Flagpole Mountain

Today I climbed Flagpole Mountain with my friend Paul. That is a difficult climb. It is one of those climbs where your heart beats so hard it feels like it might pull loose. But I have succeeded in keeping myself away from peanut butter sandwiches or candy. I was looking at the profile in the bathroom this morning. I remember not such a long time ago I didn't have this huge bulging stomach. Time to get there again. I did not do the squats or pushups last night or this morning. They have to get added in.

Now the hard part...

Already this evening, I am starving. I am SO used to eating everything in sight. This first few days will be hard.

You gotta start somewhere...

At this point I know that I will be biking 40 miles or more beginning April 16th. The Florida Freewheelers have an annual bike safari in North Florida that my long time friend from High School days has wanted me to ride for years. There is a problem. I am out of shape. I have gained a lot of weight over the past 2 years, and to believe that I could do this ride "today" would be silly. So I will use this as the fuel to my drive to lose weight, gain aerobic conditioning, and strength train. I will have to do a lot of riding to accustom myself to sitting in the bike saddle. I plan to hike some mountains and do some running to augment my aerobic conditioning. Lastly, I will add Hindu squats and pushups to strengthen. I have a minor plan to get back into the gym but that might be hard to coordinate with everything else.

So today after 2 days suffering from a virus, I began. I ate sensibly at lunch. I also hiked quickly to the top of my training hill. That is about a 2 hour round trip. I will have to continue to make good food choices to accomplish the weight loss I need to have. And I will need to find the determination to end each day with the squats and pushups. WoW. How will I do it?

I hope that this journal will, in part, help me to stay on track. So, away we go!