Warning: Rant of Frustration to follow...

Life can be very frustrating sometimes.  There are so many pieces of life to try and balance.  Some of those pieces for me are: husband, father, son, employee, leader, follower, health/nutrition, exercise, friend, congregant, fan, etc…you get the point.  Just when you get one thing in a good place, something else goes out of whack.  That is the challenge of life.  Sometimes, I think back to when life was simple as a student, even though it didn’t seem simple then.

Most of the pieces in my life are actually in a pretty good spot right now.  As an employee, things are great!  My annual performance review was good and I’m very happy working where I work.  I enjoy telling recruiters (who typically contact me via LinkedIn) “No thank you.”  Family life is good for the most part.  Parenting has its constant challenges and you learn to deal with them.  My marriage is good, which is more than I can say for a lot of my friends, unfortunately.  “Experts” say the divorce rate is about 50%, and based on my circle of friends, I’d say that’s pretty accurate. I could go off on how couples give up on each other as they change over time, or so it seems, but that is a rant for another time (maybe).

Although I’m pretty frustrated with Time Warner’s inability to work out a deal with television provides, I can live with that as long as I continue to follow along on social media and can still listen to them on the radio.

My biggest frustration right now, however, is health/exercise.  I know that I’m overweight. I know that I’m aging.  I know that I have high cholesterol.  I know I have a history of heart disease (and unrelated, but hopefully fixed, heart issues).  All of these point to needing to take care of myself better to ensure that I’m around as long as God wants me to be.  I enjoy being a leader (at whatever) and strongly believe in leading by example.  That just supports my motivation to get healthier.  Biggest Loser does not motivate me that much because although they are losing weight extremely fast, that is not realistic for me and (fortunately) I am not as big as them when they start.

Here is where the frustration comes in, and many of the other pieces tie together. There are 24 hours in a day, which rarely seems like enough.  There’s work, the commute to and from work, sleep, soccer, church and related events, family events, friend events, chores, bills and all the other stuff that pops up regularly and sometimes unexpectedly, and it seems like time with family is already at a premium.  Finding time to work out is a challenge to say the least.  I have a goal of attending 3 boot camp classes per week, which takes away more time from family and/or missing their soccer practice(s), but helps with my goal of getting in better shape.

I started attending boot camp almost a year ago and weighed in at 242 lbs at my initial check-in. As of last Friday, I weighed 233.  233! That’s a whole 9 lbs lost in just under a year! By my personal standards, that is pathetic and unacceptable for what I am trying to accomplish.  I will say that I had a setback in September when I had heart problem and was told not to do strenuous exercise (I am not using that as an excuse because I should have cut back on eating since my activity got reduced) and was not cleared to resume until December which was about a month after I had heart surgery to correct the problem.  However, in the couple months I have been back, I have been unable to get back into a rhythm of exercising regularly, which is where one piece of my frustration lies.  A recent cold didn’t help either as I went about a week without going to boot camp.  Needless to say I am not even back into the shape I was in before the whole heart thing, which is extremely frustrating for me.  I should be back to that level by now but I’m not.

The other piece of the health puzzle is nutrition.  I think this frustrates me about as much as the exercise part is currently, but has bugged me for a longer time (and probably) than exercise.  It seems like the standards are always changing.  You still sporadically hear that it’s about calories: to maintain your weight you need to consume as many calories as you expend, but that does not seem to be the main focus.  First of all, I have come to realize that what I was taught about the food pyramid when I was younger no longer applies.  Sure there are still fruits, vegetables and dairy, but now there are grains, starches, different kinds of fats (good and bad), sugars, good if they come naturally and in moderation, but not if they come otherwise or are a “substitute”, carbohydrates which are either simple or complex, and fiber which can be water soluble or not (I think).  And it’s not a pyramid now, but a plate (or pie chart, but pie is not good for you).  Add on to that all of the GMO/non-GMO, organic, chemicals, pesticides, yadda, yadda, yadda into the picture and I have no idea where to even begin to look at how to eat healthy. So I’m going to keep it as simple as I can and hopefully it works.  To try and lose weight, I will consume fewer calories than I use knowing that I should have some fruits and vegetables mixed in.

However, taking that approach is not easy because I seem to have almost no will power when it comes to food.  Of course I could say no to the seemingly hundreds of snacks that are brought into our department at work on a weekly basis, but what would the fun in that be.  Ok ok ok. I know that is really up to me and what I really want and I probably could learn to say no regularly if I really tried, but let’s get something straight.  There are some things I will probably never give up, even if directed by a doctor, like Diet Coke, Dodger Dogs and brownies (and chocolate in general).  I need to learn to moderate how much I have of each of those, which is a bit easier for Dodger Dogs since I only have them when I go to about a handful of Dodger games each year.

So, with all of that being said, I decided a few weeks ago to set a goal for myself, which should give me plenty of time to figure all of this out and get myself into some sort of rhythm while being able to balance all of the different pieces of my life and being able to adjust to the curve balls of life. I am calling it “Fit at 40!”  My 39^th birthday is couple of months away (April) so I have about 14 months to get where I want to go.  That should be enough time to get there. 

So where do I want to be at 40?  Ideally, I would be at a weight of 180-190.  When I did Weight Watchers several years ago, I think I got into the 170’s.  That was nice, but I want to add some muscle this time around.  Thus the weight goal is a bit higher than before.  Basically, I want trim down and tone up.  I see it working this way…get down to my goal weight by the end of 2015, and then spend the first few months of 2016 toning up unless of course it happens simultaneously, which is very possible, in which case the weight may come off a bit slower due to muscle being added along the way, which is fine with me.

I already chatted with one of the trainers (the owner, actually) at the place I do Boot Camp.  He seemed to like the idea and even offered to let me have my 40^th party at his gym next year.  I mentioned that it may be cool to have a Fit at 40 workout either before or during the party, but we can figure that out when the time comes…it’s 14 months away. 

The cool thing about the place I do Boot Camp, which also has Cross Fit, is that the trainers/coaches are really cool and very encouraging.  Whenever I’m there, I know they want to help me get where I want to go.  I can’t say that when I go to a normal gym. I need that encouragement they provide.  It’s funny how just a few words of encouragement can have such a big effect.

Ok, I think my rant is over now.  So, I’m really frustrated with how busy I am with life, and trying to fit in time to exercise, and figuring out the seemingly endless amount of nutrition information to eat healthy, in order to get to be Fit at 40.  Here we go!