honestly can’t even tell you what pushed me over the edge and made me decide to do it, I really just kind of woke up one morning and decided it was time. All the poking and prodding in the world from my wife, friends, and family made no difference, what it came down to finally was a decision I had to make personally. Actually, there was one thing; in my Men’s Group I lead every Saturday morning, we’re discussing the book of 1 Timothy. A couple weeks ago, while studying the fourth chapter of the book, I noticed this, verse eight “For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” I have read, and heard this passage many times before, but something clicked this time. I noticed the wording “physical training has some value” and came to the conclusion that taking care of our bodies is in fact a Biblical truth that I had overlooked. Sure, I knew all the verses about “your body is a temple” but none of that made any sense to me, not like this did. Paul could have flat out said “physical training is stupid, study the Bible and pray more,” but instead he chose to declare that there is indeed value in physical training.
So, my plan is; I have cut my calorie intake by %60 to get this thing started. I used to average right around 5,000 calories I day (I am not exaggerating, before starting this I spent a week logging every bit of food I ate every day). Now, I have two goals per day, a “happy” goal, and a “sad” goal. The happy goal is staying under 2,000 calories, the sad goal is to stay below 2,500. Short term goal is to lose fifty pounds by February, and two hundred (yes, two hundred) by December 2009. That gives me thirty months, one hundred and thirty weeks, more days than I choose to count (or launch the calculator program.) I know it’s lofty, and to be quite honest, there is a huge chance I will hit a BIG wall sometime during this plan, but I am taking it seriously, perhaps for the first time, and I refuse to tip-toe through the tulips with this.
I’m not toeing the water to test it out, I’m cannon-balling in, baby.
So, I will now be spending time on this blog discussing my journey. I plan on weighing in once-a-week, Monday mornings… and I will log those here. Look for the first weigh-in sometime tomorrow.
