Everlastingtruth.com

So it’s been two weeks and I’m still going strong on the Paleo. It really hasn’t been too bad at all. After telling my boss all about what I can and can’t eat she went ahead and ordered 2 pizzas for the office yesterday! Ha. I told her I could pick the meat off of the meat lover’s and that’s exactly what I did. Threw it in my salad and it wasn’t a bad meal at all. I have to admit that a little bit of cheese might have fallen into my mouth but it was minimal.

Today I decided to weigh myself again and amazingly I was down to 169!!! This is especially cool since I have been sick all week and have only worked out half as much as I usually do. I am quite pleased to see results on the scale but what is even more exciting is hearing everyone’s wonderment that I look thinner around the belly. We still have 4 weeks to go!  I can only hope that the results continue to come and my body continues to ‘transform’. Today is exciting since we are going to a Paleo potluck later in the day. I can’t wait to dive into all the delicious food!

Until next week. Keep eating the meat and doing the burpees.

Rest in peace dear great-aunt Nancy. Your funeral is starting right now, I’m sorry I couldn’t be there. I remember your birds, smoking (sorry you were the only relative I knew that smoked) and wry smile. You were always very kind to my sister and I, and had a way of talking to my cantankerous grandfather that blew my 10-year old mind. I’m sorry I haven’t seen you for many years, I hope to see you on the other side. I’m glad you’re no longer in pain.

Truly,

~me

My Pa says it is because I workout too hard, my Phil says it is because I am weak willed….I don’t know what it is but I’ve got a case of the sniffles, the runny noses, sore throats and plenty of coughing. Ugh. I’m happy to say that I’ve still been going strong on my eating and haven’t caved for anything naughty. I had to skip working out today, I really didn’t want to and even got up in time to go, but after walking around and trying to wake myself up I could tell the morning would be better spent sleeping in and recouping. Of course none of this stopped me from going to work which is where I probably picked up the sickness! My boss has been sick and spending her days hacking and licking everyone’s telephone. This kind of behavior makes it very difficult to stay healthy. Oh well, I have to remind myself this will pass and the constantly tickle that feels like little mice burrowing deep into my nasal cavity will end soon as well.

Until then, phlegm it up!

So I don’t want to jump the gun here, but for the past week I have been doing the Paleo ‘diet’. I say diet because it hasn’t really felt too overwhelming like some diets I have tried. Instead I get to eat delicious, yummy meat which I love, but cut out dairy, sugar, carbs. So far the hardest part has been the sugar! I’m surprised at myself. I never knew I had such a strong desire for sugar after every meal, but I do. I need to buy some berries today to have on hand.

Here’s the thing. I weighed myself last weekend and I rung in at a solid  178lbs. Not bad considering I’m still down 25lbs from the weight I lost 6 years ago. I’ve done a great job maintaining but even at 178, I’m not where I want to be. Yesterday I stepped on the scale and couldn’t believe my eyes. The number read 171lbs!  7lbs in 6 days? How? How without feeling hungry or miserable? Sure I workout hard, but I always workout hard. This is kind of amazing and was just the thing I needed to power through all the temptations set before me last night.

This will be an interesting experiment and I’m excited to see where it goes. I’m going to do my best not to weight myself for another week as I know weight can really ebb and flow in the day-to-day. Also, I’m less concerned about weight as I am about inches. I want to lose at least 2″ off of my BELLY and an 1″ around the moob area. Can I do it in 5 more weeks? We will find out at the end…

I am resolving to update this space some more. There is much going on in life and I haven’t bothered to sit down and write about it like I’ve wanted to, but I need to.

The hosting company was hacked awhile back and my site along with many others were compromised. Viruses were crawling all over these pages like pimple juice on a teenager’s face. I apologize if your computer was affected. All should be fixed now!

Here’s to a bigger and better year! Already things are exciting and fun…let’s hope they continue that way

~M

I was sitting at my desk pretending to do some work this afternoon when my friend calls me:

“Hey! Did you upgrade your phone yet?”

“No.”

“Well now is the time to do it, T-mobile is having an awesome sale this Friday and Saturday where ANY smartphone is free with a 2 year agreement.”

“No way.”

“Yes way!”

I wasn’t sure if I should believe her so I looked it up on the Internets and sure enough T-mobile is practically giving away phones. I am in dire need of an upgrade since my current (un smart) phone likes to randomly turn off and add extra letters when I type. I think smart phones are cool, but they always seem so expensive so I have avoided upgrading to one.

I wrote my friends who are in love with their smart phones and they gave me some guidance as to what I should get. After the work whistle blew signaling the end to another glorious day I made my way to the T-mobile store to see what all the hype was about. As I entered the store I was greeted by a chubby salesman with bushy mutton chops that would make Elvis turn in his grave.

“What can I do for you?”

“I wanna know about the free phones this weekend.”

Mutton chops immediately shot me a look and said

“Where did you hear about that?!”

I suddenly felt like I was privy to some sort of insider T-mobile info that only Catherine Zeta-Jones or that new girl in the polka dot dress should know.

“Well a friend called me and then I saw it online.”

“Oh, ’cause we’re not supposed to tell anyone yet and I didn’t think T-mobile released any info about it.”

We chatted and I confirmed the deal was as bitchin’ as it sounds and this delighted me down to my frinkly toes. After getting all the details I decided to go check out a few different phones even though I was pretty sure which one I would choose. Most of the phones were off and had a screen shot pasted to the front of the display. Lame. What a great way to sell a smart phone by not turning it on! After some more searching I found a phone what was similar to the one I was looking to get. I started playing around with the display and thought it might be cool to see what the internet and software keyboard felt like.

I opened the internet (amazed I even found it) and since I have never used an on screen keyboard I took my time and slowly tried to navigate to msn.com. After 15 seconds of very deliberate typing I managed to type in ‘msn.cpm’. The little phone crunched away trying to navigate to a site that didn’t exist and I tried to stop it by pushing all of the buttons. Eventually I hit a magic button that brought the phone back to its main screen.

Again I brought up the internet and meticulously typed in m…..s…..n…..com. When I pushed ‘go’ I realized I had added an extra letter and typed in ‘msnm’ (or something like that).

“Damnit!” I exclaimed, just as an elderly man stood next to me and began looking at a phone.

It was then that I encountered the speed of the 4G network. A site quickly popped up and staring back at me were a pair of eyes and other parts of a woman that I did not recognize and words flashed across the screen “The internet’s HOTTEST girls!”

“OH SHEEEEIT~!”

I frantically started pushing buttons on the phone faster than a Stenographer at a murder trial. Nothing I pushed took away the adult images and I’m pretty sure the old man next to me caught a glimpse of ‘Busty Betty’ and ‘Voracious Veronica’. In the midst of my panic I actually ZOOMED in on the web page which was the exact opposite thing I was trying to accomplish. In a flash of brilliance my brain told me to think of home and ‘go home’. I pressed the home button, the phone went back to the home screen and I decided that maybe I should go home as well.

I laughed the whole way home. Some poor soul is going to get an eyeful when they check out the internet features in that T-mobile store, courtesy of me.

On second thought…..maybe I’m not ready for a smart phone.

Only 8 days late.

Dang facebook ruining all my postings. Every since that website got all popular I find myself neglecting my blog and only doing quirky remarks on facebook instead.  Boo.

Need to get on here more.

A small list of things I forgot:

1. I forgot just how tired the test makes you. I am dog tired today, fortunately I have time for a nap.

2. I forgot just how much you sweat. We’re talking sweat that is constantly streaming from your pores even when ‘resting’.

3. I forgot how much kicking takes it out of you. This is coming from a guy that does 1 hour kickboxing classes regularly!

4. I forgot how much it sucks to ‘hit the wall’ only 1.5 hours in and realizing you have another 2 1/2 hours to go! Fortunately a second wind was soon coming

5. I am amazed at how we’re able to push ourselves beyond what we think we’re able to do.

6. I forgot how good it feels to be done with the night and the instructor says “good job!”.

7. Oh how I forgot about the toll the test takes on my nipples. Stupid dry-fit shirts have rubbed me raw and left me bleeding. Sucks. Today I feel oozy. Gonna have to rig something up for them tonight.

Wish me luck!

There’s nothing quite like a sweaty, 250lb man lying on top of you to make you realize your cardiovascular system needs some work. You may think I’m describing a recent date I had, but I’m sorry to disappoint that it is not. I still very much enjoy women and if I had my choice of something laying on me, a large man would be one of the last things on my list right up there with a looney tunes anvil . 

Last night was somewhat of a typical night at Krav Maga where we get down and dirty and try to receive a very small taste of what a fighting for your life might feel like. Our instructor likes to run a drill called ‘The Circle of Life’. The drill consists of 5 attackers that surround you and constantly attack you with chokes, headlocks, bear hugs and often times sticks, knives and guns. The point of the exercise is to get your brain to stop thinking about ‘oh what should I do next’ and just react. If you were attacked on the street there would be no time to stop and think or assess the situation, you would just have to react. The drill also helps give you a sample of the tunnel vision and hearing that often comes when your adrenaline kicks in. When the fight is on and your fight or flight response is amped up you lose the ability of your fine motor skills. So unfortunately that means your super-secret-one-fingered death poke is out which is why Krav stresses gross motor movements like elbows, knees and headbutts.

For us advanced students going through the circle of life is still stressful but often we get into a rhythm and thus we don’t benefit from the drill as much as we should. Last night our instructor decided to mix things up and had us execute our combatives but our attackers were to keep attacking as if our strikes didn’t work. Oh man, talk about stressful. A simple choke from the front morphed into a double leg takedown which morphed into 250lbs of man pressing down on me while I struggled to get up. When I finally broke free another set of burly hands were quick to grab me from behind and pull me back to the ground. When I broke free again a headlock came on and yanked me sideways towards the ground. I gave it everything I had, but by this timemy arms were moving like cherry jello in a glass bowl.

When my round was finally over I was spent……all after only 1 minute. Yikes. My lungs were heaving and my legs were ho-ing (does that make sense?). I haven’t felt misery like that in a long time and it took several minutes to get myself back in order. Today I can feel that drill through my back, neck shoulders and legs, amazing! Nearly every day I work out and do weights, running or kickboxing but it appears I need to step it up a notch. Time to get back to the stairs or time to engage myself in more ground fighting before I test for the next level this coming November.

I heard an instructor once say if you can’t fight for your life for at least 2 minutes then forget about it. He’s right. 2 minutes may not seem like a big deal but when you’re on your back and someone bigger than you is choking you while you struggle to get free, 10 seconds feels like an eternity, let alone 2 minutes. Train train train.

The roads around my office are a mess and have been for over a year. They’ve been that way ever since the City of Portland thought it would be a good idea to install a max line on Grand/MLK and to change the flow of traffic on Burnside and Couch. Nearly every day there is a new street closed or changed in some way making it difficult to get to work on time (or at least that’s my excuse).

My office is tucked away on a dead end street just off of Grand Ave. I love seeing people that think they are smart by taking the side streets around all of the construction mess only to turn onto our little street and realize it’s not a through street. It warms my heart to watch them make the 10-point turn of shame to get turned around and backtrack where they came from. To make matters worse the street south of our office used to be a through street but has been temporarily turned into a dead end due to the huge hole the city is digging into the ground. In order to not surprise anyone there are large orange and white signs that say “ROAD CLOSED” and behind the signs is a menacing back-hoe digger thing that tears the street up. Still this doesn’t stop some people.

I was nearly to my office this morning when I stopped at a stop sign waiting to cross the road with the menacing back-hoe digger and bright orange and white signs. To my right a green Subaru Outback slowly crept down the street. Sitting in the driver’s seat was a woman in her early 60’s wearing a red blazer, large 1980’s style glasses and golden seashell earrings the size of bon-bons (remember bon-bons?!). She was drove with her fingers wrapped around her chin, clearly perplexed as to which direction she should go. I waited impatiently since she had the right of way and I figured she would either turn left or right since the road was closed up ahead.

Nope.

Like a deer caught in headlights she continued to move forward towards the construction. She pulled right up to the bright orange and white ROAD CLOSED sign and stopped her car. I’m not really sure what she expected to happen at that point but I didn’t get to see the outcome. Perhaps she thought the construction workers would make a road for her or fill in the large gaping crater in the street? Hard to say but I laughed and shook my head as I drove on by. I should’ve stuck around to see her execute a 10-point turn of shame but I had to get to work.