Well...here goes!

So it took me a couple more days then I thought, to get this done, and get this written. But I've been collecting my thoughts, and procrastinating, and reading, and trying to figure out what to say. Essentially it all comes down to making the decision and commitment to do this. But there's also an element of honesty that goes with it all. Honesty with myself, and honesty with everyone I know, about what I'm doing.

Alright, pause, hold on, I feel like I need to warn anyone reading this, that it'll likely jump around a lot from thought to thought and I apologize for that. But I'm too lazy to organize and structure and format this. Its a blog, not a technical report.

Okay, back to it now. What was I talking about, oh yeah, honesty. That's basically why I'm even doing this blog (and dragging Jeff into it). I don't think I've been honest with enough people that I'm trying to lose weight, and that I'm going to change personal habits and how I eat because of it. I say this, because as a guy, I think we're under different social pressures then girls, you know to be manly and stuff. Not like it should matter, I know, I know, I'm just saying.

That being said, I'm not going on a "diet". Not in the traditional sense of the word, but I am changing my "diet". Because really everyone has a diet, its how you eat. Before I get into what the new diet is going to be, I thought I'd give a brief history for those who haven't know me forever.

I've battled my weight for most of my life. I was always a "husky" kid, but luckily for me, in junior high, I pretty much grew into my weight. Thanks puberty! If only I could grow into my current weight... Unfortunately a series of injuries in high school started to derail things. Well, really it was my eating habits that derailed things. I used to be able to eat tons of food, and of course for football, we all WANTED to gain weight. Then some injuries lower your activity level, but you don't change how you eat, and things start piling up.

My first real success with weight loss happened during my first summer job after high school. Of course working in a factory, assembling and boxing cabinets for eight hours will burn some serious calories. Unfortunately that was followed with the freshman 15, 20, and 25, and sophomore 15-20, and the junior 15-20, etc etc. When I graduated I was at my then heaviest.

Then came my first success with a new way of eating, and actually learning better portion sizes. In Detroit, I met my friend Dania, who introduced me to Weight Watchers. It was amazing. I lost probably 85lbs between careful calorie counting, and getting into running. Then old habits started slipping back with poor eating habits, and a missed workout or two or three.

Next came my move back to MN. I left Detroit for Springfield, MN out in the middle of nowhere. And this was the first time I had seen my eating coincide with mild depression. This was of course compounded by the pain I was living with after I ruptured a disc in my back. The pressure it put on my sciatic nerve got worse and worse, and none of the doctor or chiropractic advise seemed to help. By the time I went to a specialist, it time to head under the knife. Ooh picture time.

Anyways, got that fixed, and shortly after that, moved back up to the Twin Cities for a new job. It was awesome to be back. My brother (who is sawesome!) let me live with him for awhile until my house sold, and I was ready to give Weight Watchers another try. After about a week, I was able to talk into joining me, to lose some weight together. Having a partner in crime always seems to help. We also got into working out at Bally's ghetto fabulous gym in Fridley (terrible place). We did the usual weightlifting and mild cardio stuff, and even eventually got in doing some circuit training, which was pretty cool. But nothing compared to what we'd find later.

So in comes my friend Dania again. She's fitness drug dealer or something. First she talks me into trying a food allergy test, which was interesting, and lead me to trying out the Paleo diet. And I of course talked Jeff into trying it, because at some point we had discussed the "Caveman" diet in the past. We tried the Whole30 Plan as an intro. It went pretty well, but with the food allergy thing telling me to stay off eggs for awhile, I cheated for a long time and kept eating oatmeal. Which is a no no, as its still a grain.

Then came Crossfit. Of course Dania told me about this too, because she had joined one somewhere out in CA and its was "SO COOL". Turns out I had seen some stuff about it in Mens Health magazine when they featured the "300" workout for the Spartans. They had trained at Gym Jones, which was really similar. I think when I heard about it the first time, I had searched for places in Minneapolis, and the closest was the place in Eden Praire, which was too far to hit after work. But this time when I looked, there was now Crossfit Minneapolis. And thus began our new way of working out. I'll get into why I love Crossfit another time.

About 4-5 months into our CF workouts, things in Minneapolis were combined with St. Paul, and we began working out at Crossfit-St. Paul. And just a couple months ago, we did our first Paleo challenge at the gym. This time around, I was more strict then I had been in the past with grains, and when I re-introduced grains, I really noticed the increase in swelling in my joints. And frankly, it makes me feel like sh*t. But the darn grains are addictive. And that's where Robb Wolf has made things easier to understand. I've been reading his new book, and he does a great job of explaining how things work in our body. Its been eye opening. It helped too watching King Corn and Food, Inc this weekend again too. I highly recommend checking them both out.

So here goes! Based on some of the recommendations in Robb's book for people who need to lose a lot of weight, I'm going to be going Paleo, but also ditching dairy and eggs (which are typically allowed on Paleo). First for 30 days, then I'll re-add eggs. But then I'm going to remain strict through until my Doctor appointment in early December. This will be challenging, as there are a lot of things going on between now then. Namely a trip to Vegas and of course Thanksgiving. But like one of the guys at Crossfit says, "anything worth doing, is worth overdoing!"

And in light of this big change, I decided to having a going away party for Papa John's. We are no longer on speaking terms with the Papa.


I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to post in terms of food logs or exercise logs or thoughts on struggles or whatever. So be ready for anything. For sure there'll be more pictures because they're worth a thousand words, which will totally save me from typing (and you from reading through my typos).

Thanks for reading! - Greg