Today I am 40 years old.

I have to stop and actually contemplate that. Forty years have gone by since I was introduced into this world and what a ride so far.

I have to say that out of all the years I have been here, the best have been the last eight, which happens to be the number of years I have known my wife, Angela. Without her I would not be where I am today, nor would I be blessed with two beautiful girls. Thank you babe. Without you I would not be who I am today.

So we went to Texas Roadhouse last night to celebrate my birthday early. And I did not scarf down the biggest steak there, nor did I eat the entire loaded baked potato, nor did I eat the fat off of the 12 oz prime rib I had. Those are actually good things. Now as for me sitting on a saddle waving a napkin going "Yee haw!" as the wait staff sang happy birthday, that was another thing altogether, but the look of horror and embarrassment on my oldest daughter's face....now that was priceless!

But today, as things are beginning to slow down at work, and I can actually work a day of normal hours, I am back to eating salad and soup today for lunch, and a sensible dinner. Breakfast was not a normal thing, but I figure for my birthday, I can have a quad shot venti upside down skinny Caramel Macchiato with an apple bran muffin. So I did try to stay somewhat healthy.

Anyway, back to work and I'll update later.

This past weekend I was blessed to be able to spend the weekend with my youngest daughter at the YMCA Princess Fall Campout at Camp Grady Spruce, located on the shores of Possum Kingdom lake. We had a blast together.

Now, why would this be a real test of how out of shape I am? Well, I had NO idea of what was going to happen at this camp. I knew that we would ride horses, or at least my daughter would. But we also hiked! Oh man did we hike.

If you look at the picture below, you will see a tiny rock outcropping at the top of the hill. That little outcropping was 1,300 plus feet high.


Ok, so that didn't look too high. But this was not a paved walking track. Not at all. This was a very rocky, dirt path that wound upwards. There were places where I had to literally crawl up and climb rocks to make it.





But made it we did, my youngest daughter and me. As all the girls in my daughter's tribe said, we made it to "The Top of the World!"


I am very proud of my daughter, for making it up this hill and for all that she did this weekend. We had a lot of fun and had a lot of quality time together.

Now I need to find a camping place for me and my older daughter to go to.

I have been somewhat negligent in working out and posting, so I am going to play catch up for the moment.

I went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago, and one of the reasons was to check my health before entering this phase of my life. All of the tests came back fine, and I will be going in for a consultation later this week. But I am still very healthy, just very, very fat and needing to lose weight.

So now what I need to do is get off my fat butt and do this.

Here is what I am planning on doing over the next few weeks.

1. Find a good time to work out. The way things are going right now, this just is not happening. I am thinking either very early in the morning or in the evening before bedtime. I am not usually a morning person, but I think I may have to be.
2. Get measured for the bike I want. I will need to go to the local bike shop and get fitted for a bike. That may sound weird, like being fitted for a pair of pants, but it is true. You need a bike that will fit your height and other personal variables.
3. Start my food diary today. This I have done.


So here we go.

There are times when you look at life and decide "enough's enough!". This is one of those times. Since I last posted to this blog, I have stopped working out, eaten more, and lived a mostly unhealthy life.

As a Software Engineer, I lead a mostly sedentary lifestyle. I have gained quite a bit of weight and I so feel it. So I am making a decision to live a different lifestyle. Not only because I want to make sure my girls have a daddy to walk them down the aisle, but because as the words under the title say "Because my life is not my own", it is the fact that my body does not belong to me, it belongs to God. As the Word says (paraphrasing here) "Present your body a living sacrifice to God", it is a duty to do just that. So this begins.

I started off by weighing myself yesterday, as I updated my stats to the right. I am at my heaviest weight in many many years and I so feel it. I have thought about what I want to do to lose weight and though I still want to train for a Triathlon, I need to do it slower. Much slower. So I am going to start by working on biking. I am planning on having a bike in the next 2 months. Actually my wife has promised one for a combined Anniversary/Birthday present. It will be a Specialized Hardrock Sport. And I simply can not wait.

I made it to LA Fitness yesterday and did 31 minutes on the stationary bike for a total of 11.5 miles, and then went downstairs and did a 2000 meter race on the rowing machine and finished in under 10 minutes. That last bit tired me out more than the bike did. I will go tomorrow at lunch and workout as well. I am very blessed to have an LA Fitness a 1/2 mile from where I work.

So that's it for now. I am starting over and it begins now. Time to lose a person and become a normal sized person.