I believe that some things come to us either through fate or choice. I didn’t choose to go to the gym but rather I believe it was meant for me. A little over two years ago, one of my former friends suggested that I needed to exercise seeing as how all my money was going towards food, gas, and yeah more food. He suggested that I get signed up at a nearby 24 hour fitness which was fine and dandy since I couldn’t see myself exercising any other way. I weighed about 253 at the time and I saw that I wasn’t applying myself in terms of staying fit. I was stressed about many things at the time whether it was school, life, girls, and also a few dramatic things that were happening in my family at the time. But, I saw this as the perfect opportunity to possibly rid myself of that stress as exercising is supposed to relieve that stress. The first time I went for the introduction I saw that the gym was packed and I thought there was no way I would be able to stay on schedule to go 3-5 times a week. Much of that had to do with self doubt and the fact that I was letting others make my decisions for me in terms of going. For example, if my friend was busy or I was just saying to myself that “oh that’s too far” then I wouldn’t go. Most of the time, applying yourself has to do with putting yourself first and not really caring what others think. I remember back when I would only go if my friend went that I would just sit at home and complain that it isn’t as fun if he doesn’t go. But, the problem was that he lived much farther than I did so I would be forced (or I would force myself) to drive all the way where he lived just to go to the gym when there was one 3 minutes away from where I lived. Anyway, the schedule I set for myself was strange as it would it be some weekends I would go and others I wouldn’t. Other days I would just be afraid that I wasn’t losing weight so why even make an effort? I was also discouraged that nobody was really supporting me as I have the kind of personality that needs reassurance that I am doing the right thing. But, in the process of all this I noticed that the hardest thing is actually getting to your destination. If I was complaining about my weight why not just try it for a few weeks where I set a schedule for myself and see how it goes? I said that the easiest thing to do was probably to do 40 minutes of cardio and around 20 minutes of weights which has worked out great. I noticed that with this routine that I have stayed fit and I have more desire to keep returning. I also do not feel as tired as I did before as this is one of the many things I hear from week to week. I understand that I may not be in some ripped shape that most people at the gym are but I give an effort to stay in decent shape. There have also been moments where I can think more clearly at the gym because you are alone where no one is bothering to do something or you have no one to distract you from what you’re doing. I noticed that going in the day is much more packed and having that element makes it harder to get all you routines in. However, concentrating on getting your tasks done is much more improved than it is at night time. You have a time limit in the day which makes it much better to have time management skills. At night, it impossible to have time management due to the many times that I have left work and said to myself, “man I have all the time in the world” so I can say till 2 or even sometimes 3 in the morning. One of the more interesting things about the gym is also the people that you may meet at the gym or even things you may talk about with people there. I have had a few conversations with a few people that never really mattered or even some that have surprised me. I remember seeing an old boss of mine there and that shocked me just because he was a nice guy at work but here it just seemed out of the ordinary. It was as if I was back in high school where you would see your teachers outside of school and you tried to hide. It was the basic conversation of “oh how you doing” and the usual response of “good” which is something that is pretty common when you see people at the gym. I remember having conversations with my friend that signed me up for the gym originally about life, girls, and all the little details that were going in our lives. At that moment I felt like I was apart of something special with a great human being. But, we’re all human and we do have our moments that make us think “remember when this happened…”. Having those conversations with that guy made me realize I needed to be slowly ushered into the gym which is a whole different beast. I wasn’t so sure of myself then because of the scary weight machines or the big husky treadmills that lie there. I needed to feel comfort with how I was approaching the gym and he gave me that extra spring in my step which I thanked him for after. I am now down to 228 which is 25 pounds lighter than what I weighed 2-3 years ago. The one thing I have learned from that time at the gym is having patience will get me places because the harder I work at it, the happier I will be. I need to keep working hard to get to that destination because the journey is the funnest. Either way, I will continue to try and losing weight but only I can stop myself from doing any harm towards the progress I have made. Good times lay ahead I hope!
Tag: Life
Day #366 6/9/12: One year, one end…
The finale of the 365 project, I would think I enjoyed this as much as you thanks for looking and remember love life and it will love you.(I’ll probably do it again!)
Day #355 5/29/12: Afternoon’s I’ve had a few…
Day #303 4/7/12: Something great everyone should listen to…
A podcast by Colt Cabana titled and if you have never heard, I highly recommend it. I remember when I first started hearing him, I thought he sounded very cocky and a know it all but he grew on me. I saw that a wrestler like him can have a profound effect on me because he has given me inspiration to do anything I want in life whether it’s collecting things, doing this project, looking at a bigger picture, cooking, or what have you. Thanks Colt…
Day #302 4/6/12: Almost outta gas…
A funny picture representing my situation with work, life, and everything else. Sometimes you are just running on empty and you get right back up.
Day #278 3/13/12: The longest line is still the oldest…
If you look at the Oakland A’s lineup you might think that they look like a bunch of scrubs but you look at the older clubs in the league (Yankees, Red Sox, Angels, and the Rangers) and those are the ones that draw the biggest crowds. It is amazing to me how much it has changed since I started watching baseball in 2003 as the A’s were facing the Red Sox in 2003 in the playoff round to go to the ALDS and since then the baseball capital has beaten the actual intellectual side of baseball. It’s all good they’ll be back one day!
Day #272 3/7/12: Full moon…
Sitting in my car and talking about life with a good friend and later listening to a religious man about his own views on what religion is.
Something about the Summer (Double post)…
I know it’s been a long time since I posted something on here but what is it about the Summer? I have been busy studying the body, reading on probability, understanding standard deviation, and yet here I am still alive. I want you to know that it isn’t for lack of trying but finding excuses to not post on here. Oh, I’m too busy with school(which I was) or I have to go with my brother somewhere. Now, those are legitimate reasons for not being able to be on here and talk about something good in life. However, there those times when I had a bit of down of time and really I did nothing. Sometimes, I just get lazy but I want to get started right away. Now what should I write about? Last month, the girl I wrote a post on last year sadly passed away. Death, one day it will hit us all but for me this one hurt just a little more. When one of my good friends told me I couldn’t believe it because of the fact that at my age she was to be put to rest in whichever fashion she chose. I told myself, now I will never get to speak to her again. I believe in God and even though I may not go to church every Sunday I still believe there is a reason for everything. I remember a few years ago when my Grandma passed away, my family was in a state of shock and suddenly everybody started having kids. I don’t know if those are a sign that a new life has given passage to a better life or what but it has made a few people in my family happy. For example, when I see that my mom and her siblings go on about there grandchildren I tell myself I hope that they can be as big an influence as there mom was to us. That’s the thing that surprises me about people’s death and it has hit me that maybe people die to give new life so they can keep learning about the wonderful adventures of life. I know my friend, from the time I spent with her anyway, would not have wanted me moaning and crying over her dying, just celebrate it for what it was. She was a fun loving energy seeking person that I kinda tried to adapt as well. In my head, that night 6 years ago still stands out because that was the night I made myself known to be a coward because I was afraid that speaking to her again would feel painful and egregious. I knew in my head that talking to her would make it worse but I was always optimistic that maybe time would pass and I would get over it. Truth is, I never got the courage to ask around if anyone knew her number or her email. I have never intended to go and get a facebook simply for the fact that there is so much less of a human connection going there that it would have felt like I was talking to a robot. When I got a job, I said hey maybe I could find out from one of her friends from high school if she knew about her whereabouts? That never happened either because I got put into a position where I was fearful of rejection, failure, misery, and maybe just telling myself her life is better than mine. That last part of the previous sentence is something I hold in my heart because you hear about all the people after high school that have graduated and have kids now. Somehow, I believe the measuring stick is having a family, a dog, and doing something you love. I always tell myself that hanging in there is the best way to live life because I haven’t dated anyone since then to actually consider starting a family. Since I am in the process of finishing at the junior college level, I feel that going to a university will help me find someone special.Anyway, I can get to be a bit overzealous when I see somebody I haven’t seen in a while but that’s something that probably would not have applied here. I always tell myself that I was going to meet her family, tell her my stories and share fun facts about old times, and have some food along the way. If I had seen here one last time I probably would have first apologized and told here just how immature I was for the things I said. Regrets take a person a long way and this one had me reeling for a while. Death does take the young and it is sad to see such a young person that I cared for pass on. Goodbye my friend! I also want to talk about something that has come to my attention and that is the idea that we always play the heroes or victims in our stories. I remember not too long ago I was having a conversation with my friend and he brought this up to me. I hadn’t thought about it until then and something did happen that encouraged this. I remember when I was younger I would be obsessed with watching TRL (aka Total Request Live) on MTV and I don’t know why but we had a project due in Social Studies. We had to do a presentation for some era in the stone ages or 1700’s (right now that doesn’t really matter). One of my buddies, asked each of us when we had time to do the project and we had to either film it on camera or do an in class presentation. I said let’s do it on camera and I remember some group I liked was going to be on TRL that day. I started arguing with him as to which day he wanted to do the project and we went back and forth for a while before we settled on Tuesday but once again we had a problem( my favorite group was going to be on MTV!). Anyways, I had just about had enough of him and I went to punched him in the nose. Of course, he started bleeding and my teacher saw this and sent me to the principal’s office. When the principal called me into her office, I knew I was in trouble. Now, here is where it gets weird. I said to myself, make up something, they won’t know. She asked me what happened and I told her then the statement that sticks out in my head is was it with a closed fist if so I am going to have to call the police. Now, I really don’t remember if it was a closed fist and I just said it wasn’t. Thankfully, she went easy on me and gave me ten days detention which in my head was fine enough because that was the last time I ever got called into the principal’s office. I, in fact played the hero, because I told her that my fist wasn’t closed and I wanted to seem like the good guy by saying it wasn’t my fault or he started it (something along those lines if I remember). I made it seem like I was getting treated poorly and he wasn’t because he and I got into an argument (let’s face facts everybody gets into quarrels). The point I am trying to make is that we play the hero because we want it make it seem like nothing we ever did was wrong. We want to come out looking like a proverbial champion while the other person or people wallows in the sorrow. I played the hero here because I wanted to see my role as a student be greatly looked as being a stand up citizen and good soldier. The other person played the horrible friend who didn’t want to comprise with his friend because he was being mean and egocentric. One other reason we may be the heroes is because we are reluctant to recognize the other person’s pointo of view. For example, when a documentary or news channel covers a story about a sports team that has fought back to win a championship. The form of media hardly recognizes the loser’s efforts because they were just not good enough but yet they were still there. One further reason that we may play the hero is because everyone in one form or another likes to garner attention. Attention is a littel less dramatic but still captures the imagination. I tell stories for a long time before I get to the point because I get to the details as best I can. I remember a few days ago I was talking to a friend that had recently began training to become a firefighter and she really goes into detail about how she has to do so many pushups, situps, and crunches for the whole ordeal. I listen to her amazing story but then I wonder attention is something that almost every human being needs because we all need a filter to shelter out that information. I remember when the whole deal of detention was over me and my friend patched things up and we played it off like it never happened. The summer has been fun and so has the year so far. At the beginning, there was school and I knew I had to get down to business. Through all the ups and downs (mostly ups and a few downs), I know that I have maintain a positive attitude and be a teacher and a student for myself to keep learning. It was a long spring semester with great conversations, difficult tests, easy quizzes, and some fun homework along the way. I also celebrated my birthday last month with friends and family and I said to myself if only life were this simple but it was good. Summer session is about to end and I couldn’t be happier. Not for the fact that it’s ending but one of the two classes that I took I will be done with and the other(Statistics) I will be retaking in the fall. Statistics was a bit harder than Algebra and even though I didn’t pass I told myself if it were this simple why live life with no problems that have solutions. Last but not least, I can’t forget about my friends that I have met and the ones that I have stuck with me. A few of my friends that I have met at school were a big help and they also encouraged me to not let myself down because I was still going to school at my age. There have also been those that I have gotten to know outside of any school or work. One in particular comes to mind and she has helped me see that life never ends because you’re always meeting new people. They may not appeal to you at first but you get to talk to them and they all have a wonderful story that has no end which I enjoy. In the end, I tell myself it’s good to be alive. I can’t complain because I have a roof over my head, a few dollars, and a great cast of characters that supports me no matter how I do it. I hope to be blogging more in the next week or so because I can’t make up any more excuses because I have whole month before school starts and that should be time aplenty for some blogging, the completion of my uploading of Project 365, and hey maybe even some interesting notes here and there. I’ll be back soon!
Day #255 2/19/12: Beetle in a box…
A little something I want… The sound on these things is amazing and it was backed up by the fact that our almost bi-weekly trip to Costco was long and epic.
Day #251 2/15/12: Open Ended…
Sometimes you have to ask questions in order to get what you want out of life. A day spent doing some projects inside and outside home.
Just Another Day... 