Activities

Closing no junk January

/ Brad Grierson / Leave a comment

Today, no junk January comes to a close. I consider it a partial success. I didn’t make it every single day without junk, but overall, there was significant progress. There were a couple days that I gave in and had a sweet or some chips or crackers. However, I was able to get back on the horse each time and I believe I improved my habits. I don’t crave the bad foods as much as I did previously. I don’t have the desire to go out in the evening and buy a bag of chips, case of beer, or cheeseburger. Most nights when I feel snacky, I’ll make some popcorn on the stove now.

When I have a couple beers now, I do notice it a lot more, both in how I feel and on the scale. I’ve replaced much of my beer drinking with water and tea which I feel a lot better from. I’ve even managed to cut back on my coffee which I think is helping me sleep better. No more 24 to 48 ounces of coffee throughout the day with three to six beers in the evening. In fact, since I have cut back so much on alcohol since late November, I can see a drastic improvement in my sleep quality when compared to before. This is made very evident with my Fitbit’s sleep tracking.

Mentally and physically, I’m feeling much better. I still have my off days where I don’t feel so great, but for the most part, it’s an improvement. Exercise has helped with that, though I have missed my last two sessions. I need to make an effort to get back on the horse on Monday.

All in all, I hope to continue with this healthier lifestyle I’ve been working on and continuing to improve it. I believe that it has even helped me in my personal and family life. I still have a long way to go and many more changes to make, but the seeds have been planted and they have sprouted. With plenty of sunshine and water, it is my hope that they grow in majestic trees, standing tall over what once was so that I can be the best me that I can possibly be.

Changes for the New Year

/ Brad Grierson / Leave a comment

Last year I resolved to read a book a month. I failed that resolution as is tradition. However, I did manage to read seven or eight books which is better than I normally do and that figure is not including audiobooks, so it’s definitely an improvement over attempts to keep resolutions in previous years.

The day after Thanksgiving, I resolved not to have anymore alcohol for the remainder of 2019 and I have succeeded at that. In fact, I still have not had a drink and don’t really have a desire to. Joanna has stated that she has seen a definite change in my personality for the better. Knowing and achieving this has given me confidence to making real change in 2020.

In November, I decided that my main goal for 2020 was to get down to 14% bodyfat. At the time I made that goal, I was sitting around 24-25%. Since then, I’ve managed to get it down to 22-23%. That’s with putting in little effort and no exercise. Now that the new year has begun, I’m going to get more aggressive with it. My wife and I are kicking it off with a No-Junk-January. That means no white bread, candy, chips, crackers, ice cream, etc. The only “cheat day” would be her birthday for obvious reasons. We just need to make sure we don’t gorge.

I also plan to give up tobacco completely with only the occasional cigar on special occasions. I had my last smoke on New Year’s Eve. Sorry, Black & Mild. It’s for my own good.

Another health focus goal is something I call GOWAD. It’s a play on GOMAD which stands for Gallon Of Milk A Day. It’s somethings some bodybuilders use build their bodies. In mine, the W stands for Water. I don’t expect to achieve this everyday, but by shooting for a GOWAD, I hope to have an overall healthier body. Better hydrated. Less hungry. Peeing a lot. Goodness there will be so much pee.

All of these combined I’m hoping will get me in a better mental state. The lack of alcohol has already shown improvement. With this better mental state, I expect to be more calm, less easily agitated, more focused. This in turn I hope will make me more productive as well as a better husband and father.

I see a lot of up for this new year and I’ve already shown I can accomplish my goals if I put my mind to it. Here’s to a new me.

Books of January

/ Brad Grierson / Leave a comment

I was never one for New Year’s Resolutions, mostly because I know full well that I won’t keep them. But this year, I decided to do one I thought I could keep. See, when I was a kid, I used to read all the time. Around six or seven years old, I was reading thick epic stories like Mossflower which were well over four-hundred pages. Considering it’s been thirty years since I’ve last read it, perhaps I should read it again. I still have my book from nineteen-eighty-whenever. Anyhow, somewhere along the line, I stopped reading so much; I think it must have been somewhere in high school. With the exception of a story here or there, I almost never read anything.

So the resolution that I made was to read one book a month for the year of 2019. This resolution was actually inspired by a PewDiePie video. I don’t even watch his videos, but for some reason, that was one caught my eye. After watching, I was inspired to get back into my own reading ways and with the month of January now over, I can say I have completed four books.

Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota by Chuck Klosterman

A friend from church gave me a copy of this book. Having read it himself and know that I love ’80s metal, gave me a copy. The book was hilarious, insightful, and constantly entertaining.

Naked by David Sedaris

This hilarious memoir from David Sedaris is laid out like a collection of essays, each detailing what I can only describe as a messed up chapter of his life. I’m not saying he’s messed up, just that messed up stuff seems to happen to him. He covers strange topics such as that time he was hiding in his parents closet and watching his mom come in, put on a wig, and go to sleep. Or the time he lived in a nudist camp. Or his misadventures in hitchhiking.

In Broad Daylight by Henry N. MacLean

So, this one I listened to the audiobook instead of reading the actual book, but it’s still a book nonetheless. In Broad Daylight tells the true story of Ken McElroy, the town bully of Skidmore, Missouri and his murder right in the middle of the day with nearly fifty witnesses. And none was prosecuted. To this day, the case remains unsolved. The narrator did a fantastic job and I would listen to this book on my way to and from work, many times not wanting to exit my car upon arrival so I could hear what happened next. Not a wasted word anywhere, this book was fantastic front to back.

Apparent Danger: The Pastor of America’s First Megachurch and the Texas Murder Trial of the Decade in the 1920s by David Stokes

Goodness, I haven’t seen a title that was such a mouthful since The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. That said, this was quite a fascinating book. I could give you run down, but the title really says it all. Literally. One of the incredible things about this book is that all the dialogue was taken from actual court transcripts, newspapers, magazines, etc., so you know everything that was said in this book was actually said. I read the Kindle version which doesn’t appear to be available anymore, so it appears you may be stuck with hardcover. That said, it’s definitely a great read and a very interesting piece of Church/Court history.

That’s all I have for January, but I’ve already started another audiobook and plan to start reading another tonight or tomorrow. I’ve left links to the four books I read this month in my brief descriptions of them if you are interested in any of them.

Logic and Resolutions

/ Brad Grierson / Leave a comment

On December 31st, I decided that I wasn’t going to wait until the new year to start getting in shape, I was going to start it right then and there. My faulty logic being that if I waited until the 1st then it would be a New Year’s Resolution and since New Year’s Resolutions are universally meant to be broken within ten to fourteen weeks, I should start beforehand to improve my odds.

Now, I knew that in order keep going, I needed a good workout app. There were some criteria that needed to be met before I would decide on the app I would use. First, it had to have week long routines pre-built into it. I knew I would make poor choices if I had to make my own AND I didn’t want to risk getting bored doing the same workout everyday. Secondly it needed to be intense but not overly long. Workouts twenty minutes or less are a lot easier to get in when I can than carving out a block of forty to sixty minutes on a regular basis. And finally, the workouts needed to be bodyweight. I didn’t want to risk getting equipment out to become a chore and I wanted to be able to do this anywhere.

moonexercise

“What do you mean I forgot the bench? I don’t need no stinkin’ bench!”

So with that criteria, I found a great app that met my needs. It was called Home Workout MMA Spartan Free. Excited to get into it, I took my lunch break, locked myself in the back room, took my shirt off, and loaded it up. I was promptly greeted with Leonidas in track pants, shirtless and screaming in my face.

spartan

Clearly a workout designed for if I should ever need to kick someone into a hole.

I could tell that this was going to be intense, so I started with the newbie routine. Twenty minutes later, I was beat. It kicked my ass and I felt great. On New Year’s morning, I woke up and my glutes were so sore. The first words to my wife that morning were, “My butt hurts.” She responded with, “I promise I did not spank you in your sleep.”

It was then I remembered workout I had done the previous day as a sly smile and an elongated, “Oh yeah” came across my lips. I’m about halfway through my second week of the routine and it’s still a beast, but I must say I feel great and it doesn’t feel like a chore. Once the newbie routine starts to become easy, I’ll jump to the next routine up. Here’s hoping I keep with it.