darth

Hello everyone It is a long time since I posted here, I am still struggling with my weight loss, but I have changed many bad habits and lost about 20 pounds in the last couple of months, can’t really complain with that, what brings me here is something else, a new found fear. I am 27 years old, I studied business administration and a couple of finance post grad courses, worked in different industries for a while and then setup my family business, medical related, which is doing OK, we’ve been on this ship for a year and a half. Our business is not something I’m passionate about, and for the last couple of months it has been harder to get out of bed in the mornings, knowing that I have to come here every day to do something that isn’t myself, however I do it because it is for my family and we all will benefit from it. The only true passion I’ve had since I can remember is music, I play guitar and been in bands for over 10 years, getting slowly into recording and live show production, in a very empirical way. 2 weeks ago I received an e-mail from a music school here in Mexico where they announced the opening of a 2 years Music Production & Audio Engineering degree in Mexico City (1 hour drive from me), I was really interested and asked my family for their thumbs up to do it, since I need assistance with a part of the tuition and workload here in the family business. I honestly didn’t think that they were going to say yes, but guess what, they did! They support me completely in chasing this dream of mine and are 100% behind me. However, this is where my fear kicks in. Earlier today I made the first tuition payment and all is ready for me to start courses Aug 20th, however, after leaving the bank where I made the deposit I started to feel this huge fear building up inside of me. These are the things that are going trough my mind right now “27 and you are going to start studying a 2 year degree in something that in´t the traditional way of making money?†“Shouldn’t you be more worried in making money?†“That is kind of childish don’t you think?†Anyway, the classes are from 8am to 2 pm so I will still have time to do my share of the work here, but I can’t shut up this little voice that is telling me I am making a huge mistake with this, I would love to have your opinions on the matter, maybe I will find some enlightment in this. Thank you

Hello everyone, sorry for the lack of updates, its been some rough days for me I was on track for my goals but last weeks I dislocated my shoulder (for the 10th time since 2006), and bruised my knee really hard and cant really walk, run, swim or do anything for a couple of weeks. Tomorrow I am going to try to use the eliptical trainer, but chances are I am not going to last long. I am keeping my food consuption controlled and hopefully my challenge wont suffer that much. Cheers

Hey everyone, I feel sorry for asking this but how does this squad thing works? Im guessing we all have similar goals and were grouped to share it? Cheers

Oh man, this week kicked my ass. It was pretty busy at work, getting my workouts, taking dancing classes for the first time ever and quitting smoking. It´s 11:48 PM on Sunday and this is the first time that I get to check this since Tuesday. Tomorrow I will weight myself and share the rest of the improvements but for now I need to sleep. Its awesome to be on the squad, will be reporting tomorrow first thing. Cheers Everyone

Hello Plex, everyone Sorry for the lack of updates, I been having a very busy week, I get to my home at 10 pm and go straight to bed, but I am doing ok with the smoking, right now my allowance is 4 cigs a day and I am keeping to it, the downside is that my hunger is getting bigger. I dont know if its a smoking thing but I am hungry all day long, specially in the evenings, I am trying hard to control this by eating healhy but its getting hard. However my strenght is stil the same, I am still convinced this is just the pain that needs to go away to get to somewhere better and no matter how hard it gets I will keep going. Hustling beyond forever. It sometimes get hard to keep track of it here on the forums, so I wanted to ask if anyone is up for helping me in a more personalized way, maybe by email so I can continue to keep track of everything, because the next couple of weeks are going to be even thougher, since next week I cut down to 1 cig and the next to 0. If anyone is able to help it would be really appreciated, just throw me a PM with your e mail and I´ll do the rest. Cheers!

12.04 Update Well, yesterday was a rough day, some things I wont go into happened but I had to postpone the start of the challenge for today. No worries, it´s just one day. Well, I weighted myself this morning and I my current weight is 233 pounds. So it´s 13 to lose for me in these 6 weeks, I think is a pretty conservative goal but if I get to lose more it will be even better. Tonight I will do my bodyweight exercises, plus, I signed up for dancing lessons with my girlfriend, so that should help too. Will keep you posted. Cheers

Hello everyone, I joined the forum recently and have taken interest in leading a healthier life. I have changed in many ways but I still need to accomplish a lot in order to be a better self for myself and those around me, so, here are my objectives for this next few weeks. Fitness Related: 1.- Get to 220 punds I am currently weighting about 233 (tomorrow I will weight myself and have an exact number) and 220 pounds is the lightest I´ve been in the last 5 years. I wanna go back to that and keep it. Registering every meal on the livestrong diet plan and eating completely healthy food every day of the week. 2.- Bodyweight fitness I am going to do the begginers bodyweight circuit 4x a week, with special attention to push ups, I am going to finish this challenge doing 50 push ups without breaks ( I currently get to 26-28) 3.- No more smokes I am at the halfpoint of my quitting program, I am now smoking 5 cigs a day (started with 12) and feeling great about it. It´s getting hard but I am sure I can make it. I will make it Personal Goal I am going to control my temper with those around me, with the quitting and dieting I can be a real asshole sometimes. I will control that and learn to channel my anger in a healthy way. Keeping a diary and registering what triggers this mood changes will help me accomplish this. Well, this is it. This are my goals, any suggestions or revisions are welcomed. PS I dont know if megalodonian is really a word, but in case is is not, this quest is so awesome it deserves it´s own word. Cheers

Hey everyone, just letting you all know I´m doing great in my quitting process. Im following my program and things are getting better each day. Sometimes the cravings are really hard to battle but I find myself learning to better deal with them as each day passes. Im going to move my quitting journal to the challenge forum, so your support will be needed because I am algo going to be battling weight lose, should be some fun weeks for sure. Thank you everyone Cheers

Hey sumdawg, I´m on track with the quitting, my allowance or today was 6 cigs, tomorrow it will be 5 and you bet I am followin my program. Friday is always a hard day because I have band practice and it always triggers the smoking nerves (I guess one of the reasons I started smoking was seeing Keith Richards all cool and almighty with a cig hanging from his mouth playing that beautiful Telecaster of his, but now I´m convinced he´s from another planet so that no longer a reason to do it, plus, I play a Les Paul) but there is no excuses, I will go through it just as the last days. I also noticed I am swimming harder and faster, I dont know if its just my imagination or some effect to the reduced smoking but I feel more energized and I´m freaking loving it. These last few days my battle song has been Damage Inc by Metallica, I think the lyrics fit extremely well with my mindset these days and it gets me really pumped up Thanks for your support and let´s keep hustling. "Living on your knees, conformity or dying on your feet for honesty" Never on my knees for anything ever again, no crappy jobs, no crappy girlfriends, no life robbing cigs and no unhealthy living Cheers

I am really overwhelmed with all your comments, all your help is fuel to keep this fire for living a better life burning strong. Plex, I loved this line you wrote "Remember, it CAN be done. Every day you are constantly proving to both yourself and world, you are BETTER then these cigarettes." It´s not printed and hanging in my office, thank you so very much. Well, yesterday I continued to fight the cravings and ended up having just one mor cig before going to bed, I think that will be the hardest one to quit. Today my program is to smoke just 6 for the day, I had one in the morning and just about it, I went swimming and did it specially strong, I think it was because I needed to mentally counter the effect of that cig. Ended up exhausted and no smoking since then, your advice does work. The path to a better life is now clear. With the help of technology and my fellow rebels I will turn into a better me. Thank you for everything and let´s keep it going strong beyond forever. Cheers

Thanks everyone for their words, everytime I´ve had a craving today I read them and the craving begins to fade, it´s already 3:17 pm and I have only had 1 cig and feeling very good about today. Just to put it in perspective, at this hour I already had like 6 cigs a month ago, so its a great achievement for me, thank you everyone. Alethea, I took in consideration the 10 minutes alone thing and how it serves as a release from the daily tension and I have been taking some sun, putting headphones on and playing one song and really focus on it. Focus on the guitars, bass lines, drums, get lost in it. This has kept the urges back by focusing all my attention in my other addiction, which is music. I was going to post that I was going to smoke but now I´ve lost the craving for it thanks to posting this. I am happy and on a great track to kick the cigs. I feel good! Cheers

Thanks Cap and Sumdawg, I am sure I will be able to quit smoking, My motivation is a better life and a healthy body, this is a change I need to make Got stressed a couple of minutes ago because of some work I´m doing and cant put the urges down, I´m going to have the 6 and final cig of the day. 2 under my allowance!

Thank you both for your comments, they give me a lot of strenght Well, Im having the 5th cig for the day, generally I relate this hour to a cig, It gets kind of slow in my business and I get mad cravings, been holding em off for an hour and a half, another time I would have had about 3 cigs so I feel really good about bringing it to just one. 5.04.11 5/8 5:30 PM

Hello everyone, I recently joined the forum and I want to ask for some of your help in what is turning to be one of the hardest things I´ve tried lately: Quit smoking I am following the Livestrong My Quit Coach program and I´m in the 3rd week, started smoking about 14 cigs a day and I´m down to 8, this week I should finish in 5 cigs a day. It´s getting difficul, my goal is to quit completely by April 30 so I got another couple of weeks left. I am convinced I need support for this so thats what I´m asking all of you brothers and sisters to give me a hand with. From this very moment I will post on this tread before I have a smoke, so I can be kept accountable and I can track my reasons to smoke and keep bringing the daily smokes down to 0 where it belongs. Thanks you for reading this and thanks for any support you can give Cheers

Thank you Knight & Bear, it´s good to be here for sure. And Alethea (I love your nick BTW), I have he will to make the changes needed to live a better life and I believe the support of all you brothers and sisters will help quite a bit. Now, for strenght training, I played football back in high school and college (I´m from Mexico BTW) and I know my way around the gym, however I have a real screwed up shoulder from a training injury, it keeps poping out whenever I try to seriously come back to lifting weight, so, I decided to give body weight a try. I have been doing push ups and crunches for the last 2 weeks, about 250 of each weekly, but I will get more serious about it and try my luck with different exercises. Any advice on what should I try first? Cheers