Ok, at this point I knew I wanted to do something permanent about my weight. I was reading Muata's blog everyday. In his blog site there were lots of links to other inspiring stories, useful training tips and many articles on nutrition and exercise. I read everything I could on all the above.

What path I settled on was to dertermine how much I ate. One of the links had a computer program in which you put in how much you weight, height, age gender, etc. and it will tell you how much you have to eat to maintain your weight. I put in all the stuff and pushed the button ( ain't technology a wonder). AND THE ANSWER IS---3400 calories a day to maintain my beautiful body. Now that was bull shit!!!! No way in hell I eat that much!

Now I had been reading Dr.Ellis' book and he keep saying about us fat asses UNREPORTING what we ate and how much. SO the next step was to write down what I ate. I went to Walmart ( I hate Walmart as much as any Democrat would) and I got a day book. I started writing down what I ate. Janet ( my lovely wife) told me where to look for a 25 year old book that had calories values for food. For two weeks I wrote down everything I ate and tried as best that I could to figure how many calories was in the food.

I tried to be honest with the food log. At the end of two weeks I was floored. The computer that told me I ate 3400 calroeis a day was right. In fact one day----just one day --- at work I ate 5000 calories. That is right boys and girls 5000 calories. Most of these were in the form of glazed doughnuts. Damn but I love glazed doughnuts and I am damn good at eating them. I remember when I was about 10 years old I ate 14 on the way to a scout camping trip. I was so proud and the scout master told everyone about it ,so I got lots of attention. Any way I found out that I was eating alot and not burning nearly enough calories---but how could I burn more , it hurt.

My back hurt, my feet have always hurt (real flat) and I have had knee surgery on both knees (left 3 years ago, right 10 years ago).

I decided I would start by walking. I would do this at home. Janet and I have gone to Victoria and joined the gym in the past. I enjoyed going but after awhile there seemed to be more excuses not to go than desire to go.I took my tractor and shredded a path around the inside of our pasture , down the hill, across the gully and back. This path may be a mile or just over. I would try to walk 2-3 times a week. When I would get back I would be wet with sweat and out of breath---but hey no need for an excuse, the path is here and so am I.Anyway, I'm a welder and I'm tough.

At this point I am taking 800-1000mg of Ibuprofen so I could sleep and walk. My knees hurt bad.

Muata had a link that took me to some body weight exercises called Turbulence Training by Craig Ballantyne. What I really like about this article is he does not pretend you are a body builder to do these. If you are fine he has a routine for you if not he has a routine for a lard ass too. I started the BEGINNER Level. Now at one time a could hold the neck of an oxygen bottle at arms length and pick it up and HOLD it. That was 30 years ago and about 25789 doughnuts ago----lesson here is --I had not let myself go---I had turned lose and stampeded myself.

So I started the body weight exercise---I had plenty of weight--in my room, no need for anyone to watch.I could not do one pushup but then when you are by yourself a kneeling pushup works too.

See, so far I had not spent any money, had not joined any excuse filled gym,had told no one what I was trying to do.But I had begun something , quite frankly, I did not know if I would succeed. I thought I would never be able to overcome where I was at,at this point. I thought I would never be able to do a lot of things on the Bucket List. I wrote down goals--- I will shared some in my next post.

Pearl of Wisdom from the mind of WEL and from a Sacket book (i will borrow a Pearl now and then)------
There is no stopping a man that knows he is right and keeps on getting up.

Good night John Boy