Back again

It has certainly been a long time since my last post. Did you miss me??? I'm not to sure why I stopped writing prior to my triathlon and never finished documenting that adventure, but there is no point dwelling over it.

So what have I been up to since April? NOTHING and that's bad for the project. Shortly after the triathlon , which I will fill you in on later, I decided to visit the doctor because of pain I was having in my right shoulder. I figured it was nothing more than tendinitis but I wanted to be certain that I didn't have something really wrong before I began training for my second triathlon. Tendinitis (biceps) was indeed the diagnosis and so I began the anti-inflamatory/physical therapy path to recovery (or at least I thought). A month later, when no progress was made, injections became the next step along with more therapy. The longer this went the more frustrated I became. I wasn't getting better, in fact the pain was increasing and was no longer occasional, it was constant. Because I was getting frustrated I started to slide off the diet wagon and slowly started to regain weight. I know, you would have thought that I would have learned from last year's nightmarish summer that if I would control my eating that the frustration would be less umm frustrating. Unfortunately, I'm not always as smart as I tell you that I am. Finally, after three different shots in the shoulder, a couple visits to a specialist and about 4 months of PT, the pain began to fade (it was the final shot that did the trick). It has been about a month since the pain went away so I am ready (and confident that I am healthy, which is more important than you could believe) to get back in the fight.

For the record, I have gained 35 pounds since the tri and now weigh 290. I'm not happy about it but as it was mentioned before I have this occasional "fuck it" mentality when uncontrollable things stop me from doing what I want to do. I really wish I didn't get that way but I haven't been able to change that part of myself yet, maybe the third time's a charm.

“I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he
climbs, but by how high he bounces back when he hits obstacles.” George Patten

And with that I am ready to rededicate myself to my goal, again. I have some new motivation. No, silly people I don't have a girlfriend, just the other day I got my driver license renewal paperwork from the DOT. If you all could see my license pic you would understand. It has been a constant visual reminder how far gone I was (and how much hair I was losing :P), and I want nothing more than to completely change that disgust I feel when I look at it with some sense of pride in the accomplishment. So with my birthday 12 weeks away, I am setting the goal of 250 by my birthday. A lofty goal indeed, 40 pounds in 12 weeks, but you know I can do it, especially since the beach season is over I will have an easier time staying focused on weekends.

So hopefully, this time around I can keep a regular schedule of updating you along my way to success. I was going to write about the tri at the end of this new chapter, but it stirs some emotions for me that I still struggle with. I had started writing but I decided it would be better to dedicate a whole entry to it at a later date.

Until next time, Happy Dieting.