You got this

Something happened today that really gave me a lot to think about. I can't say it was unexpected but I can say that it was surprising. You see I finished work and set to cleaning up my apartment (something that I am an expert at putting off) and while I was sorting through the clothes that had piled up on the chair, I came across a pair of jeans and two pair of cargo shorts (im not sure if they count as long shorts or short pants?) That I purchased a couple of months ago because I hoped that I would fit into them eventually. Fitting into these pants would be a milestone since when I started this journey I wore size 60 (yes size 60) and these jeans and cargo things were size 48. In my mind getting into sizes that are sub 50 is on par with getting the scale to read a weight of sub 300.

And that is what gave me so much to think about on my evening bike ride. ( a ride I cut short so I could come home and put these thoughts on paper) You see the last 11 years that I have been on this journey has been a time of both joy and sorrow, of accomplishment and failure. If I said that I never doubted I would be a liar. If I told you of the number of times that I wanted to just give up you would have to wonder how I ever managed to have any positive results.

There were times when I slipped back into my old life. Eventually I would pull myself out of it and just work from where I was. I can look back at the old me and I would like to say "I don't even know that man anymore.

But that would be a lie, and I'm trying to be honest here even when it hurts. You see the thing that have given me pause, and the reason I titled this post "You got this" is because over the past few weeks I have encountered too many people who think they can't do it.

Whatever that "it" is.

I can't lose weight, I can't find a job, I can't keep a job, I can't make it. It is all a lie. You can do it! One of the biggest lessons I have learned over these last 11 years was that I believed all the shit that this world had fed me and when that above picture was taken (1 month before I decided to try to make a change) I had given up. I killing myself a day at a time and I was known to say "I'm not gonna eat a bullet but I'm not going to do anything to prolong this either"

(you have no idea how difficult that last sentence was to type)

You see I still struggle with those feelings (everyday) and I still have days where I just want to curl up and quit trying. What do I do when I have those days, usually I curl up and order a pizza. Not the answer you were expecting? Let me tell you a little secret.

No one is perfect. No one wins all the time.

Just do what I do, Forgive yourself and move on from where you are right now. Because the truth of life, the real and brutal truth is that everything that has happened before this very second doesn't matter. There isn't a single thing you can do to change the smallest of your actions that happened a second ago let alone years ago. Please let yourself live. Turn your back on the past and give yourself permission to move forward toward whatever it is that you want.

You got this.

I would like to leave you with a little bit of something that I find encouraging. Amanda Palmer is an artist that more I see and more I find out the more I fall in love with her. (Major Internet Crush). Also she wrote a book that really changed the way I look at the world. It is called "The Art of Asking" You can find out more by clicking the link The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer.

I ride

I have been riding at lunch for a couple of weeks now and the rides have been quite a lot of fun. Where I work is just made for a nice lunch-time ride, lots of interesting things to see and great little places to stop for lunch. 

But that isn’t what I want to talk about.

Today I stayed home (it is saturday) it was supposed to rain and the ride I had planned fell through. I figured since I was riding at lunch most of the week it would be ok, After all I had things I needed to take care of. I went grocery shopping, cleaned the living room and played with Spyke. It was a rather full day

So I thought. It seems I was wrong

I started watching Murder of Couriers.and the movie kept pausing. so I gave up and hopped on the macho man and headed down to the nearby school to ride some laps. That is when it started raining. And that is when I started to really enjoy the ride, It wasn’t a long ride maybe 14 or 15 laps, nothing to write home about.

Still, as the rain fell and I rode those circles I felt almost reborn. Like the rain washed away the funk. I really enjoyed the ride, the more the rained the more I liked it. I felt like I was the only one out there (It was raining so I was the only one out there) Even as I sit here and write this I have to wonder why I felt this way. I can’t really explain it. I can’t explain how I feel about riding or why I love it so much. 

But I’ll try

Today at work I got my bike and went for my nice 30 min ride at lunch, I had to talk myself into going on the ride knowing that as soon as I got out of the parking lot I was going to enjoy the ride. Knowing that it is only when I am on my bike that I no longer care what other think about me. I don’t care what I look like being a big fat guy on a bike. Because no matter what people think. I’m on a bike and you’re not,

That may be what it is all my life I have been a fat guy. All my life I have felt out of place and looked down on. But when I’m on my bike you can think anything you want.

I can’t hear you with the wind in my ears.

FitBit Review

55,875 125,831
That's how many steps I have taken in the week I have been wearing the Fitbit Flex. I picked it up last Friday Jan 10, 2014 and here it is the following Saturday Jan 24, 2014. I feel that I have worn it long enough to give it a fair review. Before I get into the review lets just give you a few stats and information on the device.

Fitbit Flex
Cost: 99$
Colors: Black/Slate/Lime/Pink (standard)
Bands also available in Teal/Tangerine/Navy
Purchased at: Best Buy but widely available
http://www.fitbit.com/store

Of course I Got the Tangerine Band so add 30$ to my bill for the extra pack of bands. (I could of ordered just the band I wanted online for 15 bucks but I'm just an instant gratification kind of person.)

Note:
I also linked my FitBit Account with an App/website called MyFitnesspal. This is an App/Website that makes tracking the foods you eat really simple to do. It also helped to educate me as to what I’m actually putting in my cake hole. (is cake hole one word or two?) Also like the fitbit I found that knowing that I was going to record everything helped me to make some changes (I still went to Quaker Steak Buffet but I know I ate much less than I would usually. Between the fitbit and the App I feel like I am making a conscious change for what might be the first time. If you have a smartphone and are even a little serious about making a real change in your eating habits I would recommend giving Myfittnesspal a try.

Setup
Setup was a breeze. The Flex comes with a wireless Dongle that allows your computer to read the sensors in the wrist band. I also Got a small use charging cable that so far I have only had to use to charge the sensor when I took it out of the box and after a week I am at half a charge (so far the charge has lasted about 10 days). After it was fully charged I followed the setup on the fitbit site and after 10 min I was good to go. The website says the fitbit is waterproof and you can shower with it. Which I have done with no problem.

The fitbit dashboard sets up some starting goals and since I signed up with Facebook it let me know who of my friends were also Fitbit users. This added a social side of the fitness tracking that I did not expect but I found very helpful. Seeing how many steps my friends had taken over the week helped me to know I wasn't alone in this, it also added a bit of competition. I would be lying if I didn't admit to finding myself trying to get extra walking in knowing that my friends were going to see how much or how little I walked each day.

10,000 Steps
That's the goal that Fitbit starts you out at. You can easily change that goal but I decided before I went changing things I would see just how reasonable of a goal this would be for me.  Lets see:

• Saturday 3604 steps
• Sunday 6561 steps
• Monday 10236 steps
• Tuesday 8534 steps
• Wednesday 9358 steps
• Thurdays 9555 steps
• Friday 8027 steps

You can find my FitBit Profile here:
http://www.fitbit.com/user/2C4LRC
You can find Myfitnesspal profile here:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/user/terryb953/status

I have made almost all of my information public to everyone. I don't have much to hide. You should be able to see how far I have walked each day, what I ate, and when the weather improves, I will add my other outdoor activities (biking and whatnot)

So for me I think that 10,000 steps is a good starting goal, My day isn't particularly active and the one day I managed to get over 10,000 steps was one that I had to do a bit of extra walking around but I could also see that I could have easily gotten to my goal with just a little bit of extra work. When I can make this goal for a week straight I will up it by 2500 steps and see what happens. I have noticed that I have been more active since I started wearing the Flex. and just after a week of wearing I have noticed that I am moving around easier. After trying to take 10,000 steps on Monday I was sore and my knees ached, but by Friday I found that I was able to walk around easily and felt more comfortable walking than I had in the past. I am hoping this continues.

Readout
I purchased the Flex instead of the Force for a couple of reasons. First was price, the Flex was 99$ and the Force was 129$. For the extra 30 bucks you got a nice OLED readout that acted as a watch as well as giving you all kinds of nifty information. As much as I am a closet watch whore I didn't really want another watch. I have a watch I really like and several times I have not bought a new watch because I wasn't gonna stop wearing my Black and Orange G-Shock. I knew that the Flex used a line of 5 lights as a readout and I was a little leery about what kind of information I could get with just 5 little lights. Turns out the answer is “A lot” I know how close I am to my goal (each light is 1/5 of your goal and the lights blink faster as you approach each level.), and I can see about how many steps I have taken. I can see if the band is in Sleep mode or not and if the tracker needs recharged. For a row of 5 little lights I’m calling that one a win. Also something I found out that I must of somehow missed the first time. When you reach your goal the FitBit goes just a little crazy. lighting up, blinking and buzzing. It’s a nice feeling.

Sleep Tracking
One of the other things the Flex offers is Sleep tracking. You tell it (with a series of Taps on the tracker) when you go to bed and when you get up. (it has an alarm function but more on that later) the Flex will track how many times you get up during the night and how many restless periods you have while you are sleeping. While I don’t know about the restless periods I found the number of times you were awake to be accurate. at least twice it knew I was awake at night even when I didn't actually get out of bed, just woke up and stayed in bed before falling back asleep. Being a data junkie I love this kind of data. I don’t know what would happen if you don’t put the Flex into sleep mode at night. (I do know you can log your sleep manually on the fitbit site.)

Silent alarm
You can set up alarms on your flex through the website that will cause your band to vibrate until you tap it off. I was doubtful that it would be able to wake me in the mornings but it worked well enough that I am going to turn off the alarm I have on my phone and rely on the Flex to get me moving in the morning.  This is probably the one function of the Wristband I found most surprising and the one function I think I like the best.

Online Dashboard
Everything has a social aspect anymore. Sometimes I agree with this, sometimes I don’t agree or find the social side just a little silly. In this case I agree wholeheartedly. When you first sign up over at Fitbit.com you can sign up with Facebook and it will tell you which of your friends are also using the FitBit. I only had a couple but it was enough to get me moving and see how I stacked up against the others I knew. It didn't take long for me to find a few other people on the fitbit forums to friend.

Accuracy
I have wondered just how accurate the Fitbit (and all the other Fitness Trackers) is and over the last week I have had time to look at the data and think long and hard about this.

Is the Fitbit accurate? I have no idea,
Is the Fitbit consistent? I believe so.

What I mean by this is I have no idea if I have taken 10,000 steps when it says I have. What I do believe is that I have been twice as active on days when it reads 10,000 than on the days when it read 5,000. I also believe that knowing how active I am is more important than knowing how many steps I have taken. Looking at each days readout I can see when my active times are (heading to work and heading home) and when my inactive times are (after lunch and from 7pm to bed). I'm not sure what I’m going to do with this information but observing will change the outcome.

again I point you to the Hawthorne effect

*** One of things I believe is that things like this will help you lose weight and get into better shape if you are looking to lose weight and get into better shape. They are NOT some kind of magical item that will change you without work. What they do is to make you more aware of how active you are and encourage you to become more active. They act as a reminder when you are going out to lunch, so that maybe you want to skip the buffet or at least hold back a little.

I am reminded of my rules for cycling, Rule 9 You can do so much more than you think you can.

So if you’re trying to shed those pounds, get out and be a little more active or just want to see how active you are during the day then the Fitbit Flex, Force or any of the other Fitness Trackers out there is something to consider.

Or just pick up a 5$ Pedometer, I have had my share and perhaps its just my Gadget love but they never really did for me.

Unsettling

Please forgive me if this post sounds a little... off. I had something unsettling happen to me just a few minutes ago. I’m still not sure how to handle what I feel about it.

I’ve decided that best thing I can do is be honest with you all and tell you what happened and by the telling try to understand what it is I feel. I am going on vacation soon and I am very excited about it. I was getting my clothes together and packing some away and sorting others for laundry so I can pack them away. (watching Iron Man while I folded and sorted clothes.) I came across a pair of jeans that still had their tags on them and for a moment I was excited to think I had bought a pair of jeans and forgot about them. I looked at the tag and realized why they still had the tags on them.  They were too small when I bought them (I must of grabbed the wrong pair when I bought them) My excitement turned to despair when I realized this. They were 50’s (thats inches for those in the know) and I was wearing a pair of 56’s.

Baggy 56’s but still seeing a pair of jeans that big and knowing they were too small was very upsetting. Still my jeans were baggy so I decided to try them on and see just how small they were on me. I didn’t realize it for a long moment that I could button them and zip them up.

I almost cried.

They were a little snug but I could button them, walk around and even sit down with them. It was as I sat there feeling more comfortable that I felt I had a right to that I began to feel unsettled. even now it is a feeling that I don’t understand. I  feel like I have convinced myself over the years that I deserve to be the big fat guy that I am. That I don’t deserve to truly happy or to feel comfortable with myself. I wonder now just what I’m going to do to sabotage this feeling that is just starting to make itself known.

I guess I’ll just keep riding.

Before and After

This is me a month before I started Riding my bike. March 24th 2006. What you see in my hands there is the remains of a Super Battleship. A 27" Hoagie and yeah I ate it all. I almost didn't want to show this picture to anyone. Just one look at my face and I can't believe it.

Here is a picture I took when I got home. I know I'm still a great big guy but I am so happy that I am not that great big guy in the first photo. I can only guess that I in the first photo I was 430 - 425 pounds and now I think I'm around 350 - 360 

All of a sudden I feel pretty damn good.

thinner vs fitter

This is Ernest. When he started to ride his bike he weight 570 pounds. You can follow him on his blog at http://ernestgagnon.blogspot.com/ and I hope you do check it out. Like myself Ernest's bike became his Health plan. He has lost over 200 pounds and competed in his first cyclocross race.

I cannot say what this means to me to find out I'm not the only fat guy on a bike. When I read about him on my local bicycling advocate forums (bike-PGH) the story started a conversation about cycling and health. This is something I have spent far to many hours thinking about. I have lost some weight over the past couple of years, 50-60 pounds. While I am still a big guy 350 pounds is not little no matter how you think of it. I discovered (or perhaps realized is better) that while I wasn't much thinner I am fitter.

I am able to do so many things now that I couldn't do before (like walk up a flight of steps) I realized that my bike rides became things I enjoyed instead of endured.