The Riaky Road #3; Musings from the Author

I hope that I am more successful with my weight-loss goals in New York. This post will be all about my weight lost, my aspirations for future work, and a critique of my journey so far.

WARNING: I have pictures of me during my weight loss journey below that some may find inappropriate. If a very sexy man with his shirt off offends you, go no further.

It is no secret that I am overweight. This has been a personal struggle for me my whole life, at least all of my life that I can remember. One of the things that I am really hoping to get out of this adventure to New York City is a healthier, more adventurous lifestyle. This adds some physical education to my layers of emotional, professional, and mental education.

For starters, Grace and I are not taking any vehicles with us to New York City. We will have to get used to taking public transportation and walking absolutely everywhere. Just by getting out of the house more, and having to move my own body a whole hellofalot more than I have to do in Atlanta, will help me to lose weight that way.

Today, while at work, I walked about a block to pick-up food for an office lunch. After getting back (2 blocks total by this point) I was sweating, breathing heavily, and my back hurt - and I wasn't even the one that carried the food back. This is always a shameful feeling. There are times when I do so good at my physical efforts, and I am so proud of my habits. January and February of this year, 2018, I was a vegetarian. I started the year at about 304lbs, and after 2 months of hard work and healthy eating, I got my weight down to 290 - the lightest weight that I have been in about 2 years. I was so happy. Then, I plateaud. Mid March I quit being a vegetarian and re-introduced meat into my diet. I failed my most successful diet and weight loss moves, because I lost the energy to keep it up. Now, I am the heaviest that I have ever been in my life, falling between 305 and 315 lbs consistently, depending on when I weigh myself.

But I am really afraid of being overweight in New York. I failed my goal to lose weight before the move, so now I am hoping that the city is so hard on me physically that I build my body into something better. If I don't, New York will never be as fun as I want it to be. I need to put in the work.

It is embarrassing, to be so fat, especially when I know that I have the drive and the tools to fight my food addictions and get my body to be the body I deserve to have. And don't get me wrong, for all intents and purposes - I absolutely love myself. Eating for me doesn't stem from some subconscious desire to hurt myself, I just love food. I love eating, and eating makes me feel good. I am not very physically active - though I know I would enjoy being physically active if I were only in shape - a weird sentiment, I know.

I already drink a huge amount of water - over 100 liters (which is actually a little less than I what I should drink based on my weight) so if I can cut out all of the soft drinks and fruity juices, water and walking will help a lot. Full disclosure, I can't wait to come back and visit after living in NYC for a while and having people tell me "New York looks good on you." And I want to feel that sentiment for myself as well.

But I am hoping that New York will allow me to change my energies. Being more active and involved with the city. Moving more naturally in my life, both at work and outside of it. Food, in general, will be much more expensive in New York - so I am really hoping that this cuts down on my bad habits because I want to be too broke to eat as excessively as I do.

It's odd, being addicted to food. I am so cheap that I turn off the AC when we are not home. I cut costs wherever I can. I fuss at my wife for leaving a room and not turning the lights off. Yet, I go over budget grabbing chicken sandwiches and large combos.

Don't get me wrong, I know full well that simply moving to a new city will not drastically change my life habits. I know that I can't just relocate and live healthy willy nilly. It won't come that easy, and nothing worth having every does. But I am ready to put in the work. Atlanta was easy, because I didn't have to do things that I will have to do in New York. Just by not having a car means I will have to use my legs more, but the vary nature of getting from point a to point b. All my life, though I have failed at getting into shape, I have worked very hard professionally to accomplish the work goals I set out for myself, so I will have to do that here - I will have to shape my energy to focus more on me and my own growth, and that is why a whole new weight loss adventure MUST come with this move, as one of the thousands reasons to compel us to go.

This was long, rambly, and riddled with grammatical incorrect stream of conscious writing, but I hope you enjoyed it. If you stuck around this long, see below:

--

Let me share some stats with you! 2 weeks ago, I did the Insanity fit test. For those of you who don't know, Insanity is a Beach Body brand work out that tests your physical acumen in 8 very difficult exercises. I recorded my results, in addition to pictures of my body and my current progress:

Measurements:
Chest: 52.5"
Waist: 56.5"
Hips: 49"
Bust: 53"
Thigh: 34"
Knee: 18"
Calf: 18.5"
Forearm: 12.25"
Upperarm: 16.5"
Wingspan: 73"
Height: 67-68"
Weight: 315lbs

Exercises: 
*The below stats are from the Insanity Fit test, completed Monday, May 21, 2018. Each exercise is how many of these I could do in a minute. Presume that my form on each and every one of these exercises probably did way more harm that it did good.

Switch Kicks: 60 total, 30 each leg
Power Jacks: 19
Hi Knees: 38
Power Jumps: 9
Globe Jumps: 3
Suicide Jumps: 2
Push Up Jacks: 0 / I did regular Push-Ups, on my knees: 3
Low Plank Obliques: 8

So, with the above goals in mind. I am setting a 6 month plan RIGHT NOW!

Target weight: 270lbs! I want to lose 2lbs a week, every week. And at the end of the year, I can easily get to 270. I want to see progress not only in the weight, but also in the measurements posted above, and December 31st I am going to do the above fit test again and see how much progress I have made, athletically.

Lastly, the jacket I am wearing in the picture above is from Portugal. I still have it, but it does not zip. December 2018 - IT WILL!