Memorial Day Weekend ’17

First, I just want to thank all of the soldiers through our history that have given the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our country and our firm beliefs that we deserved our own sovereignty; their sacrifice has enabled the rest of us to live in this amazing country that so many dream of being part.  Now, I don’t post my feelings on social media regarding Memorial Day because they seem selfish.  I say this because my immediate family (back to grandparents on both sides) is blessed that none of those that served gave that ultimate sacrifice.  Both grandfathers served in WWII, one served in Korea, my mom’s siblings all served in some capacity, I have numerous cousins that served in Iraq & Afghanistan so we are truly blessed on this day when so many mourn their loved ones.  Their suffering and sacrifice is not in vain and will not be forgotten.

Holidays can be hellish when you’re working on creating and maintaining healthy habits and Memorial Day weekend is a weekend full of bad decisions waiting to happen!  Here in the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia) we have a tradition of rain over Memorial Day weekend and this year that tradition continued!  Any guesses on who got caught in the rain while trying to grill?!?!  That’s right, THIS GUY!  I enjoyed the grilled vegetables from last week so much that I wanted to do it again and guess what!?!?  Corn was on sale $0.20 / ear, so I was a big spender and bought $1.00 worth I know, reckless…  Grilled corn, asparagus, bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, and mushrooms – DELICIOUS!  Variety definitely keeps the lifestyle changes going because you don’t get bored.  I vary the protein through the week so I don’t get bored, too; pork spareribs (pre-portioned), boneless skinless chicken breast & thighs, and beef ribs.  I know that seems like a lot of protein but at the end of the day I’ve made enough food for a week of lunches and dinners that will require a microwave so a full day of prepping, cooking, and cleaning enables me freedom to just chill after a full day of work.

One of my longest and best friends celebrated his birthday at the end of April and we weren’t able to get together to celebrate due to work, a new baby, him remodeling his kitchen, and just life in general but this weekend we went to a Frederick Keys game which is more more cost effective when you have three girls in tow with the added bonus of a monkey rodeo and a fireworks show!  The only reason I bring this up is to 1) post the pictures  and 2) let you know that stadium fare is not worth it…  It’d been almost 2 years since I’d had a hot dog at a stadium and I forgot that it’s like licking a salt lick.

And now, ubiquitous pictures of the garden and my attempts to battle the wildlife…

When Privilege Meets Fear

A couple of disclaimers before I begin:

1. These are my personal thoughts and opinions and do not reflect and are in no way related to anyone nor anything that I am associated with.
2. You don’t have to agree but you do need to respect my opinion, if you have any racist, sexist, hateful comments they will be deleted.
3. I apologize ahead of time because this will probably be all over the place and tangents will be spoken on.
4. I started this draft in November so just be prepared to go back 6 months.

So I’ll start off by saying that this entire Presidential Election has been a huge disappointment from the very beginning.  The main reason being that the quality of the candidates was just not up to par and it’s so obvious that 95% of the politicians have a huge disconnect with the average American citizen.

Wednesday, November 9th, 2016, I found out that the 45th President of these United States of America will be Donald Trump.  I had an overwhelming sense of sadness not because he ran as a Republican but because 1) his entire platform was based on rhetoric: there was absolutely NO plan beyond building a wall that Mexico will pay for and 2) his entire campaign was built on bullying and hate.  As the day went on and the reports came out about all of the assaults, vandalism, and just hateful acts to so many women and minorities my heart sank.  I am very well aware that this represents a minority of the people that voted for our next President but it is his rhetoric that has incited this behavior which is not excusable.

Being mixed and looking more white than not, I’ve been able to live a very privileged life free of most discrimination and harassment but with the reaction of loyal Trump supporters and with the results of the election for the House and Senate the level of my anxiety is outrageous.  All due to fear, a fear that I’ve been privileged to have never felt before but now know.  I fear for my family, friends, countrymen, and everyone that could be affected.

Women, I absolutely love women!  Some of my favorite people are / have been women: my mom, both grandmothers, Mrs.Jenkins (a high school teacher) and the list could go on and on.  I fear for women because 1) we’ve empowered a person that actually verbalized “grab them by the pussy” and 2) we’ve elected people that want to rule based on religious beliefs i.e. outlaw abortion, eliminate Planned Parenthood, etc…  Now, I know what you’re thinking – “JH3, Fuck you!  This nation was founded on God and I support people with the same values as me!”  Having been raised by strong, intelligent, caring, and open-minded women I can’t bring myself to tell a woman what she can or cannot do with her body.  Yes, I’m well aware that a baby is created by two people (there will be more on this topic later…) but the woman carries the baby to term, the woman feeds the baby, the woman experiences the postpartum, and the woman will more than likely do a majority of the caring for the baby.  Are you seeing a trend like, the woman gets 99% of the responsibility??  As a man, I cannot tell a woman that she has no ability to choose.  How can we walk around preaching how much we love our moms, sisters, daughters, cousins, mistresses, whoever but at the end of the day want to tell them that we love you but don’t trust you to make a correct decision?!?!?!  I fear for women, I fear that my mom’s generation will get to witness the coming and going of Roe V Wade.  I fear that the repeal of Roe V Wade is a slippery slope that is very close to repealing the 19th Amendment which could lead to the repeal of other Amendments…

I fear for the The 15th Amendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and all other legislation put in place to address the very real inequality that existed and STILL exists in America.  I will say that my “white” privilege was limited only to the non-tangibles and that I attended public school and attended a very diverse high school so I had / have friends from all economic, social, religious, and ethnic backgrounds and for that I am incredibly grateful.  It hurts my soul to know that countless people are / have been innocently shot by the same people that are supposed to be protecting us, it hurts my soul to see the people being pepper sprayed and attacked by dogs for using their right to gather in peaceful protest, it hurts my soul to see the fear or so many people over the uncertainty of the direction of this great nation.  You’re probably thinking, “what the hell do you know about fear, you have nothing to worry about.”  Let me just say that my family grew up in the Washington, DC metropolitan area in the 50’s, 60’s, and beyond so yes I do have something to worry about because the same segregation laws and rules that effected the blacks effected my grandmother, aunts, uncle, and dad – being a person of color was/is anything beyond white.  My fear of the rhetoric used during this election is very valid and has already been given support by the actions of my fellow Americans towards their fellow Americans.  I fear that instead of progressing and being the world leaders that we SHOULD be, we will regress and return to a place in history that no one should be proud of like: segregation, Jim Crow Laws, internment camps of select minorities, etc…  But instead of having confidence in the direction we’re heading my fears have been fed by the rhetoric used to feed fears of and hate towards minorities and the ensuing actions.

I can understand why so many people chose Trump over Clinton with the hope that something would change and something would be done.  Americans have been underwhelmed by our government for so long.  I do think that we’ve overlooked a few important things, though, watch this I couldn’t find the School House Rock version but if I could you’d be enjoying that masterpiece!  We have been held hostage by the legislative branch for 24 years, we should all be up in arms!  We continuously blame the wrong group of people, in the 90’s Congress thought spending billions of dollars on investing Bill Clinton and what he did with a cigar and a consenting woman was more important than passing a budget which froze government spending, yet they were still paid.  In the early 2000’s we had GW and Dick Chaney and the pursuit of public enemy #1 and #2 but only found #2 but spent tremendous amounts of money and lost so many Americans in the pursuit.  Then we got Barack on the Hope and Change platforms but nothing happened due to incompetence (in the legislature) his first two years and the final six has been due to the platform of “I promise to bar him from doing anything, I won’t do anything!”  Which has 1) threatened a government shutdown yearly, 2) caused government shutdowns, 3) provided a very watered down and altered Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), 4) allowed health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies to hold Americans hostage while GOUGING the shit out of America.  But we continue to blame the wrong people and continue to allow the same people to hold us hostage!!  These are the same people that give themselves raises every 2 years and continue to pay themselves while the workers get sent home and may not be paid for the missed time, that decision is up to the White House and our friends in the Senate.

To date nothing has improved for America and all of the appointments made by our 45th have been a huge slap in the face to ALL Americans.  The draining of the swap was rhetoric for lining the pockets of Trump friends, businesses, family businesses, and associated businesses.  The only thing that will Make America Great Again is Americans being more than what we currently are live the values you keep preaching, treat all people with respect, give someone a helping hand, INVEST IN AMERICA, build strong communities, and take some responsibility for your life.  America can be great but we need to a lot of improving – for all Americans, not just a chosen few.

Have your BBQ and Eat it too!

It’s nearing Memorial Day which had my soul wanting to do some grilling and this weekend, I did just that!  I don’t claim to be a competitive bbq chef but I feel like I do a pretty decent job on the grill.

I work on finding ways to eat delicious food while continuing my weight loss journey and lifestyle change.  So I’m constantly looking for ways to maintain flavor without ridiculous amounts of calories so I use Truvia, Splenda, Splenda Brown Sugar, etc… you’ll probably say that I shouldn’t use those because they’re not natural…  Please refrain – white sugar, molasses, brown sugar, etc are all uber processed, unhealthy (especially if you have high blood sugar), highly caloric so I shed calories where I can.  Calorie shedding spreads into my meats of choice, also, so a lot of times I’ll cook more lean proteins.

Typically when I grill I use dry rub and offer sauce on the side, I like this method the best because you can taste the rub, the meat, and smoke (when I use wood chips / charcoal).  This weekend I made my dry rub with your basic ingredients cumin, chili powder, paprika, cayenne, ground black pepper, sweetener, and kosher salt but this time I thought I’d add ground bay leaf AND Sumac.  Don’t sleep on sumac, it adds a very citric flavor and is very aromatic!  You’re probably hoping that I’ll give you a recipe but I don’t measure my spices and I feel like you should experiment for your tastes because I might have more heat in mine than you prefer – so do some experimenting and taste as you add.

For this grilling session I grilled: vegetable kabobs, corn on the cob, chicken breast, beef short ribs, and pork spareribs.  You’re probably thinking that’s a lot of food and yes you’re right it is but by doing all that cooking I was able to complete my meal prep (weight loss journey/lifestyle change) for the week.

Don’t let anyone tell you the best method or you need bigger, I used a Baby Q gas grill and got all of my grilling taken care of in 3 hours.  I would have preferred something larger but you use what you have!

Allow your meat to absorb the seasonings for a minimum of 30 minutes, I was able to let mine rest for two hours.

I love grilling veggies with some olive oil, salt, and pepper!

You might think that this is burnt but that’s actually the sweetener darkening on the meat which I’m cool with because you’ll get some crunchy bits but for the chicken breast I’ll be removing the skin so all that flavor transfer is imperative!

Which leads me to how you can eat well while on a weight loss journey because as you’re aware neither short ribs nor spareribs are the healthiest meats.  Lighten them up by trimming fat before and after cooking!  When I eat this meat I’ll have a pile of skin, fat, bones, etc… on my plate because cutting those calories quickly add up considering 1 gram of fat is 9 calories!  Avoiding caloric sweeteners, fat, skin, heavy sides like pasta/potato salad I’m losing unnecessary calories that won’t add anything to my meal.  So load up on healthy vegetable sides and an appropriate serving of your grilled protein to celebrate the coming summer!

Confessions of a Fatty

I’m terrible at keeping up with my posts and it’s highly ridiculous because I definitely have 5-10 mins every day where I can work on drafts but I just don’t do it…a lack of consistency.  So I’m going to be 100% transparent, keep it real and spill my guts for the accountability.

Weight Loss:

There hasn’t been any weight loss since the completion of my last challenge, in fact there’s been significant weight gain.  This has everything to do with my regimen, more specifically my lack of regimen.  I have a lot of obstacles as a fat guy the two largest are: 1) 20ish years of bad eating habits, and 2) my utter inability to put my needs first.  Clearly I didn’t get fat overnight it took time and during that time I developed some really terrible eating habits and I’m struggling to break those habits; I cannot allow myself to let people down for whatever reason I can’t stop myself from putting others before myself regardless of what that does to my eating plan, my workouts, my stress…  These are not excuses because I have the opportunity to make a decision daily, each meal, anytime to say enough is enough and I’m going to do _________ but for the last month I’ve chosen to make the wrong decisions.

This is the part where you say, “John, you have so many tools and you’re armed with knowledge…  For Pete’s sake, you have a degree in Kinesiological Science!”  That’s when I respond, “Yep.”  My only answer to this is that I lack motivation.  Knowing how important exercise and weight loss is to my health and I still can’t maintain a consistent program can only be described as failure, there is no success in this.  I’ve dug myself into what feels like a bottomless pit and right now I’m clinging on the walls trying to pull myself out, I see the light and I’m desperately trying to free myself from myself.

Personal Life:

If you asked me 15 years ago what I’d be doing today, my answer would not have been anything like what reality is today.  My daily stress makes me tired emotionally, mentally, and physically I don’t have any desire to do things that make me smile and that is definitely taking a toll on my aforementioned weight loss/health.  I refuse to talk to people about these issues because I don’t have the patience for criticism nor do I feel like being given any type of guilt trip for wanting more; everything is being internalized and suffocating me so I turn to this blog to air these feelings and emotions.

I’m tired of people asking me why I’m not dating/married…BECAUSE I’M NOT!  And no, my weight gain has nothing to do with my friends getting married like some people are theorizing.  My happiness for my friends is 100% genuine and I want them to be happy; the people that I hold close to me have been and always will be family to me because they’ve been there for me in some of my darkest times and are still there today.  I realize that I’m getting old but why would I want to involve some other person in my shitty circumstances?  “Hey girl, let’s get married and live at either my aunt’s or grandmother’s.”  Yeh, that’s going to go over really well…  Get the fox outta here, no one has time for that.

Today:

Today is a new day, I’ve made the decision to get out of this pit of feeling sorry for myself.  I’m getting back on my AdvoCare product regimen and will make better food choices because the quality of the food you’re putting in you definitely affects your mood and I want to be happy inside – out.  This time last year I was the happiest I’d been in years I’d lost 20+ lbs and it’s about time to bring that smiling guy back.  I post a lot of stuff about changes on Tumblr, Twitter, FB, and IG and it’s about time that I start following the advice I’m posting.  Today is great day to work towards my happiness and future.

**Disclaimer** I don’t post this for attention nor do I post to piss anyone off…these are my feelings and I will deal with them in my way.

Time flies and then it’s Easter

Ahhhh….  So time truly flies and not only when you’re having fun but in general.  It’s a holy time of year for so many around the world and I think now is a great time to reflect on what we’re grateful for because how else will we truly appreciate life.  Now, I’m not the most religious of people and I’m not going to turn my blog into a forum for preaching the good word but I will use it as a means to spout my feelings.  Far too often we become consumed by “things”, don’t get me wrong because I am a collector of all things awesome but those material goods haven’t shaped who I am nor will they shape who I’ll be in 10 years, but making “things” be the end all be all driving force for how we measure success is ridiculous.  Being in the US, success is definitely synonymous with how much money one makes and what kind of “things” one can amass in a lifetime.  Why?!?  Shouldn’t success be measured in happiness and memories?  In terms of money I am far from successful by all financial standards 1) I have overspent a majority of my life on “things” and 2) I spend my money on memories.

I’m not saying that people should go into debt making memories but isn’t that exactly what a majority of people do in pursuit of a college education?  Most people aren’t going to sit around and talk about that riveting Macro Economics class they took their 2nd year but they will reminisce about the “good old days in college” because they essentially spent $30k+ on a piece of paper and a lifetime of memories.  We spend so much time working to earn money and in my opinion we should spend more time and more of that money making memories.

Personally,  I am heavily invested in family and friends and all of my holidays are consumed by being surrounded by family and as much as I hate the family gatherings my life would not be the same without them.  For example today is Easter and I’ve been cooking for today’s gathering for the last two hours and I’m stressed and pressed for time but to see everyone happy and smiling at the end of the day it will all be worth it – because those are memories that will shape future decisions.

Like I said I spend money and time on memories and I do so through dancing, travel and AdvoCare.  I choose to dance at Arthur Murray, which is a tremendous financial expense, and I’ve received so many memories and friends that I would never have had/met any other way.  Through Arthur Murray I’ve met some of the kindest most genuine people that have influenced me to be a better person and I’ve learned to do a little dancing along the way.  Travel…  Oh how I love traveling and if I didn’t have so many obligations I would probably do a lot more of it.  I have a laundry list of places that I want to see and experiences that I want to have, the time and money that it will/has require(d) is well worth it.  AdvoCare is very similar in my heart to Arthur Murray because I’ve met people that I wouldn’t have any other way and they’re so amazing; I’m tremendously grateful for having the opportunity to meet them and have them influence who I am becoming as a person.  Because of my association with AdvoCare I have had the opportunity to go to Albany, NY and to Dallas, TX and I’ll be 100% honest those are two places that I’ve never been interested in but I’m glad that I went to both.

I’m grateful for the opportunities that I’ve had to travel, to have amazing people in my life, and have experiences.  I’m hoping that the rest of this year is as fruitful in memories as years past.  If I could change anything it would be that I document these experiences more frequently in photographs than I have.

To sum up I’ll leave you with some of my memories.

My trip to the Great Wall:

My trip to Dallas:

My trip to Datong (China):

Dancing:

Getting Real: Motivation

Good read to begin questioning what your motivation is and is it sustainable.

Consistency Cont’d & Life Woes

Consistency…  Boooooom!  Per my last post consistency has been an issue but here I am two weeks in a row with a blog post!  Can you tell by my extreme use of exclamation points that I’m incredibly excited?!?

Food, oh how I love delicious food and that food loves me back so much that it stays with me in the form of fat…  I’ve been making strides at learning new recipes for cleaner/healthier versions of some of my favorite foods and some have been really successful and others not so much.  Top picks:  Cauliflower crust pizza, Veggie noodles for pasta, Spaghetti Squash for Asian noodle dishes.  So I think one of the toughest components of lifestyle change with food is finding a way to be satiated with flavors because going from a tremendously diverse diet filled with tons of fatty/high cal foods it’s really tough to be consistent with eating healthy without matching flavors.  I’ve found that simple substitutions have made it really simple to get the flavors that I’m hungry for without all the extra fat.  Honestly, as tasty as salad is it’s not really a match for anything meat and Aziz Ansari would agree with that statement.  Easy subs I’ve found are adding more veggies and making veggie noodles with the amazing Veggetti (amazing contraption), subbing cottage cheese for ricotta, lean proteins for fatty proteins, etc…  If you have never tried bison please give it a shot because it has a lot more flavor than today’s beef and is a lot leaner; the same goes for other wild game like venison – if you think it’s too gamey put it in a chili or stew and I promise you won’t even know it’s venison.  Please don’t get me wrong not every meal I eat is insanely lean and healthy because I plan to live this way for another 50 years (God willing) and I refuse to punish myself and not have a treat every now and then so I do splurge and have some special food from time to time but it has to be worth it and with the right people.  The hardest part of all of this is finding balance and I really need to make sure that I can get that soon.

Exercise has not been consistent but I’ve been working on that and I’ve started back to dancing which is so much fun.  If you’re looking for a fun low impact exercise consider ballroom dancing because it’s the bees knees.  When I started dancing back in 2010 I wanted to be amazing and in 2012 I got pretty decent but since being inconsistent with lessons/classes I’ve become ridiculously bad.  People at the studio try and convince me that I’m not bad but I know in my heart that they’re just being nice because I can feel how uncomfortable my leading has become and how indecisive I am about what to do next, now I’ve always been pretty indecisive but when I danced we’d do something but now HOLY COW nothing!  We just do the basic steps that I learned as a beginner and we’ll do that for 2 minutes and that makes me soul hurt so much because I KNOW SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT!!!  Additional exercise – I know that I need and want to incorporate a lot more weight bearing exercise into my routine but I’m struggling with finding the motivation and the sad part is you’d think my overall health should be motivation enough but it’s not.  I have a tremendous problem finding motivation to do things for myself but when it comes to other people I can get it done.

This all leads back to achieving goals, if I can’t find the motivation to do things for ME how can I possibly achieve goals for ME?!?!  I worry that subconsciously I fear failing on my own endeavors so I don’t commit to myself which is insane because I know that truly successful people have not achieved in their life by having nothing but success, one must experience some failures overtime.  I made a promise in January to go “ALL IN” with AdvoCare but clearly I haven’t made the promise to go All In with myself.  You might be asking “why are you so hard on yourself,” and the answer to that is at Christmas I promised my dad that the next time he sees me I’d be under 210 lbs which would be the lightest I’d be since my Sophomore year in high school but mind you I was a lot more active and lifted a lot more weights at that point in my life.  So with that promise comes an expectation and accountability, it’s going to show how serious I am about myself…

I need to become consistent about me!  And my dancing 😛

Consistency or lack there of…

As badly as I wanted to be consistent with my blogging I failed but to make matters worse I’ve failed to be consistent in all aspects of my life.  I’ve fallen off track with everything, the only thing that I’ve done regularly is wake up so if we’re searching for a silver lining that’s pretty crucial.

Weight Loss – I said that things were changing and they did, it all fell apart.  I remained consistent with my product usage and routine but allowed my food choices to be terribly poor.  These are the same food choices that I would have made in December of 2013 and not the choices that I should have been making since my lifestyle change in January of 2014…clearly the lifestyle is taking a little bit longer to stick than I would like to admit.  Although, the one aspect of the lifestyle change that has stuck is the fact that I’ve still only had one Diet Coke since 2014 so I’m still quite pleased about that.  Clearly I have a long way to go with this but I’m holding myself accountable for these choices.

Stress – Like most people I struggle with stress, my coping mechanisms still are not adequate.  When I get stressed I still reach for food which leads to bigger problems (see above) and the worst part is that I’m very well aware of this and I still do nothing to change the behavior.  This problem is real and dangerous to future health both physically and emotionally and I’ll need to combat this with full force.

Luckily I have this really fabulous chart that I need to fill out to help me analyze my strengths and weaknesses so that I can begin working on those areas to improve my personal growth and happiness.  This chart wasn’t designed specifically for this task but I know it can be applied in this fashion.  Knowing areas that need to be improved and coming up with a plan on how to succeed is 80% of the work beyond that it is solely up to the individual to follow through.

I have recommitted myself to ME and it’s time that I follow through for ME.  I can’t continue to sit around expecting things to change because I want them to change, I have to be the change.  Today was the first day of the renaissance of me and my improved health.  Big things are on the horizon and my actions will be the catalyst for them.

2015, Here I am!

If you weren’t already aware we’re already in the last month of the first quarter of 2015 and I’m just not getting around to wishing you all a Happy New Year!  On the bright side I’m only about 15 days late based on the Chinese Lunar Calendar, Happy Year of the Lamb/Goat/Ram!  Every post I promise to get better at being consistent with the frequency of my posts and it improves for a month and falls off but this time will be different because now I have a plan…  Yes that is correct, I have a PLAN!  Mind you the details are still being worked out but it’s still a plan.  What is the plan, you ask?  Simple, I’ll create a new blog post weekly but I just need to figure out what day will work best as my weekly update….I’m leaning more towards Sunday because that’s my down day.  On to the bloggy stuff… AdvoCare / Weight Loss: If this is your first time reading my blog let me just tell you now I am an AdvoCare FANATIC, I use their products for weight loss / weight management, wellness supplementation, and work out supplementation.  So a group of friends and myself finished up a 24 Day Challenge at the end of January which was fabulous because we all put on a couple pounds over the holidays and wanted to jump start the New Year’s Resolutions – mine of course was to continue losing weight.  In all honesty my weight loss that I began in 2014 came to a roaring halt around Halloween because of stress and not adhering to my meal plan as strictly as I had but with the help of AdvoCare products and the habits I’d learned from my first 24 Day Challenge I was able to keep weight off rather than ballooning back up to the weight I’d started at.  In a nutshell I’m still a fanatic and have been able to introduce a few people to the products and they’re now almost as fanatical as I am.  In any case, I’m back on the weight loss grind and have very large goals because my friend is getting married in June and I’ve decided that I need to lose at least 20 pounds by the wedding because I want to be as fresh as I can in the tux, even if it’s grey and purple.  I might change my name to Kat for the wedding. Arthur Murray: So I’ve re-entered the world of Arthur Murray because 1) I missed seeing people other than my co-workers, 2) I’ve gotten really terrible at dancing, 3) I don’t like being bad at things that really bothers me, 4) I missed dancing regularly, and 5) Female dance instructors tend to be very attractive.  I really missed seeing the people at AM and just talking about life and desires, I truly missed the interaction with people outside of work.  I’ve been attending some of the dance parties and I really became extremely unhappy with the way that I was dancing and how indecisive I’ve been, when I first started I said that I wanted to be good and I still want to be good and feeling that awkward really bothered me.  The fact that the instructors are hella cute didn’t deter my decision to get back into dancing.  Right now I’m planning on doing a dance competition in the fall but I have a long road ahead of me to get to the level that I want to compete at. Life: So I’ve had another birthday and let’s just say that getting older isn’t as awesome as I thought it was going to be when I was a kid.  I was lucky enough to go to Florida and see the parentals and the step-parentals for Christmas which was awesome because it was in the 60s – a far cry from the 20’s back home and let’s not get started on how amazing it was to get away from the stress of everyday life.  A friend that has helped me tremendously has started her own business, Sports Mind Guru, to help athletes and professionals reach their maximum potential through sports psychology (results based on mental preparation) and I am over the moon excited for her because she’s helped me numerous times in the past and I CANNOT wait to hear about how many people she helps achieve their goals; I am SO excited for her and the future of her business in helping people achieve their goals and dreams!  Lately, I’ve been feeling a bit down at times but I’ve tried to make sure to keep my perspective right because as bad as things seem you can always find some things to be grateful for, like having the opportunity to help others achieve their goals. I’ve filled you in on all aspects of my life, you’re welcome.  Until next week, you thought I forgot, throwing it back to my dad – “Ain’t nothing to it but to do it,”  words to live by!

24 DC / Beijing and Back

Per my last blog I was participating in a 24 Day challenge which was going fabulously as I had a group of close friends participating with me which was an amazing new experience.  The input that was offered by them was invaluable and their successes really championed my goals and helped to keep me focused.  It was just really refreshing to get back to the basics of the challenge and get back into eating clean and rejuvenating my body and soul through clean, healthy, positive food.

On Day twenty (20) of my challenge I departed for Beijing to assist my grandmother in returning home after a three week stay in China.  Day 20 of my challenge was extremely challenging as 1) I couldn’t control what time the flight would serve my meals, 2) I did not have 100% control of what food I’d be served, 3) due to DHS rules and regulations (without spending a small fortune) I wouldn’t have enough water for the 14 hour flight, and 4) I would be miles off of my step count due to be on a plane for 14 hours.  With all that on my mind I did the best that I could in terms of what I ate on the plane, packing some easy to stow snacks and crushing an AdvoCare Rehydrate before boarding the plan.  I managed to come close to my daily goal of 10,000 steps thankfully both Dulles and Beijing International Airport are huge and require you to walk a fair amount.

Days 21 – 24 were very very easy for me to control because China offers a huge array of fresh fruits and vegetables, tons of varieties in snacks, bottled water is easy to find and ridiculously cheap, and finally I was not invited to any functions those days.  I had total control of when I ate, what I ate, how I ate and it was fantastic!  I was on schedule with my core products and was able to consume more than enough water; not to mention I averaged 18,000 steps for each of those days because 1) I’m too cheap to pay for a taxi and 2) I’m too scared to take the subway and buses so I had to rely on my legs and feet to get me anywhere I wanted to go.  The only draw back to finishing my challenge in Beijing is that I did not have access to a scale…so I still need to finish my measurements for the challenge.

The bad about finishing a challenge in China…  Banquet meals, now I’ll be the first to say that banquet styled meals are AMAZING but for a recovering FAT GUY they’re a trap of deliciousness!  Being invited to banquet meals and hosting two myself over the last 4 days of my stay in Beijing I definitely overindulged and it’s slightly devastating.  I think for most westerners the concept of banquet meals is totally foreign, outside of large holiday meals or family gatherings, but for a majority of Chinese banquet meals are THE way to celebrate anything and everything and the culture that goes along with the banquet meal can be as difficult to grasp as the fact that you’d have one everyday for four days because 1) not having some of everything that is served is extremely rude and could be a total loss of face, 2) you have no real say in what dishes will be ordered, and 3) there are assigned seats with no seating chart!

Beyond finishing my challenge in China I had a fabulous few days.  I met some new people, saw a lot of family friends and personal friends, returned to the Old Summer Palace (Yuan Ming Yuan) got lost for a few hours with a very attractive lady and explored the park at Peking University.

The flight back to the US was a lot better than the flight to China because I was able to get the upgrade!  The amenities in first/business class are just hands down better than economy and you don’t have to worry as much about Chinese that don’t know how to operate a western style toilet (I have nightmarish stories of economy class bathrooms…).  BTW I had a beautiful woman sitting next to me who enviously was able to sleep for about 8 hours to my 2 but who was counting.  And no, I don’t have any pictures with her because that would have been awkward to explain why I was trying to creep her into a “selfie.”

I’m happy to be home and my body is starting to get readjusted but of more importance I’m ecstatic to be back in my own bed!  How I missed my pillows and the comfort of an actual bed versus a roll away mattress.