The "March" of War

The “March” of War

February was a wash. My knees have caused my plans to fall completely apart. This setback has led me to a few realizations. The 1st is that I can’t run. As much as I want to I just can’t. My knees are not strong enough. Realization the 2nd is that my Trifecta goal for this year will have to wait. I cannot risk injury again just to prove something to myself. Even if I thought I could be physically ready the risk is just too high. I need to focus on other things to ready myself for the challenge of a Spartan Race Trifecta. For now my fitness plans with focus on weight loss and strengthening my knees. Once that has happened I can focus on trying to run and train for the 2017 Trifecta.

Based on this new intel the previous Mission has been scrubbed. We have analysed our forces’ weaknesses and have devised a new plan of attack. The new Mission Briefing begins now. NOTE: previous Mission Objectives in place to reflect the changes.

2016 Missions

• Get down to 250 lbs
• Complete Spartan Trifecta Get down to at least an XL and below 40 inch waist
• Create something - this sounds vague but I know what it means and it is hard to put in words

Phase I Operations

Fitness

• Complete DDP Yoga
• Complete C25K
• Walk at least 30 min, 3 times a week
• Work out at least 3 time a week
• Get below 300

Diet (no changes needed)

• Track as much food as possible
• I will be using LoseIt, MapMyFitness, and Fitbit apps for this
• Minimal sugar intake (including carbs)
• Self-explanatory. Just cutting as much sugar out as possible
• No bored/stress/travel snacking
• This is my biggest problem. I bored eat. I stress eat. I drive a lot and tend to eat for something to do.

Life

• Less frivolous spending
• No stopping for snacks/drinks/drive-thru on daily commute
• Basically only buy things I absolutely need
• Improve time management/make better use of time/stay on task
• I tend to get distracted easily, especially at work
• Spend less leisure time on social media - big time waster
• Multitask when possible
• Do something creative just for me for at least 1 hour a week (overridden by high priority)
• Study for CS Teaching Certificate Test
• Learn Javascript

The launch date for the new Mission is February 29th. Keep watch for future Mission Updates. Until then may the Force be with you and may the Power protect you.

\m/ THERE IS NO TRY \m/

Mission Update 001

Mission Update 001

The Mission got off to a rocky start. The early part of the Mission seemed like things were going well. I worked out Monday and Tuesday. On 2 separate occasions I was treated to Italian, my favorite food in the world, and chose a large grilled chicken salad over a carb-heavy pasta dish. I turned down a birthday cake. Things were looking great until mid week. That’s when my depression started creeping and I started feeling like crap emotionally. I was upset and bogged down with the feels and did what I always do in said situations: I sat around, dwelling on everything, and eating my feelings. Every good food decision I had made earlier in the week was undone by angry eating. It was horrible and I felt horrible doing it. It did not make me feel any better it just changed what was messing with my head.

By the weekend I had stopped working out and was eating all the crap. Honestly, other than the occasional snack size candy bar out of the leftover Halloween candy, what I ate was not all THAT bad I just ate for the wrong reasons and way too much. I began to think about why I was doing this I had an apostrophe. People who battle with depression tend to find a coping mechanism. Not everyone chooses a healthy mechanism. This is where cutting, drugs, alcohol, and other destructive vices come into play. Clearly my emotional eating is a coping mechanism but I am beginning to question the motive behind it. I am not eating to feel happy, because it doesn’t make me feel happy. Perhaps I am eating to have some kind of control in the absence of such.

Back to the Mission. Monday the 10th was better. I worked out, though I was not really into it. I did really well on the food but that was about it. My on-going depression was the biggest roadblock this week. I have done pretty well with my food, save for the belated birthday cake someone gave me. The deliciousness of that cake equaled the hate I felt for myself for having eaten it, but I did not want to be rude. It did not take me long to realize that I have lost the self-discipline needed to work out at home right now. I need some way to jump start a routine to help make it a habit. I have looked into a few options. I really like the DDP Yoga program but with my schedule, making the time is difficult. I need to do something soon since I am already behind schedule.

Looking at the specific Mission Objectives for Phase I, things are not going well to start:

Fitness

• Complete DDP Yoga
• I’ve only done about half of the workouts for the last 2 weeks
• Complete C25K
• have not even started
• Get below 300
• no idea, only weigh in once a month

Diet

• Track as much food as possible
• about 80% of everything tracked
• Minimal sugar intake (including carbs)
• not terrible other than a few emotional snacks and the birthday cake
• No bored/stress/travel snacking
• had a few setbacks as mentioned above and slipped a few times on breakfast

Life

• Less frivolous spending
• this has been really good, save for a few QuikTrip stops for breakfast/coffee
• Improve time management/make better use of time/stay on task
• not great, I am easily distra HEY LOOK A DUCK!
• Do something creative just for me for at least 1 hour a week
• not even a little bit, though I have a project to work on I just need to get the materials

The entire reason for the slow start is my depression. As I have explained before I have very bad seasonal depression and it is taking longer than usual to come out of it. I am not sleeping well so I am more tired than usual, and emotionally I just do not feel like doing anything. I just kind of am. Hopefully things will pick up soon, because Phase I Ops are vital to completing the overall Mission. Until next time may the Force be with you and may the Power protect you.

\m/ THERE IS NO TRY \m/

All New, All Different Captain

Welcome to the official 1st post of the newly relaunched This Is Your Captain Speaking. This blog will serve as an accountability system for my efforts to get healthier as well as an outlet to share my thoughts and creative endeavors. We will begin with my goals or Missions for 2016. These are not New Year's Resolutions. These are Missions. The structure of my Missions and how I will be reporting my progress is modeled after the Nerd Fitness 6 Week Challenge. I'll go into more detail on the awesomeness that is Nerd Fitness in a future post. For now let's get to the Mission Briefing.

I have over-all Missions for the year that will be managed quarterly with smaller Operations (Ops) leading to the overall Objective. Ops are broken into three categories: Fitness, Diet, and Life.

2016 Missions

• Get down to 250 lbs - this is ~6 lbs per month
• Complete Spartan Trifecta
• Create something - this sounds vague but I know what it means and it is hard to put in words

Phase I Operations - Quarter 1

Fitness

• Complete DDP Yoga
• This is a 13-week program
• Complete C25K
• This is only a 9-week program but I am sure there will be weeks I need to repeat
• Get below 300
• This is completely doable and right in line with my over target for the year

Diet

• Track as much food as possible
• I will be using LoseIt, MapMyFitness, and Fitbit apps for this
• Minimal sugar intake (including carbs)
• Self-explanatory. Just cutting as much sugar out as possible
• No bored/stress/travel snacking
• This is my biggest problem. I bored eat. I stress eat. I drive a lot and tend to eat for something to do.

Life

• Less frivolous spending
• No stopping for snacks/drinks/drive-thru on daily commute
• Basically only buy things I absolutely need
• Improve time management/make better use of time/stay on task
• I tend to get distracted easily, especially at work
• Spend less leisure time on social media - big time waster
• Multitask when possible
• Do something creative just for me for at least 1 hour a week
• Flex my creative muscle. This blog does not count.

I will post Mission updates regularly with the status of each Op. These Missions are flexible and can be updated and modified as needed. The Mission begins today (January 4th) my plan right now is to post Mission updates every other Monday so look for the 1st update in 2 weeks. Until then may the Force be with you and may the Power protect you.

\m/ THERE IS NO TRY \m/

The Captain: Rebirth Issue 4.5

Previously in The Captain: Rebirth......I lost weight. Had surgery. Got depressed. Moped around. Got a baby. Moved. Had surgery again. Lost my job.

Issue #4.5 - The Final Insult

The end of 2015 was approaching which means the annual gift of holiday depression was about to make its unwelcome arrival. There were a number of items that led up to my depression this year. Back around Thanksgiving or so I got an email from Spartan Race announcing their 2016 race dates. I had considered doing a Spartan Race several times but never went through with it. On my podcast Too Nerdy For TV I even mentioned in an episode near the end of 2014 that I wanted to do a Spartan Trifecta in 2015. In a rather odd moment I was trolled by a form email. The subject line of the email from Spartan read "Last year you said this year." I was called out. I was called out by a pseudo-spammy form email. I talked to some friends at work who run Spartans all the time and decided that I am going to actually give it a shot in 2016 to do the trifecta. Shortly after that I got an unexpected punch to the gut.

My wife and I are working on getting financially secure enough to buy a house. We have enlisted the help of a financial adviser. This is a one-stop shop kind of place that does insurance, investing, retirement planning, and everything in between. We have been adulting super hard lately. We met with this guy about getting grown up life insurance and I was under the impression there were no medical questions or anything like that. WRONG! We have to give all this information about our past medical status and give fluid samples. We each gave our height and weight and that is when the punch came. The guy says, as though he is asking if we can put down a larger down payment on the car so our monthly payments go down, "Could you get down below 300 in the next 2-4 weeks?" Really? Sure, let me just drop 20 lbs just like that. No big deal. It's not like I have struggled with my weight my entire life. I can go up and down whenever I want I just choose to be overweight because it keeps me warm during the winter. I was embarrassed, I was hurt, and I was angry. I'd like to say I channeled that anger into something positive but honestly all it did was make me hate myself. Everything I ate, every workout I did not do, pretty much everything I did just made me really down on myself and did nothing for my already growing depression.

As if there were not enough amazing moments in 2015 this was also the year of clothing failures. For only the 2nd time in my life the rear seam of my pants lost their structural integrity. I was on my way to work and got out to drop off the mail and when I got back in I heard a rip. I inspected and found my pants to have ripped clean waist to....undercrotch. I ran back home and changed and spent the rest of the day humiliated. No one saw it but the shame remained. In my pant's defense they were old pants but still.... Fast forward about a month maybe and it happened AGAIN. This time AT work and in the pants I had bought to replace the pair that had ripped. This time it was MAJOR. Luckily for me I work about 3 blocks from a HUGE Wal-Mart. I took my button-down shirt off, tied it around my waist and headed off to Wal-Mart to buy an emergency pair of pants. I purchased said pants in the largest size I have ever bought, went to the bathroom, changed pants, tossed the old ones, returned to my car and proceeded to cry for the next 10 minutes. I was nearing rock bottom. Both of these happened before the aforementioned "how fast can you drop 20 lbs" incident so that was made SO much better. Fast forward another couple of weeks and pair number 3 splits. Luckily this was a small rip, no one noticed, and I got home just fine. Now these last 2 pairs came from the same outlet mall so perhaps they were defective and I got what I paid for. However, that still does not make the whole situation less humiliating and devastating.

Speaking of pants, 2015 decided to kick me one last time before the end of the year. My wife insisted on taking me clothes shopping for my birthday (which is 2 weeks after Christmas but we made use of after-Christmas sales). I despise clothes shopping. I find no joy in it and this was no different. We went to Kohl's and there was not a pair of pants in the entire store in my size. That was soul crushing. To know that you are officially fatter than the clothes at the store really takes the wind out of you. My wife happily searched the store for shirts she thought I would look good in and I tried every one of them on, hating myself more and more with every look in the mirror. The clothes are very nice and I love my wife for wanting me to look my best. She loves picking out clothes for me. She also understands how touchy the subject is and she even mentioned how bad she felt that I could not find large enough pants.

That brings us to the end of 2015. I know I need to fix a lot of things is my life and this blog is an attempt at accountability and working through some of those things. My 1st post of the new year will be all the things I want to accomplish in 2016. Rather than New Year's Resolutions I am considering them goals. I will keep the goal list updated for everyone to keep up with the progress. Until then may the Power protect you and may the Force be with you.

\m/ THERE IS NO TRY \m/

The Captain: Rebirth Issue 4

Previously in The Captain: Rebirth......I lost weight. Had surgery. Got depressed. Moped around. Got a baby. Moved. Had surgery again.

Issue #4 - 2015: The Most Humbling Year....Not Necessarily in a Good Way

This issue actually opens in November of 2014. I had just had surgery on my right knee for a similar injury as my left knee. This was different though. My left knee was due to heavy lifting and stress during 2 back-to-back moves. This was just me. I had done this. My weight had put too much strain on my knees and caused this damage. This hit me pretty hard. I was in a REALLY bad place. Add that to the usual holiday depression and anxiety it was just a perfect storm of sadness. I went into 2015 feeling worse than I did going into 2013. Little did I know the hits would just keep on coming.

In December my boss had a sit down with me about my job performance. It had slipped due to my depression and people were beginning to notice. I started 2015 knowing things needed to change at work if nothing else. I really did try, but my heart was not in it and I knew it was time to start looking at other options. The baby, now pretty much a toddler, was continuing to be the enemy of everything so I was not getting any workouts in. In my continuing poser theme I bought a new piece of workout equipment that has just sat in my garage ever since. Once again I made all these grand plans that I did not follow through with. Every time I was going to start a workout program (4am is the best time for me to work out which sucks) the baby would not sleep through the night or he would get up stupid early. I would basically tell myself, "well you could not start today so you should just not even bother." I am REALLY good at persuading myself not to work out. It's the great ironies of being fat: A: you eat because you are unhappy that you are fat, which makes you fatter, and 2: you have no energy to work out because you are fat but if you would work out you would not be fat and would have more energy. The universe is really stupid sometimes.

I coasted through the 1st several months of 2015 business as usual. In April things with work really got exciting. Back near the end of 2014 I became a Google for Education Certified Trainer. I was so proud. This was the biggest professional accomplishment I had ever achieved. In February I presented several sessions at the annual educational technology conference in Austin. Things were looking great professionally except at my actual job. My wife and had decided to use our tax refund to pay off my car. I had never done this before and was super excited. I went to the bank and wrote the final check and went back to work. I was asked to come speak with my boss at 2pm that afternoon. It was not a good meeting. Long story short in the course of about 5 hours I went from elated that I paid off my car to crushed because I had lost my job. Not only had I lost my job but I had to run out my contract which still had 2 months on it. That was awful.

This disappointment led into the summer where I still had no job. Most people do not realize jobs are like relationships and job hunting is like dating. You go out looking for jobs (single people) and go on interviews (dates) and hope they like you enough to at least continue to see you for a while. Job hunting is the worst. I hated it. I had so many times I was SURE I had the job only to be fed a line about going another way. I was beginning to question my entire career choice and wondering if I had made a terrible mistake in choosing this profession. I did eventually find a new job, but that did not change the fact that based on my contract with both jobs I was going to be without pay for the North end of 90 days. Let me explain that again: after being laid off and finding a new job I was still going 3 months without pay. The only shining light in all this job business was I got the summer off to spend with my kids.

The summer ended and it was time for me to start my new job. I was NOT looking forward to this job. I felt like I had settled. I did not want to go back in the classroom but I had to have a job. The fall semester of work was unlike anything I had expected. I LOVE my job! Everything was coming together so serendipitously. I really felt like things were looking up. The only downside is I drive an hour to and from work every day which is not very fun. This job also allowed me to get my very 1st professional training gig which was a lot of fun. Things are going really well, despite a few setbacks I can't talk about here, and I am actually enjoying work. For the 1st time in possibly ever I feel like this is where I am supposed to be professionally. This whole experience was very humbling. I had never lost a job before and it truly made me appreciate what I had.

2015 had one more sucker punch in store, but since this post started getting a bit long-winded I decided to break it into 2 posts. Hell if Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, and Divergent can do it, why not? Peter Jackson can stretch a single book in to 9 hours worth of a movie; I can split a wordy blog post into 2. That being said stay tuned for the final installment -- The Captain: Rebirth Issue #4.5: The Final Insult

\m/ THERE IS NO TRY \m/