Weight Loss Part 1

I hate to tell you this right now, but your the kind of person who ignores that little voice in your head that tells you what you should be doing, you won't like what I have to say. I suggest you read someone else's blog. Well, now that we've gotten that matter out of the way, let me tell you about my story. My story starts about 1 year ago, March 2005, when I took a look at myself in the mirror. I knew I wasn't the person on the outside that I felt on the inside. I knew my weight a personal quality that I did not feel represented me. I was what you call, overweight. I also knew at that time last year that I had to loose the extra weight I had been caring around with me. Not only the fat, but also the emotional weight I had kept with me though my childhood and teenaged years. Looking into the mirror and seeing myself, I could think of countless times when my weight was a limiting factor in what I felt, or what I ended up doing. Times like feeling embarrassed about my big stomach when I was going to 6th grade camp. Times like feeling sad that I wasn't attractive enough to have girls talk to me in high school. Ok, I know this happens to everyone, but you get the idea.
One year ago, I knew that I didn't want to live that lifestyle anymore. So I right then I changed my life with a decision. That's all it took, a simple decision in my brain. And I know that decision one year ago has now changed the rest of my life. I knew I also needed help, which is why I decided to enroll myself in Weight Watchers. I had seen the changes that had happened to my mom, and knew I could achieve the same. While at the meetings and from other sources, I learned the major rule about weight loss. Like, this is the thing which will make you loose weight no matter what. I hope your ready for it. The thing is, it's so simple that people don't think it could be true. Here it is, to loose weight, you have to burn more calories than you consume. TADA! That's all there is. Now I'm not talking about being healthy per-say, I'm just talking the basics of loosing weight. You have to use more energy that your body takes in. Now, you might be saying to yourself, this kid is crazy. Well, I might just be, but this is where the little voice I told you about comes in. Does he say I'm crazy? When you ask that little voice, could this be it? What does he say? I'm hoping at least he's saying I might be telling the truth. Well, knowing this fact was one the reasons why I lost 70 pounds over 10 or so months. There were many other things I learned, but this one was the easiest for my to really understand and be certain it was true.
So, now that you have this piece of information, do you find it easy now to loose all the weight you feel you need to loose? I'm also guessing here now that you are not saying yes. If you are, then keep going, but for the rest of us, we still got work to do. Here's the next thing I learned. I learned that we lie all the time. All the time, we lie and deny to ourselves every single day. This is when that little in your head comes back again. Have you even done something, or maybe ate something that you know you shouldn't have? Well, that's the little voice inside your head again. ...(Maybe he is there trying to talk to you, but anyway). I learned that we as humans, or maybe Americans, or whatever, feel good about lying to ourselves. We stuff that little voice in our heads back down till we can only hear a soft mumble of what he had to say. Then we feel guilty free about eating that big pizza, even though we know we'll feel really guilty when that voice comes back in 30 minutes after we've sat down to watch tv for the night. Sound familiar? I hope not, but I know its true for a lot of people out there. People out there feeling guilty about what they eat, or maybe not feeling guilty about food, but feeling down about themselves because they know they aren't being good with there health and/or food choices. Well, I've just told you 2 of the most important ideas that made me loose 70 pounds. That I had to stop lying to myself, and that I had to eat fewer calories than I was burning. Once I was about to start to learn that skill, pounds stated to fly off of me.
Now, I know this first blog post here might sound strange, and you might be wondering why there isn't much writing left, but I ask you not to worry about that right now. I will be back soon enough to talk more about my story, and about my ideas. For right now, I would just like you to think about the two points I've raised in this post. How do these two ideas relate in your life? Do you think I might be telling the truth? Do you really lie to yourself? Are you lying to yourself right now? Could loosing weight be that simple? We'll, I guess you'll just have to find out, or tune in next time. "Same Bat channel, same Bat time" I want to wish you my best for this weekend, and you'll find another post with more information by Tuesday night. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or stuff like that. Until then, eat with reason!

Taking the time

Taking the time to walk around downtown is something I enjoy doing everyday. Mostly this comes when I make my 5 a.m. trek down to the gym, but I also really enjoy walking downtown on Sunday mornings. For the last two weeks I've walked around downtown, heading to Goodwill. Along the way, I take time to notice things. I find that each time I make the trip, I see something new. I focus to see the beauty of being downtown early on a Sunday morning. Doing something like this every week makes me feel just a little bit more satisfied in life, knowing I take the time to acknowledge all the great buildings and people that surround me. After feeling all good just looking around, I make my contribution to the community by donating money to Goodwill. Then I start all over again by walking home. I know this isn't something amazingly entertaining, yet, I find this really adds to my life. What have you done in the last few days that you were really proud of? What have you done in the last few days which makes you feel you've made a difference? What have you done in the last few days which made you appreciate all the amazing things that surround you each and every day? Just thought I'd give you something to think about while your busy "living your life"...

It's all good!

Here is my recent Argus Courier post, hope everyone enjoys!

Well, this is Monique, finally "chiming in." I thought it might be nice to actually voice something on here, especially to show that I do exist and will exist on this blog. Anyway, I wanted to talk about what Skyler and I did yesterday. We headed up to Santa Rosa and went on a "hike" (more like a nature surrounded walk) at Spring Lake park. It was so beautiful! I think Skyler was going to post some pictures of that walk. We took some great ones. This weather has just been so pretty lately, especially after all that rain, we just didn't know what to do with ourselves. We walked probably about 2 miles around Spring Lake and Howarth Lake (I think that's what it's named). It was sort of windy at times, but I was in a spaghetti strap shirt and pants, so it wasn't so bad. We had a great talk as well. Just a nice little discussion about what we want in life and our goals for the future. It's sometimes good to just get in that groove of knowing that you can have anything you want as long as you're willing to take steps towards it. If there's one thing that Skyler has taught me that will stay with me forever, it would be that. He emphasizes everyday that knowing what you want and how to get it is the perfect motivation to take you through a productive and satisfying day. Skyler knows his stuff, obviously. His thoughts just seem to seep into me and I find myself contemplating the meaning of everything I do and how it's going to affect me. For instance, yesterday I had my eyebrows waxed up at Santa Rosa Plaza at the Benefit Brow Bar. Now it sounds really ridiculous and juvenile, but last night I was very unhappy about how it turned out. I was stressing out, but for some reason Skyler came to mind and I thought, "What would he do in a situation like this?" And almost subconsciously I started thinking up ways that it could be worse, or better, and how I have better things to worry about and how I'm going to fix this in the future. Lucky for me I have that brace in my life to help me get back on track and not really worry forever. Worrying certainly doesn't do anything productive but add to stress. Right? So here's my tip: when you think something is horrible you have to learn from it. Think about it for a while, and decide what it is that you can do to avoid that pain later, and deal with it now by turning it into a more positive situation. In the end, the smile on your face at the end of the day is the most important thing. If you can make it through a day with a smile on your face, you'll feel infinitely better just because the edges of your lips are pointing up. It's amazing how something so simple can turn everything around, huh? =)

Beautiful World

Beautiful World
Originally uploaded by skylerf85.

Monique and I took a wonderful walk in Santa Rosa today. I think this picture sums it all up for why I love my life.

Argus Courier Post

Sometimes the things that drive us in life are the things that we sit on. In this case, I'm talking about a car. Motivation is one of those emotions that help us in life, either when things are great, or when things are getting worse. Both are great areas to find motivation, but I'll cover motivation in more depth soon. Anyway, the thing I was sitting on, my car, was one of those things that was making my life sink in many ways. I was like a cat in water, fighting to stay afloat, and looking really uncomfortable (this is how my cat is, so if your cat swims great, you still get the point..). I kept ignoring that I was paying more than $35 a week. I ignored the fact that my car kept shaking at stoplights, that it wouldn't start up more than half of the time without me revving the car, and that the engine would randomly die while driving on roads. I was only driving up to Santa Rosa Junior College four times a week, plus once or twice to Rhonert Park to see Monique. Driving in my 1984 BMW 325e was costing me a fortune. I guess I never really thought about it, thinking that getting a new car would be more pain than just toughing it out with what I had.

Well, the thing that motivated me, besides my gas costs, was the idea of passing smog in a few months. Thats when I knew, it's never going to pass, and I really don't want it to pass. The car was in such bad shape, I didn't feel good about driving it around at all. So, what do I do, I got a job. I figure, "Hey, I'll get a job, earn the money to buy a $5000 car, and then it'll be all good". Then I start the actual work part of getting a job. To my prediction, the job is very uncomplicated and easy to do. It feels like this job could be done by anyone with half a brain, though I don't want to be rude to the people who worked with me. Just frankly, I knew I wasn't the right match for my job. Instead of complain, I take action. I work my butt off for the company to impress everyone. Not that I had to make myself get into action, it just came naturally. I found out how much I could do and get ahead. I meet some awesome people at my job, and found out what it's really like to work part-time in college. I'm glad I got the experience.

Back to the car, I get my mom to work the car hunt for me. For those of you who don't know my mom the way I do, you won't find a better car seeker. Although you would never know it by looking at her, she's got major talent in the right areas. The hunt for a car for me started out slow, then come together this last weekend. We tested out a few cars, and I found one that we all linked. An older Honda, it had many miles, but drove so smooth. With two minor problems, I took the car for two grand. I was so happy, I had done it, I had finally gotten a decent car for myself. I was able to pay off part of it right away with money from my job, and planned to make payments to pay the rest off. It was two days after I got my car when the rest of it all hit me.

It was sitting in my Econ class when my teacher was talking about resource allocation. Talking about how everything and everyone should be specialized in a certain trade in order to better themselves and others around them. Right away, I thought of my job. I'm working 21 hours a week, making a dollar or so more than minimum wage. I kept thinking, I'm a very talented guy, and my field is in music. I make %150 more money working only 10 hours a week, compared to working that part time job. It seemed so simple. I looked over my income without my job, and my liabilities, all my expenses, and saw that I could not work my job, and pay off my car in 6 months. I further thought, I have these great plans to be making even more money by working in music, and the only thing that has been holding me up is the number of hours that I work at my part-time job. Later that night, I told one of my managers that I was giving to two weeks notice. Like that, I had made a huge change in my life. I know how productive I am, and I know I can reach my goals with every step I take in the right direction. Yesterday was the first, and probably hardest step I had to take. I didn't seek anyone's opinion, I made my own decision as fast as snapping my two fingers together. Yeah, my expenses will be tight for a while, but the more I work to getting my other goals, the faster I can pay off my car and enjoy the work I do in my life. I see myself being much more than I am today, and everyday I take a step in the direction I want. Cause everyone's going somewhere in life, wether you plan it out or not. I'm lucky enough to be going where I want.

Hey! that's all. Thanks for reading my first post here and be sure to come see me soon. Please leave me comments, I love to hear what you have to say, and maybe we can get a conversation going. In the future, I'm sure I'll talking about my 69 pound weight loss, how things are going, and all my thoughts on life and the community. Have a great day everyone!

P.S. - I added a few of my photos from around Petaluma below. Hope you like them. If anyone wants bigger coppies, let me know.

Trevor's 18 Brithday

IMG_1961.JPG
Originally uploaded by skylerf85.

Hey, I know its a bit late, but I got the pictures online! Enjoy, and look for more stuff comming soon...

Three Reasons Why I Need A New Car
1) It usally takes me about 4 times to start my car. I have to gun the gas to get my car to stay on.
2) I am probley at 10-15 mpg becuase of above and other factors. This weekend alone, I've gone through $15 worth of gas, driving around town one day, and to Bodega Bay and back.
3) My instruments, such as MPH, don't work.

Hey, thats it so far tonight. Oh yeah, my cover broke off tonight when I was driving around, which meant I had to stop the car and go into the street to pick that up. Then I had to start the car again 4 times. But anyway, I know my mom and dad are making great progress towards getting me a new car, so I'm excited :-D