I love working with Chuck! He is so all in, honest, and ready to make change. He is DOING IT! I feel so lucky to have him on team GO Training! He is determined and pragmatic. And it has been a bumpy start, kiddos, illness, life, travel, and career make for a busy life. Here is an update from Chuck, and his before picture with a ridiculously cute little dude.
FROM CHUCK
I've been on my path with Beth for a little over a month now. It's had its ups and downs- I'm sure that anyone starting a new routine goes through similar challenges. The part that has been so shocking to me was to realize how completely sedentary I had become. I was sick for a couple of weeks, which also happened to coincide with when I got a new iPhone 6- the phone has a built in pedometer, and I turned on that capability. While I was sick, I was walking about 1/2 a mile a day.... Total. That was eye opening, because the amount I was moving when I was sick was about my average day over the past few years. This is something that I'm working on with Beth, but it was important to know my baseline too. I understand that moving is important, and it's part of my goals. Over the rest of the month, I had been spending a deliberate 20 minutes or so moving at least 3 times a week. I am also doing a Skype work out with Beth once a week- we are focusing on strength training and stretching, and even though my weights are light, she still helps me break a sweat. I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but I was taking a bath this week and I felt this weird bump on my leg, and then realized it was a muscle. A muscle! It's crazy that my body had gotten to such a soft spot, but noticing a change like that is really encouraging.
The other area that we are working on are my eating habits. I have some interesting ones that I have struggled with throughout my life, and I'll talk about those in another post. The first area that I have committed to tackling is my caffeine consumption. My poison of choice is Diet Pepsi. In my world, this is the nectar of the gods, the lifeblood of my morning... And something that I truly can't function without. I decided to start tracking my consumption to get an idea of what my baseline was so I could figure out how to reduce it. Over the course of a week, I tracked what I had everyday, and found that my baseline was about 16 cans of diet soda everyday- which amounts to about 400 milligrams of caffeine. The recommended maximum caffeine consumption on a daily basis is about 100 milligrams. It was obvious that I have work to do. Over the past 2 weeks I've been working to step this down, but I'm taking it slow. I've gone off caffeine cold turkey in the past, and I have gotten horrible headaches and ended up getting back on the juice. This time I am hoping a gradual approach and tracking what I have will help me to wean myself off. I've been reducing my soda consumption by 12 ounces every 3 days or so, and though I've had a few headaches, it hasn't been too bad. I know that replacing my soda drinking with water will be better on my body, and my moods. It's a slow process, but I feel like I'm moving in the right direction.
So, a month or so in, and I'm losing some caffeine, I've gained a little muscle, and I'm starting to feel better physically. I'm still freaked out that our next baby will be here in 2 months, and the son we already have has just started walking. But, I am confident that if I can continue to make small changes, the things that wear me out now will get easier. I don't know if I'll be fully ready when me second son arrives, but I feel like I started this program with Beth in the nick of time.
I should have shared these in my last post, but I want to record my baseline of where I'm starting. I'm a guy, so this will be simple. As I started this program with Beth, I weighed 255 pounds, and wearing size 38 pants that are feeling a little snug.
Oh, and here is a picture of me with my son, Joe. I figured any of you readers would appreciate seeing who this Chuck guy is. Until next time!
