THE HURT LOCKER

In 2009, The Hurt Locker was released in American theaters to rave reviews.  The compelling story of an United States Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team working to clear Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Iraq was so intriguing and well received that it was awarded the Oscar for Best Picture of the Year.  The movie follows a group of soldiers whose job places them in high-risk and extremely perilous situations.  These men worked in the most stressful conditions imaginable with no concern for themselves, but were dedicated to the safety and well-being of others.  The title of the movie is taken from the large protective outfit worn by the squad member whose job it is to disarm the bombs once they have been located.  It is with utmost respect and thanksgiving that I honor these soldiers in the metaphor I am about to present.....

I have never served in the military.  I have never faced an enemy who is determined to kill me before I kill him.  I have never been called upon to leave my family at a moment's notice to go around the world to protect the freedoms that I so humbly cherish.  I have never faced that kind of enemy....but I have been that enemy.  Of course, I am not an enemy to the freedoms of this country or its people, but in my own life I have caused pain, frustration and placed people I love in situations that are wrought with emotional IEDs!  The number one target of many of these IED attacks has been my loving and devoted wife.  Let me make a quick aside to this point of discussion...it was not until recently that I even realized or recognized that my actions were creating these various situations within my relationship.  I, of course, had been quite ignorant to the fact that my own emotional roller coaster was affecting others.  In recent weeks, I have started to look outside of my own little bubble and actually see the amazing people in my life that have quietly and bravely lived through many tense moments.  In the midst of the various episodes I viewed as being the end all, be all of importance, my wife stood by me with love and support.  Each time I "raged against the machine" and complained about how wounded I was and how no one truly realized what I was going through, she suited up.  The times when my anger took over and I lashed out at the world that most certainly was against me, my wife approached the hidden explosive, wrapped her arms around it and held on in hopes that her love and concern would be enough to diffuse the situation.  Most of the time, her knowledge and skill led her to success and yet, on occasion, even her superior knowledge was not enough to overcome the nature of the BOMB!  It was on these occasions that my wife truly exemplified the essence of Walking in Love towards others.  No matter how many times I had emotional eruptions, no matter how many times I wavered on what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be, no matter how many times I blamed everything under the sun for my displeasure and disillusionment....she was there.  She bore the brunt of the shrapnel and just stayed...arms firmly wrapped around me...repeating to me that I was "God's Best" and that I was "Completely, Complete" and that I should view myself the way God views me.  She withstood all the sadness, all the pain, all the frustration, all the ignorance, all the baggage, everything I threw at her and she did it without complaint!  She stood firmly beside me while I took the time I needed to figure out exactly what was at the root of my unhappiness and when I began to come out of the shadows, she was still there!  We have all heard the old saying that the people we hurt the most are the people we love!  I see that now.  I know that my wife withstood the hardships and never wavered in her love for me. Now, The first thing she will say about reading this post is that the things I have described made up only a small portion of the life we have shared over the past 15 years.  She will point out all of the happy times and the abundance of blessings that we have enjoyed and look at the difficult moments as drops in the bucket of a life filled with joy and excitement and she would be correct.  Our life together has been and continues to be incredibly blessed.  We share a wonderful home with 3 amazingly beautiful and talented children.  We laugh together often and love each other deeply.  Today, I am healthy enough and strong enough to acknowledge my shortcomings and seek forgiveness for those actions that have caused others to feel sorrow, stress and pain.  Today, I am brave enough to talk about the realities of myself that have been hidden in many ways from others.  Today, I am humble enough to accept myself for who I am and strive to continue working on who I can be.  Today I am blessed to be a Son of God and to share in all the abundance that comes with that and today, I am lucky enough to be married to my best friend, my greatest cheerleader and one of the most amazing women I know.  T...I love you a Circle! Thanks for never giving up on me!  I pray that the remainder of our life together is filled with continued abundance and is free of any further IEDs....but, I know if one of those horrible little hidden devices is found in the future, you will climb right back in that HURT LOCKER and face the challenge...because that is who you are and that is why the people you love are so thoroughly blessed to have you on their side and in their lives!

Setting Goals.....

Unfortunately, my hiatus from the blog was a little longer than I expected.  I have realized in the past couple of weeks that I am a very goal driven individual.  When I set a tangible goal, I tend to keep a much stronger focus on that goal and consequently my success rate is much higher.  During my 21 days of focused food logging, I accomplished a great deal.  I lost 22 pounds, fell below 300 for the first time in years and came to some pretty amazing realizations.  Since then, I have found myself in a similar pattern of floundering around, making a bunch of excuses and holding pretty steady on the weight front.  The past cycle of set goal, work to reach goal, reach goal, become satisfied, turn satisfaction into laziness, turn laziness into excuses, use excuses to avoid further goal setting and accomplishments has been in full effect.  For the last 3 weeks, I have been sitting around, enjoying my success and convincing myself that everything has changed....and you know how the saying goes, "the more things change, the more they stay the same!"  Today I am finally making an effort to move beyond the "glory" of my previous triumph and push past this wall of excuses to begin what I am calling ROUND 3!  In ROUND 1, I came to grips with the reality that I needed to seriously do something with my life to try and prolong it as much as I possibly can...Presto, the blog was born.  In ROUND 2, I set a goal to fall below 300 pounds during a strenuous and detailed look at my eating habits...Mission Accomplished.  As I step back into the ring for ROUND 3, I will confront the endless excuses that I have continued to make throughout my life and fight back with a series of small, attainable goals that I hope will keep me going for a lot longer than in the past.  I have broken these goals into 4 categories and will share them with everyone here on this post.  Along with my goals, I have also established some rewards for myself to act as a bridge between milestones that will allow me the opportunity to celebrate my accomplishment, without derailing my determination to forge ahead.  As always, your prayers, support and love will be most helpful in this next ROUND.  I know at times I have been inconsistent, but I am still fighting and this is a fight I intend to win!
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GOALS

Daily: Keep Food Log, Workout (including a 1-2 mile run), Help around the House, Read with the Kids, Play with the Kids, Talk with my Wife, Read Bible, BLOG, Facebook a Friend.

Weekly: Workout 5 out of 7 days, Lose 2 - 4 pounds, Keep Food Log 6 out of 7 days, Blog 3-5 times, Call Family, Call Friends, Write a Letter, Mow Grass and do Yard Work, Contact Former Students.

Monthly: Write for a possible Book, Lose 15 - 20 pounds, Take my Wife on a Date, Take each of My Kids Out Individually at Least Once, Workout 20 out of 30 days, Blog 12 - 20 times, Read 1 - 2 Books, Have Friends over for Dinner.

Yearly: Get a Physical, Run (2) 5K races, Lose 100 - 110 pounds, Read 15 - 25 Books, Complete a Home Improvement Project, Travel with My Family, Visit Family, Complete a Draft of a Book.
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REWARDS

* Download (1) iTunes track per (2) pounds lost 
* Take a fishing day or play a round of golf per (20) pounds lost
* Purchase a Calorie Management System when I reach (250) pounds
* Go to a choice sporting event (i.e. baseball, football, hockey, etc...) per (60) pounds lost 
* Go to the Biggest Loser Ranch for a week after (85) pounds lost
* Take a weekend trip with my Wife to NEW YORK after breaking (200) pounds
* Chaperon a School Trip to Europe once I reach my goal weight of (185) pounds
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COMING SOON:

(A Glance at Future Posts)

The Hurt Locker
21 Days of Revelation: Part 1 (Physical Healing)
21 Days of Revelation: Part 2 (Financial Healing)
21 Days of Revelation: Part 3 (Emotional Healing)
Beyond the 21 Days: Forgiveness and Love

Thanks Mom...I Love You!

This past weekend, to kick off our Spring Break vacation, I loaded up the van and headed south with my wife and 3 kids to visit Grandma and the gang.  Now, to give you an idea of how my family is situated, my Mom and her husband live approximately 1000 steps from my older brother and his family, another 500 steps from my twin brother and his family and about 1/2 mile from my older sister and her family.  Needless to say, our family is what you might call CLOSE!  Taking the trip down to the beach to spend the weekend is a wonderful opportunity for my children to see 10 of their cousins, their aunts and uncles and to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa.  Our visit this year was great!  We spent four wonderful days hanging out with family, riding the ferry, visiting the Aquarium, fishing in the lake and sharing many meals together.  It is such a blessing as a father to see my kids enjoy the town in which I grew up.  I love those moments when I can share a bit of my childhood with my kids.  One of the biggest treats this year was the effort my Mom made to make healthy, whole grain snacks and fresh fruit available while we visited.  Now growing up, my family would not have been confused with health food activists.  Don't get me wrong, vegetables were readily available, but so were lots of sugary snacks, soft drinks and traditional "Southern Fried" fare.  Our culinary world was very typical of a 1980's southern family.  These days my Mom does a much better job of watching what she eats and prepares, but Sun Drop and other guilty pleasures are hard habits to break.  In the past I headed south with the knowledge that I would eat what was available and enjoy the company of my family, however, like I said earlier, Mom had a surprise in store.  This trip, we enjoyed grilled meats and veggies, whole wheat pasta, fresh fruit, multi-grain snacks, no sugar added ice cream cones (snack size), turkey bacon, roast with carrots and potatoes and many other wonderfully healthy treats.  The one time we did indulge in a guilty pleasure was on the final day of our visit when we went to lunch at a local Mexican Restaurant that serves exceptional cuisine.  I ordered my meal, consumed half of it, boxed the rest up and left it in the fridge when we headed home.  What a great trip and what a wonderfully caring and loving Mom I am so blessed to have.  Thanks Mom for the effort you make to provide me with healthy options that fit with my new life choice.  Thanks for always loving me with no strings attached and for being there to pick me up and dust me off when life threw me a challenge I found difficult to overcome.  Thanks for sharing movie nights, phone calls, tears, laughter, joy and sorrow over the years.  Thanks for being proud of me and the person I have become.  Thanks for helping make me the man I am today and thanks for being a shining example of the love of God here on earth.  You are...to borrow your favorite word....an "AWESOME" Mom and words cannot do justice to the love I feel for you in the depths of my soul.  I am so blessed to call you my Mom and so honored to call you my friend.  I LOVE YOU ALL THE WAY TO THE MOON AND BACK!   

Under 300....

Sorry for the recent absence from writing....the past couple of weeks have been filled with tennis matches, school trips and Spring Break vacations.  As I posted in the FINAL WRAP UP, I lost 19 lbs during my 21 days of disclosure.  It was such a motivating time and one filled with incredible revelations for me as an individual.  I plan on creating a separate post about that at a later date.  For this post, I want to focus on something equally as motivating and encouraging and something that I have yearned for and desired now for over 2 years.  As of Friday, 4-8-2011, I am no longer in the 300 club.  When I weighed that morning, I came in at 298 lbs, bringing my 28 day weight loss total to 22 lbs and moving me under 300 pounds for the first time since March of 2009.  It was such a relief and exciting moment to get on the scales and not see a three at the beginning of the flashing red digits.  Thanks for all the support and well wishes over the past month.  Hopefully, this is just the beginning and I can stay focused on reaching my goal of weighing 250 lbs by July when my family and I take our annual beach trip,  So long 300....I don't plan on visiting you again anytime soon!

THE FINAL WRAP-UP!

On Saturday, 3/11/2011, I began a 21 day odyssey of tracking and reporting the food I was eating.  During that time I focused on watching and calculating certain amounts of specific nutritional standards each day.  Some days I did extremely well and others I could have done a lot better.  I tried to open myself to the vulnerability of what I was doing and for the most part achieved that during the last three weeks.  In all honesty, there were a couple of moments when I did falter and make a choice that was not the best (i.e. a KitKat candy bar or two), which at the time I did not "fully disclose" and for that I apologize.  I realize that there are still some lingering issues I face with being completely open about the food I eat and I must strive to work harder and not allow embarrassment or shame to affect me in my honesty.  Outside of the candy bars, everything that went into my body was documented and shared.  Even though I did fall short on a couple of occasions, the accountability and desire to be as honest as possible, did get me through several other moments of weakness when old habits began to creep in and push me off of my path.  The only issue I feel guilty about is not sharing those weak moments earlier.  I still have these feelings of needing to be perfect and not letting others down because of my poor decisions.  I know that is the main thing I still need to work on and I hope that I will continue to make progress toward becoming stronger.  The one positive out of those poor decisions and one thing that should have allowed me to be more open, is that on the days I did slip up and eat something that was not the best choice, those were the days when I was low on my calories and fat and could have easily fit the candy into the daily totals and been OK.  The stigma of "oh no, I ate the candy", which has been bred in many over eaters who try to "be good" and "stay strong" just devoured my psyche and put up a mental wall that I chose not to break down.  It is one of those by-products of a life filled with "dieting" and "weight roller coasters" that seems to always be lurking in the back of my mind.  So, there is a truer sense of "Full Disclosure" and it is something that frees me now to be able to share the results of the past 3 weeks.

When I began 3 weeks ago, I weighed 320 lbs.  By watching what I ate, limiting my poor choices and exercising (even just a little), I now weigh............

301 lbs

That's right....I lost 19 pounds in 21 days.  It is an amazing feeling!  Just knowing that I was able to lose that kind of weight by basically watching and charting what I ate is so encouraging.  I worked out some, but not as much as I should and I still faltered on occasion with the rogue candy bar here and there and yet I lost 6% of my total weight and now stand on the doorstep of something that has not been a part of my life in a few years...the 200s!  I want to thank everyone who supported me during the 21 Days of Full Disclosure...henceforth known as the 21 Days of Semi-Full Disclosure and who continue to support me in every choice I make in life.  I am still keeping my journal and still maintaining my goals each day.  I will continue to try and make exercise a more significant part of my day and will also continue to work on breaking the habit of hiding choices that embarrass me.  I will also continue posting to the blog with regularity and tracking my success into the future.  Thanks again everyone......and do not fear.....you have not heard the last of me!

Full Disclosure: Entry #21 (Friday 4/1/2011)

Day #21....It All Comes Down to This!   


Food Log:

Breakfast: PowerBar Energy Bar. (250 calories, 5 fat, 2.5 sat. fat, 10 protein, 5 fiber )

Lunch: Chicken Sandwich w/ Pretzels, Apple. (655 calories, 11 fat, 3.5 sat. fat, 44 protein, 6 fiber)

Dinner: 2 cups of Tracey's Veggie Bean Soup, Turkey Grilled Cheese Sandwich. (556 calories, 11.1 fat, 4.6 sat. fat, 37.2 protein, 10.2 fiber)

Snacks: 5 Organic Ginger Snap Cookies (130 calories, 3.5 fat, 0 sat. fat, 1 protein, 0 fiber)

Total Nutritional Data: 1591 calories, 30.6 fat, 10.6 sat. fat, 92.2 protein, 21.2 fiber

Water: 82 oz.

Exercise: N/A

Wrap Up:  All will be revealed in the FINAL WRAP-UP!

Full Disclosure: Entry #20 (Thursday 3/31/2011)

Day #20....The Eve of the End!   


Food Log:

Breakfast: FiberOne Bar. (140 calories, 3.5 fat, 1.5 sat. fat, 2 protein, 9 fiber )

Lunch: SmartOnes Salisbury Steak. (280 calories, 9 fat, 3.5 sat. fat, 18 protein, 3 fiber)

Dinner: Broiled Salmon, Sauteed Beans, Red Potatoes, Corn on the Cob, Sauteed Onions. (653 calories, 8.5 fat, 1 sat. fat, 58 protein, 12 fiber)

Snacks: Turkey Sandwich w/ Pretzels, 5 Organic Ginger Snap Cookies (662 calories, 12.5 fat, 1.5 sat. fat, 42.5 protein, 2.5 fiber)

Total Nutritional Data: 1735 calories, 33.5 fat, 7.5 sat. fat, 120.5 protein, 26.5 fiber

Water: 92 oz.

Exercise: N/A

Wrap Up:  Well, tomorrow is the final day of this 3 week trial.  I am hoping to see great success and that this will be just the beginning of a future filled with better choices and a healthier lifestyle.  The past 20 days have been challenging and rewarding....the proof will be in the proverbial pudding!