Attitude

I'm cross posting this today. To me, it was that good.

I'm sticking to the plan. I feel smaller. My general trend is weight loss and that is good. I'm really tired today and generally, I feel pretty tired, but that's OK. I'm working on a goal and sticking to it! In a moment, I'll be heading to the gym, but wanted to share this before I forgot again.

Yesterday, in our team meeting here at work, our team lead read this to us. Every year, he reads it to the girls swim team he coaches. I found it quite motivating. The source is unknown.

ATTITUDE

Michael is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!"

He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Michael was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.  Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Michael and asked him, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?"

Michael replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or ... you can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood." Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or...I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or... I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.

"Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested.

"Yes, it is," Michael said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people affect your mood.  You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live your life."

I reflected on what Michael said. Soon hereafter, I left the Tower Industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it. 

Several years later, I heard that Michael was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower.  After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Michael was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back. I saw Michael about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?"

I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place.

"The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my soon-to-be born daughter," Michael replied. "Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or...I could choose to die. I chose to live."

"Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked. Michael continued, "The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read 'he's a dead man'. I knew I needed to take action."

"What did you do?" I asked. "Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me," said Michael. "She asked if I was allergic to anything.’Yes, I replied.' The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Gravity'."

Over their laughter, I told them, "I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead."

Michael lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude... I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matthew 6:34.

After all today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

Today, I choose to have a good day. Today, I choose to keep working towards my goals. What do you choose to for today?

Time for an update

Guess what? I haven't quit! I'm still working on this challenge and something is working. I'm down almost 10 since starting this. My wife tells me that the weight starts coming off fast at first. Well, OK, just getting smaller to me is a huge step.

Today, at 11 am, I did something I haven't done in years. I went to the gym here at the campus I work at. Two of my good friends work here at the hospital with me. We are forming a posse that will be pushing each other just to show and work out. I think this will really help me stay on track since guys as a group tend to not want to let down the group. And besides, the teasing would be unbearable from these two if I give up.

We worked out for an hour. I have no illusions that I'm going to be Michael Phelps just yet, but I rode a really cool excersize bike for 15 minutes and then took a rigorous walk on the track for 40 minutes.

While there, I scheduled time with a trainer to get me a routine. Routines are good!.

I'm looking forward to reading about the rest of my families stories. Hopefully they will be joining me soon here. 

See ya in the smaller pants department soon!

My starting point

Let's kick things off with what my plan is and what's happened so far.

My plan is to change my lifestyle gradually. From what I've read, drastic changes to my lifestyle will only end with me giving up. It's unrealistic to think I can become a fitness freak and eat super healthy over night and stick to it. So...here's the items that I'm changing...

• Drinking less soda. I was drinking diet pop already, but it was pretty much the sum of consumption. I brought a glass to work to for water. It's free and pretty low cal.
• Think about what I eat in the cafeteria. I used to just order everything that looked good. No more. I don't need to be full in the afternoons so a light lunch will do.
• Take the stairs more. I know MumblingSages doesn't see it everyday, but I actually do hit the stairs quite frequently now. The elevator still looks appealing in the morning. That may never change.
• Use the power of the Wii for good not evil. Well...more good and less evil. I'm not giving up on video games, I'm just shifting my diet to a bit more of the Wii Fit variety. So far this game is really fun and best of all it's tracking my progress for me. In a weird way this is working. I like challenges and this one is documented so each night I hope to show a decline.
  

I figure just starting like this will be gradual enough to keep me interested. The Wii thing has had an effect on me that isn't just from the exercise it provides. It's the feedback that things are working that really helps. I started using it 2 weeks ago and already I've lost 3.2 pounds. I know, I need to lose a lot more, but I like to celebrate progress. It reinforces to me that things are changing for the better.

My goal is to lose about 3 pounds every two weeks. I realize that I'll have weeks where I don't quite make goal but then there will be times when I exceed goal. If my math skills are correct, I'll reach my target in 40 weeks. With 2 weeks down, I only have 38 weeks to go!

We can do this family!!!!

Welcome to our journey

My name is OhCaptain (Tim) and I'm a memeber of a family interested in losing years of neglect from my waistline.

A little about me (I'm hoping to get the rest of the family on here shortly), I'm a middle aged husband and father of 2 little princesses.

My goal is to lose about 60 pounds. I have no illusions that this will be done quickly but I do believe that I can change my life enough to get there. I've started by eating better and thinking about the food I eat. I've also paid much more attention to my choices every day when it comes to moving. I've been taking the stairs more often and walking when there are other routes that don't require so much.

This is the start of the journey. My wife, mother, father, brother and sister-in-law are all invited to do this. It was my sister-in-law whose idea it was to work on this together.

Wish us luck! More later!