Thursday, December 31, 2009

Seeing Less of Me

Over the course of my life my weight has gone up and down as most normal people's does over the course of a lifetime. However, about three years ago the fluctuation up and down changed into a steady upward direction. Before this gains any momentum and becomes insurmountable, I need for there to be less of me.

After reading several articles about men reaching my point in life, I now understand that a slowing metabolism is normal. Therefore, I have to take steps to counter that by first reducing my weight and then adjusting my food intake to match my new metabolism.

The only fully successful diet I've ever done was Atkins. For some reason it meshed with my body and personality almost perfectly, I am a serious meat eater. The problem with the Atkins diet (not looking for an argument, it is just my opinion) is the amount of fat and cholesterol that I intake while doing it. So, I am looking at a blend of South Beach and Atkins that will allow me to stick to less fatty meats while reducing carbohydrates. My goal is to lose about 40 pounds by May.  Achievable with effort.

Rather than posting starts and stops, I will just update the pounds lost from time to time.

Having just written this entry, I know that I probably have some confused web surfers. This blog is rated as the 36th most popular motorcycle blog by Blogrank, also Torch includes me in his Twitter list of the 500 best bikers on the web and yet this entry is talking about the dietary needs of the typical 50-year-old American male. Not seeing the relationship between the two?  Trust me, there is a connection that will become evident over time. Just accept this axiom for now: the healthier you eat, the more years you'll ride.


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Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Building a Better Me - Batteries Not Included

I have always considered myself analytical as well as introspective. Even though I've been living with myself for extremely long period of time, I'm still amazed sometimes by things I do -- -- I guess that is part of being human. So, when I reached that pinnacle point of hitting age 50; I looked for things internally that I felt could be improved or goals that I wanted to reach. This is an exercise I put myself through more or less annually and I feel it helps me become a better person and grab opportunities that might have passed me by.

So, I came up with several personal and spiritual goals, that I won't go into here, and a few objectives that I feel need to be achieved prior to me starting my writing next spring. You may share some of the same objectives in your life as they tend to be common among most human beings.
  • Lose some weight -- -- as I've gotten older my metabolism is changed but not my appetite. It is time I bring both back into line
  • Get fit -- -- important since I will be writing and I should be able to lift the bike off of me if I happen to fall.
  • Move towards completing education goals -- -- than 2007 I started working on one Masters degree, then in 2008 I started a second program. Even after all this time, I'm not quite halfway on either one. I need to be.
  • More fully embrace my Freemasonry responsibilities -- -- this year I assume a new office within my Lodge and that means new roles and functions. I need to be prepared.
This will involve a great deal of effort on my part, especially since I hope to achieve something of significance in all four of these areas prior to the start of the 2010 riding season. However, I feel that it is achievable and worthwhile to accomplish these things. My next few entries will deal with each of these areas in depth and how I plan to approach them. E-mail support is always welcome.

 

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Thursday, December 24, 2009

Christmas Eve -- Not A Creature Stirring But I Finished The Damned Paper

Just as quickly as I leave for posting about winter coming on and promising that I would still be loyal about writing; I promptly quit making entries. The timing was unintentional.  As soon as I finished my last entry,
I started to work hard and heavy a graduate course that has been sitting on my shelf for months.  I am working on my MBA online.  Because it is an online course I can kind of do it at my own pace -- which means procrastination. I am happy to report that I completed the entire class since my last entry and I made in A.  But that's not all folks...

I also took a week long in residence course at a governmental university and completed a graduate level course there as well.  After completing the course work though, I had to return home and write a paper for the course in order to receive a grade.  Three minutes ago I completed that paper.  I won't know the results of that for a few weeks but I feel pretty good about it.

It may seem that I'm some kind of demon for education but these are actually things that I have been working on for awhile and I am just getting down to completing.  I will write about this as well as three other projects I'm working on and want to complete before spring riding season begins.

For now, I will share this picture of my dog MacBeth (1 year old, Golden Doodle) who had an opportunity to meet with Santa Claus (as you know he is a motorcyclist too). 


Merry Christmas!

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