Healthy Living

I am Trying to Become Healthy:

The Reasons Why-

I have been struggling with my weight for years and have been saying that I would do something to change that. And I would....for a few weeks.  It's not that I don't have the willpower to follow through.  I lost 70 pounds in 5 months during my senior year of high school so that I would be able to get an Army ROTC scholarship and go to my dream school.  I then kept the weight off for 3 years.  The problem is one of motivation.  One of the normal reasons that people have for losing weight is to look better...be more attractive.  That is not enough for me, apparently.  Probably because I think I look pretty good already ;)  So, I needed some good motivation and I think I found it.

1. The first motivator is that I want to have a family some day and I want to be the kind of dad who plays with their kids.  My dad was always going outside to play catch or rough housing with us inside (which we later found out was to show us "better ways" of doing something that just happened to also be much safer).  I want to be able to get up, move around and play with my kids.  Now this hasn't always been a motivator, but recently I have been out of breath when demonstrating something while coaching football, so it got me thinking.  I am getting older and hopefully closer to having a family (If God wishes it), so the past two years or so have made me start thinking about how I want to be an active father, not one that sits on the couch all day.
2. I want to live for a long time.  Not because I am particularly afraid of death (although I am not a huge fan of the idea).  But because I want to be alive long enough to provide my kids with the kind of support my parents have been able to give me over the years.  I want to be around for my future kids for as long as possible.  And I want to be able to hold my grandkids and watch them grow up.  This reason started a couple years ago when I saw pictures of my parents with their little grandbabies.
3. I have been neglecting my body which is supposed to be a temple that houses God.  Right now...I'm not sure he's liking the living arrangements.  So, with a renewed focus on prayer and faith...it would be bad for me to neglect my body, which is the only one God has given me.  It isn't that I lacked faith previously, but over the last 2 years, I have had to fight for my faith like I never had before.  This lead to a reflection of how I had been living my life and what was most important.

The Plan-

I have always been of the mindset that fruits and vegetables were completely unnecessary and didn't warrant their own food group.  They were always more of a decoration on my plate than something I was supposed to eat.  So, I decided that I would eat more of them.  But then I realized something...I don't really like them that much. Then I watched a documentary called "Fat, Sick, And Nearly Dead."  It is about juicing...not the type that pro athletes do, but with a juicer.  I went out and bought a juicer.  So the plan is that I make a vegetable juice twice a day and eat one regular meal.  I also have a snack during the day.  So, that is my eating plan.  The other part of the plan is to work out on a regular basis.  (If you'd like any more info on juicing, I would strongly recommend watching the documentary mentioned earlier in this paragraph)

The Goal-

I have lost a total of 24 pounds since mid-July.  I would like to lose another 110ish pounds.  My short term goal is to lose 60 pounds in one year.


So, I will be keeping you all (and by "all" I probably just mean my mother) updated on my progress...my successes and failures.Wish me luck!