Okay, I’ll admit it; no exercise tonight: I am sick as hell and I NEED TO GET BETTER BEFORE I GO TO LA FOR FIVE DAYS.

That said, I will still blog.

I had a wonderful conversation tonight with a musician friend. His name is Reggie Smith. He was the lead singer for an up-and-coming Detroit-based band called “Bloom” several years ago, and I was a fan. My wife and I would go to see as many of their shows as we could, as they were one of those bands that you just had a sense about—you know, one of those bands that was just… too good to be playing in this or that crappy bar. They were meant for bigger things.

Things happened, and they broke up. Same with me; things happened, my wife and I broke up. Time passed.

A few years back, as a newly single guy, I saw Reggie again at a local brewery that I started to hang out at. He was now fronting a band called The Afterparty. Again, Reggie stole the show and really knew how to work the crowd. I became a fan all over again.

Over the years, I became friends with Reggie, and we started talking alot. Reggie didn’t know that I was a musician. Recently, I had let on that it would be an honor to jam with him.

Tonight I flat out told him; we need to play together. I’ve got funk in my soul, music that is dying to come out of my fingers, and he is going to help me with this. We had a grand talk, full of ideas, inspiration, and downright badassery. Tonight the foundation was laid for another reawakening in my life; that of the music that died inside of me way back when.

It’s in there. I have been a bass player for 16 years—secretly, clandestinely, privately. I don’t mean to brag, but I have reached that skill level that allows me to express myself adequately through my talent, and it needs to come out. I’ve got music in my soul, and it wants to sing.

So tonight, the path opened up to me, and I’m going to jump on it. So I have begun meditative exercise, so I have begun physical exercise, so I have begun dietary exercise, and so I shall begin creative and artistic exercise as well. The music that lives inside of me shall be free.

I remember a time not so long ago when I made choices for the better; I would go out and decide I was going to do a certain distance, or turn at a certain corner, and then when I got to that point, I decided that instead of taking the easy path I would continue to push myself and go farther, faster, or higher.

That’s where I was tonight; I have a cold (RIGHT before I go on a weeklong trip to LA. Fantastic), and I wasn’t feeling like exercising. Still, I got out there and got on my bike and started up with a one or maybe two mile trip in mind.

When I got to the halfway point, I decided to just say fuck it, and keep going. I ended up going 3 miles, which is my normal distance.

I kind of lost sight of the fact that I was just preaching a month or two ago to make better choices on a moment-to-moment basis. I remember now; I need to make better choices every moment.

My roommate said that willpower was like a muscle, you just need to keep exercising it and it gets stronger, but damn if it doesn’t take a long time to notice a difference. I think that’s where I’m at right now; discouraged by my lack of willpower over the last couple of days, I’m in danger of falling into a rut of going back to my old lifestyle, except I still exercise every night, and I’m still thinking about my food choices, and I’m still drinking far more water than I ever did. I swear, it’s like I got all excited about losing 20 pounds and then boom—my motivation plummeted.

I’ll shake myself out of it; I know that I’ll return from LA invigorated and full of new ideas. Perhaps that will carry over into my personal life as well and I’ll come back motivated to continue my fitness quest.

Day four of being “off”, but I’m sick of talking about it. I decided to jog tonight instead of bike; mix things up a bit.

I jog/walked a mile. I was drenched when I got home, so I know I at least got a good workout. I mean, foodwise, today was better than yesterday, but it was still not ideal. I didn’t eat nearly enough. I really have to remember to eat. I just forget and then I look up and realize I haven’t eaten anything all day, and instantly I’m starving. I also have to seriously cut back on my carb intake, even though one of my meals was almost all protein (tuna), so I’m getting back on track with that. Also: not nearly enough water.

Anyways, I am heartened to see that people are startin’ to pick up what I’m layin’ down, and use the #thingschanged hashtag on Twitter. That is amazing to me, and I am humbled. Each person who uses it makes sure to let me know privately that I’ve inspired them and to ask if they could start using the hashtag. This is something that I never, ever, ever would have seen myself doing. Inspiring other people to exercise? That’s not me.

Three years of my life were spent seething in self-loathing, rage, and madness. I want to erase those by surrounding myself with love, spreading lovingkindness, and with people who are like minded. I find, more and more, that negativity actually kind of repels me; and this is a huge change from just recently when I sought out negative people to commiserate and brood with.

As I continue on this path, I find that the positive people that I should be around are starting to ‘come out of the woodwork’. Actually, scratch that: it is I who have come out of the woodwork, back into the world of normal people who care.

The last couple of days have been really off for me, diet and exercise wise. I ate embarassingly bad today, but as a friend told me; just note it and move on. That’s what I plan on doing; I recognize the fact that I made poor food choices today, I see what the effect of that will be (in this case, a horrible bike ride), I have noted that, and I am moving on. I am fully aware and not in any denial about it, which is still far better than I used to be able to deal with these transgressions.

After a time, one begins to realize how badly in denial they were about things in the past. I used to eat like this every day, but yet I always said my diet wasn’t that bad. It was; I was in denial. How many other situations in my life was I in denial about? How many are any of us?

Does knowing it make it better? Do I remain here, squelching around in new and different forms of denial that I do not recognize yet? Perhaps. I probably do.

I don’t really understand the psychology behind denial. It seems counter-intuitive to self-preservation, yet we use it for this very reason every day. If prey were to be in denial about the predator bearing down on them, they would be eaten. Why should it be any different for us?

I have a long and bitter history with denial; one that spans generations, and more recently as a factor in the breakdown of my marriage.

As you know, my journey these last couple of months has been one to confront denial in the physical aspects of my life. I am facing up to my failures and striving to be more honest with myself. Did I eat poorly? Yes. Did I make a bad choice? Yes.

The difference now is that I am still moving forward.

I just can’t think of anything to say tonight; I wasn’t feeling it. I walked almost 2 miles today with my kids and then took a 2.5 mile bike ride tonight. It wasn’t pretty, but the job got done. You can see results at Buddyrunner if you’re interested.

I’m starting to wonder what I’ll do for exercise when I’m in LA for the E3 convention next week; I mean, I’ll be walking a ton during the convention, so I’ll be exercising, but I’m not sure if I’m going to do anything beyond the 3-4 miles I’ll probably walk during the day while covering the show. Knowing how these things go, there will probably be afterparties and drinking involved every night. I don’t foresee a dedicated walk/jog at 3am in Los Angeles after a long crazy day. I’ll try my best. I doubt our 2 star hotel has a gym, either.

Meh. Not feeling it tonight, sorry folks.

I tried not to, but my willpower proved weak; I saw a scale at my parent’s house and I stepped on it.

Imagine my surprise: I have lost 20 pounds since April 3rd. That’s less than two months. Something is definitely working.

Putting that number into my fitness tracker was a very grand moment for me.

Anyways, that’s the only thing that motivated me and pushed me out the door this evening; I absolutely, vehemently, and completely did not want to take a 3 mile ride tonight. I ate a bit much today, I had a beer, it was a holiday, and I just didn’t feel up to it.

Then I remembered; every single night, no matter how badly I’ve avoided it, I’ve gone out and exercised. That, and that alone, is how I lost 20lbs in 2 months. By consistent and strenuous effort.

People have been asking me today: How did you do it? What method did you use? What diet are you on? What program?

This is my method: I hate exercising, I hate the pain, I hate the way it feels, I hate how much time it takes, I hate almost everything about it. I don’t care, though; I HAVE to do this. I have no choice, I have to get out there and just get it done. Everything else stems from that. Once I realize that I have busted my ass, physically, to get results, everything else falls into place. It helps me avoid the cookies, or the donut, or the bacon with my eggs. I say “Man, if I eat these cookies, it will have made my workout worthless.” and I suffered for that workout. Is it worth a cookie? No.

Not only did I finally drag my ass out the door tonight and get on that bike, I beat yesterday’s ride by 30 seconds/mile (pace) and went almost a quarter mile further. I did that in 10 seconds less than yesterday. Even small progress is progress, no?

Things are heating up. There is a definite zero-day by which I want to look my best, and it is fast approaching. For me, zero day is the last week in June. That gives me about a month to drop as much weight as possible, keep up my discipline, and keep pushing my workout routine.

I haven’t disappointed myself too much lately; I’ve been excelling at the exercise, doing relatively well on the diet, and been trying to squeeze in extra workouts when I can. Today I did some heavy shoveling-type of yardwork, and did a 3 mile bike ride; every day I am doing some kind of workout that makes me look back and say “Wow, I kicked ass. No regrets.”

I’ve been displaying an uncharacteristic discipline in avoiding eating like a fat kid as well. There are cookies in the house; haven’t touched them. There is cherry coke; haven’t gone near it. For the most part I’ve been sticking to the proper ratio of carbs/protein/fat. It’s beginning to pay off for real; at this point there is a definite noticeable weight loss and I can see it in many different ways.

The weight will definitely come off; I started to see that tonight as I got into a rhythm; there comes a point when you stop and look at what you’re doing, and you realize just how much you’ve changed. I reached that point tonight. I am actually working out. I am actually losing weight. I’m becoming more focused, more disciplined, and more determined to reach my goal; at this point, it’s just cake. Even if I just kept pace with what I’m doing right now I’d still be doing really well; however, I think it’s just going to get better and better as the weeks go on.

Shenanigans are afoot. I aim to be ready for them.

I biked ten miles today. I decided to bike instead of running, and I think I’m switching for now.

The workout was intense; much more strenuous than running (I was dripping sweat), and for a much longer period of sustained movement (my runs are about 15 minutes). I think overall biking is going to be a better way for me to lose weight and increase endurance and fitness than running. I am too big to run right now, and it’s a killer on my knees and back.

During the ride, I got into a serious rhythm and, despite the strain and pain, I felt like I was really accomplishing something when I got into the groove. My roommate came with me and at one point I said to him “Can you even imagine me doing this two months ago?” to which he just barked “Ha!”.

You know, this blog has gotten awfully boring. Remember why I’m doing this?

I have been talking with a very, very sexy lady lately, and tonight she sent me some extremely explicit text messages that got my blood boiling. We ended up chatting for a while and I ended up writing what was essentially a piece of intense erotic fiction. It was so hot that I turned myself on, and she later told me that it had her literally writhing in her chair. I wasn’t plotting it out though—the stream-of-consciousness piece that I was writing was a testament to how sexually charged I’ve become. She knows it, and I know it, that what I wrote down is precisely what would go down should we ever chance to meet (yes, this is an internet tryst). It feels like I have lightning inside of me, and trust me, dear readers, it is barely contained.

It is nights like this that really sustain my efforts and keep me going. How bad did this fat kid want a chocolate cookie cake thing tonight for dessert? Not worse than I want to chew the pants off of this girl I’ve been talking to. How bad did I want to have a couple of beers tonight? Not worse than I want to be wrapped around and entwined with a woman who wants me.

It’s a sultry, warm spring night, my friends. If you have the chance to get out there and fulfill a fantasy, do it. Wrap your lips around it, grab it with your hands, pull it closer, put it in you, on you, all over you. Take the one you want to be with, and who wants to be with you, and revel in their scent, their touch, their wetness. Sparkle and shine and gasp and grab and yank and lick and be with each other. We’re all sexy. Get yours.

Like her ugly step-sister Discouragement, our fair lady Encouragement is an intermittent guest. Tonight was yet another “I’m not feeling this at all…” night, but I finally got my ass out there and ran.

I felt like I wasn’t doing as well as I had done in previous nights. I kept slowing my pace to a walk, gasping for breath, and then picking up again.

Then I realized something; my pants were falling down. Literally: falling down. I had to stop to pull them up on several occasions. I don’t wear a belt with these pants because I don’t need to. They stay up on their own. But not tonight. (on a side note, please don’t ask why I wore jeans to run tonight; it is a laundry logistics issue.)

Encouraged, I kept up my pace, even stopping many times to pull my pants up. I started picturing myself 30 days from now, at the Expo Icrontic (a huge gathering of friends from all over the place, many of whom I’ve not seen in a year) and having people notice that I was thinner. I got lost in this line of thought for a moment but I kept running. I realized that getting my mind off of how much it sucks and hurts actually helped me forget so that I could keep going. My mantra of “oh god. this sucks. oh god. this sucks” faded away into a reverie of imagined friends saying “holy shit, Brian; you’ve lost weight”

The best part is this: These are not my fat jeans. Everybody has a pair of fat jeans. You know the ones; the biggest pair of pants you ever bought. Your fat jeans.

My fat jeans are big on me now. They are impossible to wear without a belt.

To top off my encouraging moment, when I got home I still felt that my pace wasn’t good and that this was not my best run. I sent my results to BuddyRunner and sat down to write this blog entry. I checked my status, and saw that in every metric, this run was better than my last. Longer and higher paced; my final bit of encouragement before I go to bed.

I get them far less often than I used to, which leads me to believe that overall fitness and diet have a lot to do with them, but today’s was a reminder that I’m not out of the woods yet.

It was bad. Very bad. It kept me from doing a lot of things that I was very, very excited about today. I was going to do some online shoe shopping for a sexy lady friend, I was going to set up my new phone today, I was going to shoot a video on how to make my famous pickled eggs, I was going to till some soil and plant some tomato plants, I was going to teach my ex-wife how to make chicken makhani, I was going to shoot some photos for a video project for an upcoming trade show, I was going to play a game online with my friends that I’ve been eagerly anticipating, and I was going to improve on yesterday’s jogging.

The only thing on that entire list that I accomplished was setting up my phone; and honestly, I didn’t even really have the energy for that. The only thing that forced me into it was that I basically had to, or I wouldn’t have a phone today, and I need my phone.

This was supposed to have been a big productive day, and it was all shot down by a headache.

I opened my day with two high protein meals; a can of tuna with some spices for breakfast, and some cottage cheese for lunch. When my head hurts like this, I lose my appetite as well, so that was really all I ate until I forced myself to make and eat tacos for late dinner. The tacos, while not necessarily really bad diet-wise, probably contained something that my body was craving. I think maybe a lack of sugar has something to do with it, but I could be barking up the wrong tree.

The may also be caffeine related. I’m not a huge coffee drinker lately, but I haven’t had coffee in 3-4 days, so perhaps this is a withdrawal symptom.

I don’t know. I did jog tonight, but it was not as good as yesterday’s. I wasn’t feeling it, so I didn’t push the issue. I jogged a half a mile, and that’s that. I’m content with having bad days sprinkled in with the good.

I was excited to get an application called BuddyRunner today, thanks to a recommendation from my friend Bobby. This is actually exactly what I’ve been dreaming of: it uses GPS to track where I’m at, calculate how fast I’m moving, and how long it took me to get there. Therefore, I can track my jogging progress with great precision, effortlessly. It uploads my results to a central dashboard when I finish so that I can track progress over time. This is an amazing convergence of technology that is seriously going to help me, except for one minor problem: it stopped tracking in the middle of the run because I think my butt turned off the tracker. Therefore, if you look at today’s jog, there’s a huge gap in there. I promise you I didn’t teleport.

I know tomorrow will be better; how can it not be? I won’t have a headache again, and I’ll try to catch up on at least some of the things I missed today.