Valla! Valla! Que hierba tan Hermosa.
Yeah....what he said !!! lol
Thanks guys.
Transition coming soon. Will be shutting down, moving, and starting up somewhere new within 6 months time.
Worried. I'd say hopeful, but that's a given, always hopeful.
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On another note, I'm posting the following here because this grow journal is the closest thing to a diary I've ever had. It's nice to go back and read the shit I wrote +6 years ago. Some might consider this an overshare, but hey, I don't give a fuck.
The end of this month denotes 11 months since I started my diet/exercise program.
I started at 335lbs in late November of last year.
I began skipping breakfast, having a can of tuna fish for lunch, and a reasonable dinner later at night, high protein and lower carb.
Eating dinner late helped me sleep, as I'm the kind of person who is completely unable to sleep if he is hungry. Like, 2-3 hours of sweaty, disquieting sleep which leaves me in a tired, depressed funk through the next day. So dinner is a requirement. I hear of people who eat breakfast and lunch but skip dinner and that is simply not safe for me or whoever has the misfortune of dealing with me the next day.
Here's a shot of me @ around 300lbs (I'm right around 6ft) in February, I'm wearing a XXXL Dodgers hoodie, and I'm filling it out quite well. Almost not enough room in the gut region, happy to squeeze into it, because Mitchell & Ness doesn't make a 4XL in this model, lol.
At around April, I had lost enough weight through diet alone to begin running. I chose running in the hills of South Salem as the barkdust track at the school next door is only 1/8th of a mile and repetition is the enemy of motivation, in my case. It gets very boring circling a small track over and over.
The route I take is 3.5 miles, and has about 600 yards of hills that are literally too steep to bike up. When I first started, I had to walk the steeper hills and slow to shamble when my muscles froze up. It took me about an hour. A couple months of this route every other day and I was able to finish it in 45 minutes.
My knees and shins were on fire from the hard surface striking and once I developed a mental rhythm I was able to hit the track next door. The lethal torpor of circling a track for an hour was alleviated by my breathing control and step count. My knees, ankles, hips, feet, and shins thanked me. I was able to pound out 5 miles 3 times a week and did 3 miles every other day.
Starting in July I stepped things up and attacked my social anxiety as well as my halting progress. I joined up with the local MMA club to resume training that I abandoned in lieu of drug addiction in my 20s.
This was my place, always was. Violence mixed with chemical imbalance. Everyone has their own agenda. Any success you have will squeeze out opportunity for another person. People act nice, but at the same time were out for blood. Reminded me of home. I was on par with their best wrestler right from the start with no catching up required. I was truly becoming content. Sadly, that particular promotion was booted from the dojo and are no more.
A torn intercostal muscle and separated rib later, I was waylaid for 9 weeks and was unable to do any cardio as breathing in caused my rib to open back up. Luckily I stuck to my diet and gained no weight despite not exercising. In time, everything healed and it's been a couple months since I've experienced any pain.
Fast forward to today, I now mix up my routine quite well. I have 3 running routes and use my stationary bike trainer for HiiT training, where you do 30 second intervals of all-out sprinting followed by 30 seconds of normal use to catch your breath. I shaved over 5 minutes per mile off my hill runs and can sprint a half mile in around 3 minutes.
I have 3 sets of clothes that don't fit, I keep buying new ones and losing weight and having to buy new smaller clothing. Here is a pic of me in an adult large, has to be work wear or notable "man" brands because my arms/shoulders don't fit in anything else. Carhartt loves guys built like me. (Sticker left on for verification).
I'm signing up with the new MMA promotion that has filled in the vacancy at the local dojo and am sitting right around 230 at this point. My goal is around 205-210 to be totally cut and be maximally amble. I have self esteem and confidence and in some ways, feel like a new man.
What amazes me most, oddly enough, is that I found pictures of myself from near when I started, and then recently with shiny new cell phone that I hardly know how to use. I'm "allergic" to photographs, I never take them nor let other people take them. The fact I have 2 just 9 months apart is a total anomaly and completely unexpected.
