My friend Robin is going to be *PISSED*

It's time to strip away every conceivable facade of who I am.

I stand before you naked (sorry for the visual) and alone, stripped of all pretense.

I am willing to expose every raw nerve on my body. Some of you (hopefully) will find a grain of inspiration in this post; others will be disgusted, others will read this, continue on with their day and forget it 5 minutes afterwards.

I've decided that it's time to let go of every category I've created for myself: husband, employee, American, father, son, boss, blogger - et. al. Every single one. If any of you hear me refer to myself in the context of a category again, you have my explicit permission to beat the crap out of me.

Belonging to a category (consciously or unconsciously) might give you comfort, but if your life isn't working, then they don't mean shit.

And let's face it - wars, violence, oppression - all can be directly attributed to people unwilling to accept values and ideas that don't fit in with one (or more) of their categories. Most people are so willing to fight for their categories, they never stop to think if their categories even make sense. Only the bravest of public souls ask us to question if we even need categories at all.

For a *long* time, what was the category driving most wars and human misery? Religion. It's sad but true. Guys like Christopher Hitchens have devoted their lives to pointing out this fact (while I agree with much of what he says, his hatred of people like Mother Theresa turns my stomach). Even now, what would most people consider the world's hot spot? The Middle East, with it's millenium-old conflicts of religious identity, which, let's face it, with all of the "accords" and "peace summits" and "peace treaties" will NEVER be resolved.

Here are some public figures who actively encouraged us to re-think and/or let go of our categories. Ask yourself what they all have in common:

Martin Luther King

Robert Kennedy

John Lennon (google the lyrics to "Imagine")

Ghandi

Jesus Christ (and I don't give a shit if you're an atheist)

Common trait? People were so threatened by them, bullets (or nails) were the only answer.

Why the focus today on categories?

I've tried to strip away all of the bullshit stories I've told myself over the past 30 years and see every aspect of my life for what it is - not better than what it is and not worse that what it is. So many of the stories I've told myself (some people might call them "reasons") revolve around the categories of my life.

For too long, I've treated the symptom (the stories) and not the disease (the category).

Here's the cure:

I'm a human being - that's it.

I'm not a father, I'm not a husband, I'm not a son - I am a human being who is consciously choosing to direct his mind and actions towards improving the quality of his life and those people in his immediate sphere of influence.

That's it.

Anything else, and I mean *ANYTHING* is nothing more than a bullshit story you're telling yourself because one of your categories is being threatened. That's it (stepping off soapbox)....

Here's the truth: I'm fat (an observation - not a category).

I know this - my friends are nice enough to dance around the issue, but I know I'm not really fooling anyone.

The worst part is that I've actually been fooling myself. I've lost about 18 pounds since 1/1 - not setting the world on fire, but not bad. But here's one way (of many) I've fooled myself - when I look at myself in the mirror, it's easy to very subtly shift the view of yourself (whether it's straight-on or profile) to accentuate the good points and minimize the bad points. I've done this over the past 6 weeks unconsciously and started to actually think I was something special - what a complete crock of shit.

You know where you can't subconsciously alter the image of yourself? In a picture (Photoshop is cheating). I looked at myself in a couple of recent pictures and was brought right back to reality - I've lost some weight, but I am still, quite clearly, a soft, doughy tub of goo.

All of this is not a statement of pity. I'm not particularly sad or depressed about it - it's more of a observation of my current situation. I've evaluated the variables regarding this and drawn a logical conclusion:

I'm fat

I'm not overweight, I'm not husky, I'm not rotund, I'm not weight-challenged - I'm fat. Every measure of health points to this. The not-so-pleasant facts:

Age: 44

Height: 6'0"

Weight: 234

Waist Size: 42

BMI: 31.7 (>30 = obese)

LDL (bad cholesterol) = 58 (should be less than 100 - Yay!)

Total cholesterol = 136 (should be less than 200 - Awesome!)

BUT:

Triglycerides: 262 (should be less than 150)

and *here's* the one that absolutely scares the living shit out of me:

Triglycerides/HDL ratio *should* be 3 or less.

Mine?

9.7 - holy shit!

My friend Robin is going to be pissed at me. Big time. Beyond my immediate family, I love and respect Robin more than just about any other person on the planet.

Why is she going to be so pissed at me? I'm going to try to lose 30 pounds in 30 days.

"Don't do it; it's unhealthy - THERE IS NO WAY YOU SHOULD DO THIS", I can hear her say (Robin does not suffer fools gladly) - but as my friend Brad Brown likes to say, we all need a BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal).

At first glance, it seems totally impossible (although people *have* done it), but let's take a closer look and break down the math:

To lose 1 pound, you need a calorie deficit of 3500. Let's stick with round numbers to make things easy: if I ate 1500 calories a day, I would need to burn 5000 calories:

5000 - 1500 = 3500

Can you live on 1500 calories/day for 30 days?
Can you burn 5000 calories/day for 30 days?

Can Chris do it?

Tonight (2/17/Thursday), we're going to Texas De Brazil for a last blowout (if you have a Texas De Brazil anywhere near you, I really encourage you to try it) and I'm going to spend most of tomorrow crapping out the excess protein I'll consume tonight. Can I lose 30 pounds in between 2/19/11 and 3/20/11?

Stay tuned.....

Apparently, my iPod Nano is an "Ass Man"

36 workouts since 1/1/11.

369 songs in my "Workout" playlist.

Top "plays" in shuffle mode:

"Shake Your Rump" - Beastie Boys - 9

"Crocodiles" - Echo & the Bunnymen - 7

"Geek Stink Breath" - Green Day - 7

"Beat It" - Michael Jackson - 7

"The Breakup Song" - Greg Kihn Band - 7

"I Got Everything I Need (Almost)" - Blues Brothers - 6

"Cry Me A River" - Joe Cocker - 6

"The Letter" - Joe Cocker - 6

"Here In My Bedroom" - Goldfinger - 6

"Undercover of the Night" - Rolling Stones - 6

The bottom:

"El Matador" - Los Fabulosos Cadillacs - 1

"Detroit Rock City" - Kiss - 1

"Tick Tick Boom" - The Hives - 1

"Life During Wartime" - Talking Heads - 1

"Whip It" - Devo - 0

"Use Somebody" - Kings of Leon - 0

"Break It Down Again" - Tears for Fears - 0

"Shock The Monkey" - Peter Gabriel - 0

"Pick Up The Knife" - Dan Baird - 0

"Back In Black" - AC/DC - 0

Unexpected effects of diet and exercise

Everybody talks about the benefits of improved diet and exercise: more energy, greater self-confidence, better health, better anxiety management - the list goes on and on. 6 weeks into my regimen, I've been fortunate enough to experience all of those benefits so far.

However.....

There are other things happening to my body, mind and experience of life in general that I most definitely did not anticipate.....

1. Time management

I started the year by trying to commit to a manageable goal: work out every day for two months. I would start on 1/1/11 and continue every day through 2/28/11 and re-assess things then. The goal, of course, would be that it would have become such a habit by the end of February, I wouldn't have to re-assess, and I can tell you that it's very much become a habit and when I don't exercise, I just don't feel "right". But something I didn't consider was the actual time to exercise. I've been trying to do at least 60 minutes on the treadmill each day, so right there, that's 1/16th of my waking hours. Add to that the times I'm feeling good enough to go beyond 60 minutes, plus the warmup/cool down time, plus the time to shower afterwards and it becomes a significant amount of time. I've had to really focus my time in order to keep my life in balance. I experienced some incredible moments of clarity just by taking the time to think about how I want to schedule my day/week/month.

2. Dreams

I never remember my dreams - never. But lately, I've not only been able to remember them, I can recall incredible amounts of detail. Not sure if there's a medical/scientific reason behind this, but it's only been happening for a few weeks.

3. Taste Buds

I would have never believed this if someone else told me, but I swear it is 100% true: once you get processed food out of your diet, your taste buds "reset" (for lack of a better word). Healthier foods suddenly explode with flavor while the processed stuff tastes - what's the word I'm looking for - inauthentic. I was going to say artificial, but that's redundant, isn't it?

4. Ear wax

I suddenly have none - I am at a loss to explain this.

5. "Found" music

Putting the iPod on shuffle has let me find so many great songs I've either forgotten about or never heard because I purchased an album and never listened to it all of the way through. A couple of songs I've "discovered":

Up In The Sky - Oasis

High Time We Went - Joe Cocker

Mr. Sea - Johnny Nash

Comfort You - Van Morrison

I Want to Know - The Mavericks

You'll Be Comin' Down - Bruce Springsteen

Watermelon In Easter Hay - Frank Zappa

High 5 (Rock The Catskills) - Beck

6. Body temperature

I've always been hot. My mother says that even as a baby, she wold pick me up out of the crib and I'd be soaked. I haven't hit the 10% weight loss mark yet but even now my body regulates itself much more "normally" - I'm actually cold at night whereas before I would sleep on top of the covers even in the dead of winter.

7. Amount of sleep

I exercise in the morning and there's been a couple of nights where, for whatever reason, I would toss and turn and get less than 8 hours sleep. Not just a little less, but sometimes only 5 or 6 hours. Normally, I'd be "dead" the day following a night like that, but even with that little amount, I've been able to hop out of bed and do my morning routine *and* be productive at work without resorting to caffeine.

8. Shin splints

I got 'em - no fun.

9. Loss of regularity

Before this I was as regular as an atomic clock. Do *not* schedule me for a 930am meeting, if you know what I mean. Since 1/1, I'm all over the place (whoops - bad metaphor).

10. Focus

My job requires focus for not only long periods of time, but the ability to regain focus once it's been taken away from me. My "focus stamina" seems to be the same, but my ability to re-focus has been sharpened to an incredible degree.

My Doppelgänger Speaks!

I was going to write about weird things happening to my body through 6 weeks of exercise (I'll do that tomorrow), but I just had to post this. My Doppelgänger (right down to the hockey jersey) talks about being fat and the crap we have to put up with.

See the 5 minute video here

Now I'm worried

OK, I expected week 2 to be a rough week (1.5 pounds lost), but 0 pounds in week 3?!?!?!?!? What the *hell* is up with that? Here's the totals for week 3:

6 workouts

6.6 hours workout time

24.45 Miles

49028 steps (during workouts)

98539 steps (overall)

How could I have not lost *any* weight? Could I be adding that much muscle? Does anyone else have similar experiences in week 3? Yikes!

Today's playlist:

Do You Want To Touch Me - Gary Glitter

Kinda creepy, knowing Gary's well-publicized proclivities, but a great song nonetheless

I Feel Love - Donna Summer

Modern remix with a bass drum so deep it makes my teeth vibrate

Sussudio - Phil Collins

Some rip-offs are cheezy, some are inspired - this is an inspired ripoff of Prince's 1999.

Walk Idiot Walk - The Hives

So simple, even I can play the guitar parts

What It Is - Mark Knopfler

Clapton, Van Halen, Hendrix - all Gods, but if I could play like one guy, it would be this dude

Vertigo - U2

338 songs in my workout playlist and this is the 3rd time this has shown up - one of the few I won't skip over on a repeat

Fresh - Devo

Saw this live on the Stephen Colbert show

The Letter - Joe Cocker

Mad Dogs and Englishmen is still the greatest live album ever - (Kiss - Alive is #2 - shut up - you know it's great)

Viva Las Vegas - Bruce Springsteen

Hard to find single from the Honeymoon in Vegas soundtrack

Hold On - Ian Gomm

OK, not a workout song (AT ALL) - not sure how this got into my workout list

She Can't Dance - Marshall Crenshaw

First album is perfection - career (and songwriting) dropped off quickly after that

Reelin' In The Years - Steely Dan

Greatest guitar lick EVER

Hard Candy - Counting Crows

C'mon guys - 1 album every 6 years?

Blow Away - George Harrison

From George's lost years (late '70s)

Man-Sized Wreath - REM

I'll say it again: why isn't anyone talking about Accelerate? Great, great record

I'm Sick of Myself - Matthew Sweet

Back when ragged glory meant something

25 or 6 to 4 - Chicago

Cheezy, sure, but great anyway. Lead singer blew his brains out on a dare.

Responsibility

Think about the word responsibility. Break it down:

response - ability

The ability to respond (in an appropriate manner, is the implication). It has often been said that it's not what happens to us in life, but how we respond to it. Think about people who had *everything* and proceeded to piss it away (Hendrix, Belushi, et al.), and others who had nothing and carved out good (and sometimes great) lives for themselves. Next time something memorable happens in your life, stop and think about your response - many times, this effort takes no more than a second or two. You'll be surprised at how just putting this one or two second "filter" between your stimulus and response can *radically* alter the direction of your life.

Why am I thinking about this? The weigh-in did not go well.....

Yes, I even wrote about week 2 being the bad week and how I needed to prepare myself for a "bad" week. I knew not to expect a big number. I "knew" these things, but the 1.5 pound weight loss after the numbers I put up last week (7 workouts, 7.7 hours workout time, over 27 miles, etc, etc) was still disheartening. I even did the get off, get back on, get off, get back on, get off, get back on one more time dance to make sure - 1.5 pounds each time.

There were other reasons to not work out Sunday. It was a lazy day around our house - after the 2 weeks prior, I could have easily justified slacking off. Also, the football playoffs are going on here in the US and not only that, but my favorite team was playing (I rarely get to see them on TV here in Denver). It's common to munch on potato chips and soda, like you're at the movies while football is on here in the US (do Brits munch on crisps when Man U is playing?)

Also, the Sunday paper beckoned; chores needed to be done around the house; my daughter politely asked me to watch some bizarro cartoon. In short, it was a perfect storm....

I worked out anyway :)

I listened to the "filter" I had set up between my stimulus and response and it told me to do the right thing. And I did....

Yesterday's (Sunday's) numbers:
Time: 60 minutes; 3.60 miles, 3.7 MPH, 3.5% incline; 458 Cals burned

Today's (Monday's) numbers:
Time: 60 minutes; 3.60 miles, 3.7 MPH, 4.0% incline; 498 Cals burned

Tomorrow (early flight, client) is the first really big challenge. Wish me luck....


Too lazy to do a playlist review today.......

Goals are only motivating if you really believe you can reach them. Here are the goals I've set for myself:

1 - 10 consecutive days working out
Status: Achieved on 1/12/11/Wed

2 - 10 pounds lost
Status: At 7.5 pounds on 1/16 - (will hopefully hit at 1/23 weigh in)

3 - 42" pants size
Status: Achieved on 1/14/11/Fri

4 - 30 consecutive days working out
Status: 2/1 will be 30 days - today (1/17) was 15th consecutive day

5 - 20 pounds lost
Status: In progress

6 - 30 pounds lost - 40" pants size
Status: In progress

7 - 60 consecutive days working out
Status: In progress

8 - 40 pounds lost - 38" pants size
Status: In progress

9 - 100 consecutive days working out
Status: In progress

10 - Final weight goal (65 pounds lost - 36" Pants size)
Status: 7/1/11 set as goal date

Challenges and F-Bombs

I've got two big challenges facing me in the next couple of days:

1. The Sunday-morning weigh-in. I've designated Sunday morning as my "official" weigh-in time and I'm dreading the one coming up tomorrow. I've been pretty good with food, worked out all 7 days this week and gotten lots of sleep. Why in he world would I be dreading the weigh-in? The dreaded week 2 effect.

If you watch the Biggest Loser (US reality show where morbidly obese people compete to lose weight) the second week is always a bad week. They lose tons (sometimes seemingly inhuman amounts) of weight the first week, then almost nothing the second week. Surely their bodies are "adjusting" after losing a bunch of pounds the first week, but you're talking about people who are working out 4 hours with world-class trainers every day - that's 28 hours a week of intense training to sometimes only lose a pound or 2 in week 2. It's got to be heartbreaking to work out that hard and not lose weight. In week 3, their weight lose resumes again, but that 2nd week weigh in has to be a bitch to go thru.

The logical part of my brain tells me not to read too much into the number I get tomorrow, but the emotional side know how hard I worked this week and wants a big number. Wish me luck.

2. Travel. My client wants me to be at their site in Las Vegas next week. This poses a bunch of problems:

A: Las Vegas - food and buffets everywhere - yikes!

B: Stress - there's a lot going on with my client right now (a good thing), but that increases the stress level for everyone involved

C: Workout schedule - I fly out Tuesday morning and back home Thursday evening. I can work out in the hotel in the morning Wednesday and Thursday, but what about Tuesday? The way I see it, I have four choices:

i. Workout after work. It's going to be a busy day - I need to get up about 5am, get to the airport, fly to Vegas, get the rental car, drive to the client, be productive at the client for 8 hours, and check into the hotel. To workout after all that is going to be tough.

ii. Break my workout streak and recharge. Working out too much can cause strain on your body. A day of rest is not the worst thing in the world.

iii. Break my workout streak and "make up" the calories. The whole point is to make a consistent calorie deficit in your body to lose weight, right? I could skip the 600-800 calorie-burning workout but decrease my caloric intake for the day by the same amount (which would knock me down to about 1000 calories for the day - tough, but not impossible, especially if it's just for one day).

iv. Stop thinking about all of this too much and just enjoy life.

I'm leaning towards i. What do you think?

If you have an iPod Shuffle and plug it in to your MacBook (or PC) to recharge it, you lose the ability to scroll back through what you've listened to. I've lost today's playlist, so I've created a list of songs with the F-Bomb in them (in reverse order of awesomeness). Enjoy!

10. Makes Me Wonder - Maroon 5

There's three reasons for dropping an F-Bomb in a song: you either want to express a very powerful emotion (and no other word will do), you want to shock people or you're pathetically trying to be "hip" and cool. There's no other reason for the F-Bomb in this song than the third.

9. Hey Jude - The Beatles

Undoubtedly the greatest song on the list, but only gets the #9 spot because it's unintentional. At about 2:57 into the song, Lennon misses a cue to sing background and clearly says, "Ohhhhhh, fucking hell".

8. Fuck The Police - N.W.A.

Great music can be inspired by a full range of human emotions. While I certainly don't agree with such strong sentiment against people who put themselves in the line of fire each and every day, I understand where this rage comes from.

7. Adios Hermanos - Paul Simon

Yes, Paul Simon actually wrote a song with the F-Bomb in it. From his failed attempt at writing a Broadway play" Songs From The Capeman

6. Porno Star - Buckcherry

Great song, but a very conventional use of the F-Bomb. You need more creativity to score higher on this list.

5. Plaistow Patricia - Ian Dury

Dury is an acquired taste. His cockney warbling strikes most as either fingernails on a blackboard or great, emotive, untrained rock-and-roll singing in the spirit of Bob Dylan and David Byrne. For 1977, singing about the horrors of drug use was still pretty radical.

4. Who Are You - The Who

Again, a pretty traditional use of the F-Bomb, but captures the swagger that Townshend was trying to re-capture as punk and Disco were trying to kill traditional "heavy" rock in the late '70s.

3. Battle Of Who Could Care Less - Ben Folds Five

On the surface, it might sound like Folds was stuck for a two-syllable word to keep the meter in the bridge, but the throwaway nature of it fits perfectly with song's content. Subtly awesome.

2. I Am An Animal - Pete Townshend

Keith Moon's death hit Townshend really hard and he dealt with it the way all great artists do - by turning it into great art. Empty Glass was Pete's last really great album and freed from the macho, kick-your-teeth-in image of The Who, is filled with introspective heart-wrenching songs. He screams the F-Bomb in this song - it's truly the sound of a man's heart breaking, captured live on vinyl.

1. Working Class Hero - John Lennon

Lennon meant to shock when he put this in the song (twice). He actively let himself be portrayed as an "ex-Beatle" rather than a Beatle who was recording solo albums. He was trying to strip away every aspect of his life and become someone else. Impossible to forget after you've heard it.

Special Mentions:

Piece of Shit Car - Adam Sandler

Sandler's OK is small doses - didn' make the list since the F-Bomb is used for humorous purposes.

Fuck The British Army - Traditional Irish Folk Song

It's no secret that Andrew Dice Clay stole most of his dirty nursery rhymes from chants American soldiers would sing while training. This song is one of the earliest in that grand tradition.