Greetings friends. I know it has been a long time since I have entered a post. Well I have been extremely busy trying to get myself into shape for a very important police test that I set my mind to in January. Here is a little update. I tested with Charleston Illinois Police Department on Saturday July 18 and passed both the written and the physical test. This is such a high point for me in my life. I was able to set my mind to a goal in January and stay focused to reach that goal seven months later. Now of course, this does not mean that I am a shoe in for a position as a police officer, but it does mean that I am in good enough shape to test with every department in Illinois since the test is a standardized test. Check out http://tinyurl.com/lbv3z5 to see the standardized physical test that police officers in Illinois must adhere to.
In closing I would like to thank all of you out there who encouraged me to stay true to my goal and stood by my side. Of course I want to thank my wife Melissa for being the strongest woman on the face of the earth and putting up with my ass for 8 years now. Also big thanks to Zack Bryan, Brian Fogarty and Harold Shores for keeping me on track mentally and physically. Chow for now.
Nathan
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Get Up Off the Couch and Go
After many questions about my recent weight loss, I have decided to break down my story for everyone to see. First, let me back up to the beginning of my journey and put this whole picture in context for you. For a longtime I have been interested in getting into law enforcement. I entered school at Lakeland College in Mattoon, IL in the year 2002. While attending Lakeland, I took all the applicable courses in law enforcement and I kept up on any and all information that I possibly could regarding law enforcement. But there was one thing missing in my quest to becoming a police officer. That missing piece of the puzzle was motivation. I never had the motivation it would take to lose weight and get in shape to become a police officer.
So as I ballooned towards 300 lbs. I never really looked back towards the career that I had initially wanted to start. So as we fast forward to the year 2009, there was a turning point in my life that has catapulted me into a healthy existence. January 11, 2009, my wife and I had our friends, Zack and Heather Bryan over for dinner. Heather is a school teacher and Zack is a police officer for the City of Charleston in Illinois. After dinner, the girls talked about children while Zack and I fled to the family room to sit and talk. Now I have to be clear about something. Every time that Zack and I saw each other or hung out, I talked non-stop about police work and how much I would love to be a police officer. Zack would always tell me that I would make a fine cop and would just sort of leave the conversation at that. But this particular time on January 11 the conversation was a little different. As I started talking about law enforcement, as I did so much, Zach looked at me and stared with this sort of blank and annoyed look. I could completely tell that what I was talking about had run it's toll with him. Now he will never admit this, but he was tired of hearing me talk about a goal that I was not disciplined enough to reach. At that particular moment in my life, I decided that enough was enough. I wasn't going to stop short of a goal that I had set way back when. So on January 12, 2009, my journey in becoming a police officer and leading a healthy life began.
Eating lots of unhealthy food was my passion for many years. I could not think of many other things that made me so happy. My eating habits had become an obsession. I would eat at all hours of the day and not stop until I was miserable. I am sure some of you out there are reading this post and shaking your head in agreement. We have all been there. We have all eaten to the point that we are miserable and wish we hadn't shoved those last bites in our mouths. But for most people this behavior isn't an ongoing problem. For people like myself, it is a behavior that is very close to being uncontrollable. I knew that if I wanted to make a change in my life I was going to have to put forth the biggest effort I could to make this change. My first step was changing my diet.
Most people who change their diets for the better at some point in their lives end up falling backwards shortly into it for one reason. And the reason is ACCOUNTABILITY. When you are not accountable to anyone for your bad habits and your good habits, it is very easy to give up. So you may ask who I was accountable to. Well I was accountable to a website. Yes, believe it or not I joined an online site located at http://www.myfooddiary.com/. My food diary stores thousands of food items from restaurants and stores worldwide. It also allows you to plug in figures from the back of food labels and it tracks everything for you. After the initial evaluation of my body type, measurements and some other questions, I was set to roll on this program. So I plugged all my figures into food diary on a daily basis for 1 month straight. At the end of each day, the site would spit out a gob of information that was very useful. After 1 month of following this plan, I had reduced my body weight by 17 lbs. That did not include an ounce of exercise. All I had done was cut my caloric intake down to 22oo calories.
After this first month I was excited. I was so excited that I decided to do something I hadn't done in years. Exercise! Oh no! The dreaded E word. So I joined a gym. The first day that I arrived at the gym I felt out of place. So I hopped on the treadmill and I walked for a mile. It wasn't too bad I thought. The next day I decided to try my hand at jogging. So I cranked up the treadmill and away I went. Well my jogging was very short lived. I was completely exhausted after a short .10 mile. At that point I was very close to giving up, but something inside of me told me to keep going. So I did. I forced myself to stick with a light cardio workout program for 1 month. Although it was hell for the first week or so, I started to see results very quickly. The weight started to fall off and my endurance was improving daily. At the end of the first month I was at a point that I could run on a treadmill for 1 mile and bike for 2. When the first month was completed of cardio workout I had lost an additional 15 lbs. This was amazing results to me. I was now in a groove and excited to go to the gym. My workout has continued to progress since that first month. I am now running over 2 miles and could bike all day long. I have lost a total of 67 lbs since January 12. I credit self determination, but also my good ole buddy Zach Bryan for giving me a quiet kick in the backside.
In closing I would like to just like to tell all my friends that being healthy isn't just about trying to succeed at a new job or to feel better when you look in the mirror. It is also about being healthy for your family and ensuring that you prolong your life as long as possible. I hope you all can find some inspiration in my short story. Even if only one person gets up off the couch and goes, I will have completed my mission. But if everyone reading will dedicate a short time each day to exercise, I promise you will feel better. Good Day!
Nathan
So as I ballooned towards 300 lbs. I never really looked back towards the career that I had initially wanted to start. So as we fast forward to the year 2009, there was a turning point in my life that has catapulted me into a healthy existence. January 11, 2009, my wife and I had our friends, Zack and Heather Bryan over for dinner. Heather is a school teacher and Zack is a police officer for the City of Charleston in Illinois. After dinner, the girls talked about children while Zack and I fled to the family room to sit and talk. Now I have to be clear about something. Every time that Zack and I saw each other or hung out, I talked non-stop about police work and how much I would love to be a police officer. Zack would always tell me that I would make a fine cop and would just sort of leave the conversation at that. But this particular time on January 11 the conversation was a little different. As I started talking about law enforcement, as I did so much, Zach looked at me and stared with this sort of blank and annoyed look. I could completely tell that what I was talking about had run it's toll with him. Now he will never admit this, but he was tired of hearing me talk about a goal that I was not disciplined enough to reach. At that particular moment in my life, I decided that enough was enough. I wasn't going to stop short of a goal that I had set way back when. So on January 12, 2009, my journey in becoming a police officer and leading a healthy life began.
Eating lots of unhealthy food was my passion for many years. I could not think of many other things that made me so happy. My eating habits had become an obsession. I would eat at all hours of the day and not stop until I was miserable. I am sure some of you out there are reading this post and shaking your head in agreement. We have all been there. We have all eaten to the point that we are miserable and wish we hadn't shoved those last bites in our mouths. But for most people this behavior isn't an ongoing problem. For people like myself, it is a behavior that is very close to being uncontrollable. I knew that if I wanted to make a change in my life I was going to have to put forth the biggest effort I could to make this change. My first step was changing my diet.
Most people who change their diets for the better at some point in their lives end up falling backwards shortly into it for one reason. And the reason is ACCOUNTABILITY. When you are not accountable to anyone for your bad habits and your good habits, it is very easy to give up. So you may ask who I was accountable to. Well I was accountable to a website. Yes, believe it or not I joined an online site located at http://www.myfooddiary.com/. My food diary stores thousands of food items from restaurants and stores worldwide. It also allows you to plug in figures from the back of food labels and it tracks everything for you. After the initial evaluation of my body type, measurements and some other questions, I was set to roll on this program. So I plugged all my figures into food diary on a daily basis for 1 month straight. At the end of each day, the site would spit out a gob of information that was very useful. After 1 month of following this plan, I had reduced my body weight by 17 lbs. That did not include an ounce of exercise. All I had done was cut my caloric intake down to 22oo calories.
After this first month I was excited. I was so excited that I decided to do something I hadn't done in years. Exercise! Oh no! The dreaded E word. So I joined a gym. The first day that I arrived at the gym I felt out of place. So I hopped on the treadmill and I walked for a mile. It wasn't too bad I thought. The next day I decided to try my hand at jogging. So I cranked up the treadmill and away I went. Well my jogging was very short lived. I was completely exhausted after a short .10 mile. At that point I was very close to giving up, but something inside of me told me to keep going. So I did. I forced myself to stick with a light cardio workout program for 1 month. Although it was hell for the first week or so, I started to see results very quickly. The weight started to fall off and my endurance was improving daily. At the end of the first month I was at a point that I could run on a treadmill for 1 mile and bike for 2. When the first month was completed of cardio workout I had lost an additional 15 lbs. This was amazing results to me. I was now in a groove and excited to go to the gym. My workout has continued to progress since that first month. I am now running over 2 miles and could bike all day long. I have lost a total of 67 lbs since January 12. I credit self determination, but also my good ole buddy Zach Bryan for giving me a quiet kick in the backside.
In closing I would like to just like to tell all my friends that being healthy isn't just about trying to succeed at a new job or to feel better when you look in the mirror. It is also about being healthy for your family and ensuring that you prolong your life as long as possible. I hope you all can find some inspiration in my short story. Even if only one person gets up off the couch and goes, I will have completed my mission. But if everyone reading will dedicate a short time each day to exercise, I promise you will feel better. Good Day!
Nathan
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
The Old vs. The New
Greetings to all who have decided to take part in my motivational blog. My motivation level in recent years has been less than desirable. I feel that I can comfortably speak for many of my fellow man when I say that. Life is filled with road blocks, hurdles and disrespectful people, all of which can drag a person down on a daily basis. Unfortunately, many of us have had to learn life's lessons the hard way. Have you ever had to stop and ask yourself, why me? What have I done to cause my life to be a train wreck? Or maybe you have asked yourself, can anything else go wrong? We have all asked these questions. All these questions are answered in a similar way. The popular answer is I DON'T KNOW. I have learned over my 30 years of life that here in lies the problem. Most of us at some time throw in the towel and in a sense give up. I have fallen victim to that mind set quite a few times. But I made a self commitment on January 12, 2009 to change my views and take a different angle in living my life.
So you may ask, why January 12th? Well what started off as another attempt to talk myself into living a healthier life, quickly turned into a runaway freight train filled with sweat and tears, no blood yet. Tears? Yes! Do you know how hard it is to change your eating habits from 3000 to 4000 calories a day down to 1500 to 1800? It is a feat that most Americans can't achieve for more than a week or two at the most. I have been very close to falling off the wagon on more than a few occasions, but something inside me has kept me going. All too often I find myself asking the question, what is that inner something that has kept me going? And at first, my answer was just as it was to all my other life questions, I DON'T KNOW. But after a couple of months I am slowly uncovering clues to the correct answer.
I fully believe that the first clue has come by way of my spiritual life. Even though I have had a solid foundation in christian religion throughout my life, there was always something missing in the full equation. I finally realized that I was simply going through the motions within my spirituality and not taking the time to dig deeper within my heart. After my mother-in-law passed away in January of 2008, my wife and I decided to start our spiritual journey together. We knew that it was important for our children to have that same christian foundation that we had growing up. We in turn started attending weekend services at a local church. But simply attending church services again did not put myself on the path to spiritual righteousness. It wasn't until we started going through a nearly year long, in depth class on the teachings of Jesus Christ and his journey from conception through his presence in heaven that I really started to understand what my life means in the "big picture". Melissa and I have since completed our spiritual class, known as RCIA (Right of Christian Initiation) and joined our fellow christian family all around the world at the lords table for our first Holy Communion on Saturday, April 11th during the Easter Vigil at Immaculate Conception Church in Mattoon, IL. At the same time, we were officially welcomed into the Roman Catholic Church. This step in my life has been a very important one. Being able to look deep in your soul is very healthy and can answer many of the unanswered questions that you may be asking yourself.
The second clue in my life comes by way of my family. Now many will say, well that is an obvious choice. But for me it hasn't always been the obvious choice in my life. See, I have had my priorities mixed up for quite some time. Until recently I had always put my feelings and wants before my families. I have always seen my selfishness, but I was never willing to do anything about it. It is extremely difficult to change your life habits over night, especially after 30 years of being self centered. However, when I decided to make a lifestyle change in regards to my weight and health, I also made a commitment to put my family first. Now I must confess, I am nowhere close to being the father and husband that I want to be or should be. This is all part of my journey to become a better, more complete person. With all this being said, I have to give the most credit to my wife Melissa. She has to be one of the most patient people that I know. She has been by my side through every hair brained idea and every change of mind that I have had since we have been married. She is also a wonderful mother to our children. Melissa is just the opposite of me. She does not have one single selfish bone in her body. She spends every waking moment taking care of our children and doing a very good job of it. Our three boys, Liam, Jack and Owen keep her extremely busy. I often tell people that if I had to come up with a salary to pay Melissa, it would certainly rival that of the CEO of Exxon Mobile. I believe he makes somewhere in the neighborhood of four hundred million dollars each year. It does not come naturally to me to be a dedicated father and husband, but every time that one of my children looks me in the eyes and tells me that they love me, it is the most gratifying feeling a person can feel. Lately it takes every ounce of energy that I have in my body to not let a tear or two roll down my cheek at that point. If anyone reading this blog has any doubt about their family life, step back and take a good look at yourself and see if there is a change that you could make in your life to better it. Start by looking deep inside your heart and ask yourself the question, am I doing everything that I can to be that family oriented person that I should be? And I would encourage all of you that can honestly answer "yes" to that question to become a motivator to others. Teach others how to be that wonderful father, husband or wife. If we can all work together, society as a whole will benefit.
The second clue in my life comes by way of my family. Now many will say, well that is an obvious choice. But for me it hasn't always been the obvious choice in my life. See, I have had my priorities mixed up for quite some time. Until recently I had always put my feelings and wants before my families. I have always seen my selfishness, but I was never willing to do anything about it. It is extremely difficult to change your life habits over night, especially after 30 years of being self centered. However, when I decided to make a lifestyle change in regards to my weight and health, I also made a commitment to put my family first. Now I must confess, I am nowhere close to being the father and husband that I want to be or should be. This is all part of my journey to become a better, more complete person. With all this being said, I have to give the most credit to my wife Melissa. She has to be one of the most patient people that I know. She has been by my side through every hair brained idea and every change of mind that I have had since we have been married. She is also a wonderful mother to our children. Melissa is just the opposite of me. She does not have one single selfish bone in her body. She spends every waking moment taking care of our children and doing a very good job of it. Our three boys, Liam, Jack and Owen keep her extremely busy. I often tell people that if I had to come up with a salary to pay Melissa, it would certainly rival that of the CEO of Exxon Mobile. I believe he makes somewhere in the neighborhood of four hundred million dollars each year. It does not come naturally to me to be a dedicated father and husband, but every time that one of my children looks me in the eyes and tells me that they love me, it is the most gratifying feeling a person can feel. Lately it takes every ounce of energy that I have in my body to not let a tear or two roll down my cheek at that point. If anyone reading this blog has any doubt about their family life, step back and take a good look at yourself and see if there is a change that you could make in your life to better it. Start by looking deep inside your heart and ask yourself the question, am I doing everything that I can to be that family oriented person that I should be? And I would encourage all of you that can honestly answer "yes" to that question to become a motivator to others. Teach others how to be that wonderful father, husband or wife. If we can all work together, society as a whole will benefit.
The third and final component that I would like to talk about in this first of many sessions is networking and friendship. All, who are reading this have obviously taken part in the networking portion. Don't just network and leave it at that. Most of us are active members of social networking arenas such as, facebook, twitter, myspace, digg, etc. I enjoy very much seeing my friends on facebook outside of cyber space. I do feel a connection with each and every one of you. It is a great feeling to see one of my facebook buds out and about and say to them "hey I saw your status and how true is that". Little things such as status updates can really be motivating. I remember just a short time ago placing a status update about me losing 40 pounds. I never thought that it would spark the enormous response that it did. I had a ton of comments and encouraging words in regards to that little update. I also know that it has motivated a few of my friends to make changes in their lives and become serious about getting healthy. Friends are great to have and are necessary in keeping your sanity. I am in no way discounting family. Family is the most important, however fostering good friendships is therapeutic. I found a quote that I really found to be relevant within this message. It is quoted by a young lady named Kristina Kentigian. It is very simple and goes like this ""Friendship is the golden ribbon that ties the world together." This quote has a very powerful feeling behind it. Without each other we have no world in which to live in. So take a moment to reflect upon the friendships that you currently have and also take a look at the ones that with a little effort, could grow into fresh and blossoming friendships.
In closing I would like to thank all of you for reading this blog. It has become very important to me to be able to share my life stories and foster new friendships along the way. If I can motivate even one person through my life then I have done my job. I consider all of you to be my friends and I hope to stay in touch with all of you through my journey and yours as well. Feel free to share any thoughts or stories that you may have. I welcome all of them. Check back often, as I will be sharing videos, articles and my own publications to help motivate you. And together we will all stay on the right track.
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