With the weekend upon us, I am going to have to work really hard to keep myself from indulging in the foods I want, or the foods that are convenient. I am still trying to decide whether or not I will go to a chili cookoff Saturday, noting that most (if not all) of the chili will likely have some element that is not on my diet. At present, I think I am going to stick with trying to keep my diet as clean as possible and skip it. If I can keep away from chocolate, I can live without sampling chili.

The results have been good so far. I have been cutting back on foods that I don’t need for all of 5 days and already I have shed 2 pounds at the scale. I was well pleased to see 230 even this morning after my shower. – A number I had surpassed this past year and then creeped back up over to sit around 232-233 lbs.

This number definitely encourages me not only to stick to it this weekend, but to make sure to put in some good exercise time as well. I’m (not) looking forward to some burpees, air squats, push ups and breaking out the jump rope Saturday, followed by some good, moderate stretching.

So, on to the next beginning. Eating habits. I decided this week that it is time to go ahead and bite the bullet. Time to do away with my extremely poor eating habits and work on feeding myself in a way that is straight up good for me. To this end, I swore off sweet for 30 days. Not just sugar. Sweet. No sugar, no sweeteners, not even fruits. If it is at all sweet, it is subject to getting skipped entirely for the next 30 days. This isn’t a quick and dirty attempt to lose some weight over the course of the month, though. This is forcing myself to go without the sweet flavors that I can’t get enough of, and trying to break out of my habit of grabbing anything sweet and chowing down on it. Thirty days is only the beginning.

After a good bit of consideration, and a couple days of doing rather well with this, I decided that I was going to push this even further. So long grains. So long dairy. So long legumes. I am even considering saying so long to another group of vegetation that I have heard called nightshades. In short, I’m going all in for 30 days.

I am tired of being fat. I am tired of being tired. I want to see that I can make it through this, and then consider where I am going from there. I know it won’t be easy. Beyond the simple reality that I want things that I am not allowing myself to have, I have a wife and kids and that means there will be food in the house that doesn’t fit within my personal restrictions. It also means my time is that much more precious as I need to take some of it for them. As much as possible. More exercise and more food preparation means less time. I said it in the past about my kung fu, though. No excuses. Maybe I haven’t done as well as I could there, but so far I have done well. I can do this.