Day 1 – First Step

Ok, today is January 8th, 2018 and my life is going to change from today I just got on the scale at I’m 143Kg’s that is (315.261 Pounds), started by having an Optifast chocolate shake for breakfast and a 40 min Gym session. I find it best to go to Gym as early as possible that way you don’t have it hanging over your head the whole day. If there is anyone else out there willing to join me on this journey let me know its great to have a partner for motivation.

Workout (my first Session)

2 Kilometre walk (Treadmill)

2 X 2 Minutes Rowing break for a Minute in between

3 X 10 reps  Dumbells

3X 10 reps Pullups assisted

3 X 10 Pulldowns

3 X 10 Stepups

3 X 30 sec ropes

Lunch Chicken Breast and Green Salad

Dinner Optifast Shake

Snacks – Carrots and fruit

Just a mention that this is my personal journey and I am simply following a diet I can handle and a gym session that feels like I’ve had an all-around workout, and I’m using this website to document my journey.

 

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Crayons

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I was sitting at a classroom table this morning during worship and noticed this little basket of crayons, a funny thing about this grouping of pencils is that it correctly reflects the social interactions of us humans. It seems that there is always that lonely pencil, all on its own, although similar in all its characteristics, it just does not fit the social basket, and always tends to look a little awkward as it puts on a brave face, other pencils gather in groups confident in their numbers and whether blunt or sharp they support and care about each other, and at the same time making all members of the group feel comfortable in their skin.

Then there are the minority groups although small in numbers they have their place and they certainly like all pencils add equal value to the basket and even though the other pencils want to put a wall between themselves and others. How far as a human race we have come and yet how far we still have to go in cultural relations and understanding of our fellow person.

 

 

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Make your dreams come true, and live a life worth living.

In 22 years of teaching, there has always been one message year after year that I give my students “don’t let your past experiences dictate your future and do what you love, because you going to have to get up every morning and drive to that job, and if it’s not a passion you bound to fail”. There is nothing morning terrifying than having a family to feed a wife at home worried about bills and trying to keep a roof over your head, and on top of that going to a job that you hate, and not having alternative options. They say that you can change your career path, conquer the world, but when you’re stuck in the life’s mud, and all the animals around you are pushing you down, and you feel like you’re having an asthma attack, it’s quite difficult to find a path out.

So in saying that before life, tax, family and the colloquial animals get you down, chose your path early, study your passion, don’t let one teacher or even one year of bad experiences stop you from becoming that engineer, maths teacher, Mc Donalds Manager, building inspector or whatever your dreams, stop build the foundation today.

Step 1. Decide on a Goal / Job / Dream

Step 2. Plot steps to achieving it.

Step 3. Put that Dream someplace where you can see/ read it every day.

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Know Me to Love Me

It’s not unreasonable to think that marriage for men is 70% physical and 30% emotional and for woman the opposite. What woman sometimes fail to understand is that most men whether they want to admit it or not, are selfish creatures, we like to have our cake and eat it and then still look at the desert menu after we’ve eaten our cake.

 
I know for a fact that most of my decisions are based on me first, I must thank God for my wife whom through tolerance and love goes with my impulse purchases and midlife idiosyncrasies.
 
I think the key to a happy marriage is love enough to allow the other person to realize their mistakes and be understanding enough to know we are not the same, and intelligent enough to know that together we are perfect .
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Rewind Fast forward

The idea of being able to rewind certain moments in our lives, like the honeymoon, the day my children were born, Disney World vacation, steam train ride through St Petersburg  and College. Wouldn’t it be amazing just to press a button so we could keep going back to the highs and fast forward past the lows.

Life is often referred to as a journey and as we travel along the unpaved roads we grow in experience and wisdom. I would like to rather think of life as a tape recorder, where we should rewind moments by going back to the times that captured our hearts and made us feel alive. Just like parts of the tape we listened to in school, that love mix our high school sweetheart created for us in 8th grade rewound so many times the tape became stretched.

I couldn’t remember the first restaurant that my wife and I had our first date at, but I did remember the song played in the background, I made dinner for two this evening and Depeche Mode “Somebody” played on the Ipod.

 

 

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Diets are Hell

I must explain my absents without leave over the past week, I decided that I needed a week to start and plan my new diet. I’m following the Optifast diet plan and today will be the start of week two. The first couple of days I had flashbacks to the time I gave up smoking ( I quit cold turkey in 2005 and have not picked up another one since), this time the images are burgers and pizza where’s my chewing gum for that “MAC-o-rett”.

Diets are a unknown beast, just when you start to feel good about your progress, your body starts to feel hungry and the beast seems to overtake the male brain that thinks about woman and eventually becomes the major topic of your dreams and daydreams, old biscuits that you would not have given a second look at before become mouth watering treats and irresistible.

On more than one occasion I have found myself for no reason at all just walking to the kitchen and opening the fridge, I swear my wife could hear the light click on because I would hear a shriek from the other side of the house “it’s not time for your apple snack yet”.

I feel like a POW looking through the fence at the tree in the garden of Eden and the only apple on the tree is just in reach but if I take it I would have failed myself.

The only cure I have found is at night drink lots of water and then go to sleep and during the day keep a coleslaw salad and water bottle close by for those snack times.

Week 2 going to be tough but I will keep you all posted.

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Bloody Change

I had been whining to my wife that I feel exhausted and lethargic, she sent me off to the doctor and his words were simple “Bloody Change your Lifestyle!” or sit in a hospital bed at 50 .

You can keep telling yourself that you will start the diet on monday, or go back to gym on wednesday, but the fact of the matter is that if you don’t partner up with a mate or a trainer to push you and make you feel obliged to go, you just not going to go. Why wait until you sick and bed ridden to make a change.

We always want to write that book or change our lifestyle, but reality is nobody (normal) feels like coming back home from work and getting changed to hurt your body or opening the laptop to start chapter one, but when is going to be the right time?

If you are anything like me the abs have turned into the flabs and the youthful feeling of aches has turned into is that a heart attack coming on.

I am going to take control today, and just by the way I wrote two chapters last night.

 

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My wife found me in the recycle section

As I walked the long avenues of my local hardware store this morning I noticed I was the only guy in the store for one and the only person buying a hammer because it looked cool most customers were woman and buying practical items like locks and taps and it dawned on me.

What happened to when Men just used to be men, no matter what colour, religion or economic strata of society you’d come from in the past men had a place we knew our worth.

Ah Strength , and let me elaborate , strength in knowledge as we would work and study to provide, strength in our physical makeup and we would build and labour for our families. We knew that as head of the house we had a responsibility to care and protect for God, family and country.
But today we find that most of our functions have been eroded or reassigned, and as men as a whole  I think that to no fault of our own we have been boxed like a 2011 Christmas toy only to be taken out to admire and later exchanged for a Multi functional household tool that can do lots of neat tricks but very few strength jobs.
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Are You Happy ?

Ever drive to work and have a look into the other cars and try and see how many people are happy, I did this very experiment the other day and was surprised that I only managed to count a handful of people who looked like they were happy . I wonder how many people in their 40’s feel trapped and unhappy about where life has brought them. It’s seems like a no brainer that if you are unhappy at work and with your chosen career make a change, rearrange the budget and take a night course in a field on interest or simply change jobs. It might even be the environment or people you work with are the root of your unhappiness, check the job listings go where you’re welcome and appreciated.

Life is too short !

It’s never too late to be happy, some of the happiest people I know flip burger patties and live a quality not quantity life. Keep in mind that most qualifications can be done in 2 years, that means after qualifying and if you’re in your 40’s you will still have 25 years give or take of work ahead of you, in a career choice you going to enjoy.

The Happiest Man Alive

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