The Value Of Earning

Where the Hell has Smitty been?

By the gods, if Andy has time to post on this blog, but none of the rest of us, something is really askew.

Well, folks, truth be told, I'm doing a bit of terraforming.  I got sick and tired of being thick and heavy.  218 is fun and all, but I wasn't running after my kids, I was lumbering.  It was time to lose weight.  Time to change my diet.  Time to change my workouts.  Time to feel what it's like to fucking earn something again.

In late January, I started crossfit training and following the Mastering The Zone diet.  I read the Zone book, downloaded on my Nook app, in a weekend.  Easy.  It's a simple way to put proteins and carbs in an equilibrium commensurate with your goals.  Folks, I can eat whatever I want!  It's about portion and focus.  It is simple.  And crossfit?  Hells yes.  Cardio lifting.  Lifting cardio.  It's chock-full of brand new exercises every day you lift.  Nothing's the same.  And people, it is hard.  Hand-stand push-ups.  70-pound kettlebell swings. Suspended push-ups.  Burpees.  On and on, every day, a list of random, difficult exercises meant to push your heart rate high for prologed periods, boost your metabolism, and train your body to meet any physical challenge.  Crossfit reminds me of boot camp, honestly.  Same stuff.

Then, I discovered Insanity.  Holy Thor's Hammer.  It is a 60-day cardio-plyo workout routine.  Jumping, running, push-upping, squatting in an inverted manner from normal exercise routines, i.e. instead of 30 seconds to 1 mintue of intense training followed by 2-3 minutes of rest, it's the opposite.  Heart rate at 170 for 3 minutes, 30 seconds rest.  Repeat for 40 minutes.  28 days of phase 1, 6 days of some yoga, 28 days of phase 2.  I am currently in my last week of phase 1.  It remains as it started:  a bitch.  I can just do more and last longer each time.

Odin's eyeball, I feel good.  I have lost 12 pounds.  12 pounds!  I have 10 more pounds to go.  Eating right, in perfect proportion, and exercising the way I am, I feel energetic.  Folks, I no longer want a nap at 2:30 in the afternoon.  I want to run a dead fucking sprint around downtown Lansing.  I like to race the elevator in buildings now.  I have all this energy now.  I smile when it's time to pop in the Insanity DVD.  It's gonna hurt but man I eat it up and laugh when I'm panting on the floor.  I got sick with a cold last week; at my worst, I still had more energy than my colleagues did after a day of rest.  When someone asks me how I feel, I want to go all Marine on them: I want to grab them by the lapels and scream in their faces AAAAAAAAAAAH!  Which is Marine for "I feel really good, thanks."

Do I still drink beer? Of fucking course.  I just know it, and mod my diet as I need to to make it fit.  Steak?  Burgers?  Yeah!  This ain't all rabbit food and fucking salmon, folks.  But it is healthy choices.

And honestly, after nearly 8 weeks of eating right...i don't even want to eat like a fucking asshole anymore.  I don't.  I don't miss burgers-and-fries every fucking day, because now it makes me feel like shit. Maybe once in a while as a reward, I'l do it.  I'l take part of the bun off.  Whatever.  I'll have steak this weekend, but for Loki's wings, I don't need all 16 ounces!  I. Don't.  Miss it.  And people...I feel better than I have in a decade.  Weight is sloughing off of me.  My energy is starting to annoy Mrs. Smitty.  My kids eat it UP.

And folks, I feel like I am earning something again.  Just today, I passed a TV with CNN on, and they were discussing this stupid asshole new diet where people feed themselves via a feeding tube for 10 days t lose weight.

That is fucking asshole bullshit.  They'll gain it back.  Unsustainable.  But me?  Fuck that.  Every fucking pound has sweat and discipline behind it.  Every pound was earned and I ain't done earning yet.  Just like boot camp:  my boots, my cammies, my uniforms, my haircuts, my pride, my strength, my new identity...each piece of what eventually made me a Marine was earned week by week through sweat and discipline.  I lost that feeling.  I was pathetic.  I looked for excuses to be tired and grumpy and lazy.  Eating poorly and acting like an entitled asshole became crutches.

No.  More.

Now my body and mind remember.  They remember discipline and pain and breakthrough.  And they love it.  I love it.

You'll notice a slew of norse pantheon references.  Why?

Because I feel like a fucking Viking.  Eating right, searingly-difficult exercises...I want to wear a horned helmet and bash things with an axe.  People, I'm a dinosaur. Rawr.  Teeth.  Stomp around, eat a small mammal.  Wear a horned helmet, smash with axe.  I'm a Viking dinosaur.  Rawr.  AAAAAH!

How abut YOU?  Do you want to be a dinsosaur?  Do YOU want to be a VIKING??  DO YOU WANT TO BE A VIKING DINOSAUR??