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C-C-C-C-Changes

I’m set a tenative start date for my trip of September 1. Its still far enough away that it could move forward or back, but it at least gives me a planning point to work with. That is seven full months to take care of my affairs, finish school, and assemble the gear I need and get practice in with it.

I also need to make some personal changes in that time. While I wouldn’t consider myself morbidly obese, I do need to lose weight. My goal is to start the trip 50 pounds lighter than I am now and significantly more fit. I will also need to get some dental work done before hand and maybe even Lasik surgery. If I can do all of that, I’m sure no one will recgonize me 🙂

In the pursuit of this goal, I’ve been taking the PE class I’m in pretty seriously. I’m trying to hit the gym at least once per day and am gradually building up my cardio endurance. My immediate goal in this department is to be able to run at a good pace for 40 minutes straight. (I’ve never been one for stamina, even when I ran track. I was a sprinter)

Last Tuesday was the first time I’ve run or exerted myself since I was laid up in November. During that time, I put back on most of the 10 pounds I had lost.

I’m also trying to make some active changes to my diet. I have a pretty poor diet. I’ll have days where I eat a lot and days where I don’t eat much at all. If I don’t eat much, what I do eat will usually be pretty bad. I seldom if ever get green vegtables, and most of the protein I intake is in the form of hamburgers (often of the White Castle variety). I’ve been pretty good about avoiding fast food for about two weeks. Now I just need to increase the intake of vegtables and non-burger protein.

The trick to making changes like these is sticking with it. It’s easy to do, but hard to continue. The real test will be to see if I’m still doing this in 1 week, 2 weeks, a month etc. If I can just make the behavioral changes permanent, I should have no problems meeting my goals in time.

By Gary

3 dimples. 7 continents. 130 countries.