When we moved to West Ashley, we did not know much about this part of Charleston.  One day I decided I needed some “me time”, and I decided to explore our neighborhood.  That included driving to the end of Wappoo Rd just to see what is there.  That is where I discovered “My Happy Place”.  I discovered that this place was called “My Happy Place”, because of my check in on FourSquare.  For those of you that might not know, FourSquare is a location based GPS app, that you can install on your iPad or iPhone, that allows you to share your travels with others.  As I checked in there, I looked around and understood why someone named it that.

It is good to have a peaceful place to go, where you can by by yourself, or with a loved one.  Katy and I often get lunch, and then drive over to this location, and sit by the water and enjoy the sights and sounds of nature.  It is good to listen to the water lapping up against the rocks, and to visit with the occasional seagull or blackbird that comes close to the vehicle, looking for a free hand out. I have found that it is important to find a “Happy Place” where you can find peace and solitude and become one with nature.  Life is too full of tasks and goals that consume all of our time.  

Where is your Happy Place?  Where do you go to enjoy “me time”?  Do you go there by yourself or do you share it with a loved one? 

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One of the ways I am going to lose 1 lb. per week is to go to Planet Fitness five days a week.  I am going to shorten my work outs to one hour and focus on aerobic exercise for half of that time and then circuit training for the rest of the time.  In the past I have been going three times per week and spending 90 min to 2 hours and then skipping a day in between work outs.  In 2012 I am going to step it up and do more focused work outs. 

One of the ways I am going to lose weight is by disciplining myself not to eat those things that I know will cause me to put on weight and not lose it.  I am going to do my best to stay away from breads, pasta, rice, potatoes, sugar, chocolate, sweets.  I am going to eat wraps instead of sandwiches on bread.  I am going to try to drink more water during the day and less Diet Dr. Pepper or Coke Zero Cherry.  It took me a year and a half to get away from the sugary soda pop so I have met a goal in that regard.  I also need to eliminate snacking late at night when I am on the Internet or watching the idiot box.  If I need to snack it will be sunflower seeds.  That is something that meets the psychological need to cram something in my mouth and is very low in calories. 

Exercise is work but it is the best thing you can do for yourself.  Love yourself by eating better and getting more exercise in 2012.  We all need encouragement to do better in this area.  I want to encourage you to make a commitment to yourself and to me to stop making excuses.  Start over in 2012 and do what you need to do to be a better, thinner and more healthier you.  You can do it!!

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If you are like me, you are able to answer yes to some of those questions, and some of them are reminding you of areas of improvement. I believe that I struggle in some areas because I struggle with self discipline. It is not for the lack of knowledge that I struggle. I know what I must do. The hardest part of doing something is making a commitment and following through with it. Doing it no matter what. Having a “nothing will get between me and my goals so help me Jesus” attitude.

Having a positive mental attitude and believing you can do it goes a long way. Setting reasonable goals that are achievable is important. Understanding our limits and pushing ourselves to excel past those limits will keep us motivated. Losing weight, building stamina and strength are all important things to consider.

My goal today is to lose 26 pounds by the end of this year. I know I can do it because I have been working hard at the list of questions I asked earlier. I am learning how to make adjustments in my life so I can enjoy healthy living. One baby step at a time. One good decision at a time. I must commit to a lifestyle change.

What are your healthy living goals and what obstacles are standing in your way? You may be surprised to find out that all of us share in these obstacles. Together we can push past the obstacles, get back into the battle and find victory as we work towards our goals. You CAN DO IT!!

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If you are like me you have had some days that were just horrible.  The kind of day that made you want to crawl into bed into a fetal position and just die.  I am happy to say that the good days like I am having today seems to make those days pale in comparison.  I am having an awesome day today and I thought that I would share some of the sunshine with the rest of you.  No, they did not increase my medications and the only meds I am on is blood pressure medicine so that is not the reason.

I am having such a beautiful day because I am somehow in touch with the many things I have in my life that is such a blessing.  I was just thinking a moment ago about how nice it is to have a job on a resort island.  How many people get to drive to a resort island every single day of the week?  How many people can go for a walk down to the beach during lunch and experience the crashing waves coming on shore?  How many people can step out of their office and see deer, raccoons and hear the waves crashing on shore behind their office?

It is hard to believe that 2010 will be in the history books in 2 more days.   This year has been somewhat difficult for us financially thanks to the downturn of the economy and me being the only one working.  The positive part of the economy and our budget is that we have been forced to redefine what our wants are and our needs and budget accordingly and live with less.  In our society and especially in the western world it can be very difficult to live frugally when you are tempted at every nook and corner to buy this or that new gizmo.  The marketing ads are very successful in driving people to separate from their hard earned cash.

This is a beautiful day not because I have lots of cool stuff from Santa Claus or lots of money.  This is a beautiful day because there is a lot of beautiful sunshine outside and because some of that sunshine has leaked into my heart.  This is a beautiful day because I have an awesome family who loves me and who I try to love back every single day.  It is a beautiful day because of my church family both online and offline and all of my friends as well.   This is a beautiful day because I am alive and my family is relatively healthy and we have a place to live and food to eat and clothes to wear.  I have to remind myself that no matter how bad we may think we have it there are folks right here in our own city who don’t know where their next meal is coming from.  There are folks in our city all around us that are fighting with depression or are in prison or the hospital.

This is a beautiful day because I survived one more year of living and might even get to live another year in 2011.  I will have an opportunity to look back at 2010 and learn from my mistakes and set achievable goals for 2011 and work towards them.  My goals for 2011 are very simple.   I want to continue to go to the gym three to four times per week and get myself into shape and lose weight.   I started my healthy living routine in earnest back in June of 2010 and I have seen some very good results.  I want to use that as a spring board in 2011 to continue seeing results.   There is no better present to oneself or ones family than healthy living.  When I say healthy living I mean good eating habits, regular exercise and balanced living.  I could probably write a book just on that last sentence and maybe in 2011 I will try to break all of that down and blog about it more.

Tonight I will bask in the joy of this being a beautiful day because I will be meeting up with some of my social media peeps in North Charleston as we help the HugTrain get started out of Charleston.  According to the website “The HugTrain is a rail trip organized by Arie Moyal, taking him around the USA spreading holiday cheer and raising funds & awareness about mental health one hug at a time.”

I was not aware of this until Andra Watkins wrote about this on her blog and my wife and I have decided we want to support this cause in our own small way.  I am hoping that each of us can donate whatever we are able to donate and get this HugTrain started across the country with a bang.   I understand that with this economy that most of us can not give much.  The important thing is that we give something if only our support this evening by giving and receiving hugs in North Charleston at  the Madra Rua Irish Pub in North Charleston starting at 7 pm.

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 James Moffitt

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Compared to a lot of folks in this world I am living a dream.  I am married to a wonderful woman who has given me some of the best years of my life.  I am amazed that she has not changed the locks or moved away and not given me her forwarding address.  I am not sure I would have put up with me for all of these 21 years and because of that I am extra thankful for my “Gizmo” who has endured my personality and shortcomings. 

I have been blessed to have a career in the I.T. industry for the last 21 years and that I can always seem to find a job that pays fairly decent.  We have always had a roof over our heads and food to put on the table.  We have two vehicles to drive and two wonderful teenagers living at home with us.  I could write a book about what it is like to live in the same house with two teenagers.  Seeing as that is out of the scope of this blog post I will say that while they can drive me out of my mind at times over all they are very good children. 

I am thankful for my friends that I have met through social media online and through the local “meetups” and “tweetups”.  I am not a social butterfly and I tend to steer away from events that thrust me into the midst of any size crowd with lots of other humans.  Twitter, FaceBook and local events have enabled me to move away from my security bubble and to expand my horizons. If it were not for some of the people I have met online I would probably be a recluse.  My heart felt thanks goes out to those of you who know who you are but will remain nameless in this blog post.

I am thankful that in the last 5 months I have seen some progress in my being the biggest loser in my family.  I have lost close to 45 lbs and have lost 3 inches in my waist line.  My pants are already getting too big for me even though I just had them taken in 2 inches.  This is very exciting for me because I have spent the last 10 years being so depressed about how bad my self image was and how it was affecting my ability to go out in public and be around other people.

This is November 2010 and Thanksgiving Holidays are just around the corner which means I will possibly celebrate another birthday on the 27th.  That means that I will be 49 years young and the BIG 50 is right around the corner.  I think that means that I am getting to the top of the proverbial hill and that next year I will begin the decent into my second childhood.  I hope and pray that the decent into my second childhood will be delayed for quite a few years to come and that I can experience good mental and physical health while I am doing it.  With all of that said, we all have a lot to be thankful for and I am hopeful that each of us will take the time to step back and reflect on the many blessings that we do have all around us.  

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  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 James Moffitt

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Different diets and different forms of exercise will work for different people. God made us all different and because of that not every diet or specific exercise will work for us. I would also like to say that if your goal is to look like the hard bodied people that you see in all of the TV or magazine ads then you are setting yourself up for failure.

Weight loss is a lot of work. Let me say this again for those of you that are hoping I really did not say it. Weight loss is a lot of work. There are no magical diets that are going to melt away the pounds and keep them off for a life time. Yes, there are weight loss diets out there that will take the weight off. The million dollar question for you is will you be willing to stay on that particular diet for the rest of your life? If you are not willing to do that then the unwanted pounds will come back to haunt you just as soon as you fall off the diet bandwagon.

Your desire to lose weight needs to be something deeper than just how you look. Sure, we all want to look good and have people admire us. If the truth were to be known we also probably want to feel good about ourselves and be healthy. Whatever the reasons for our desire to lose weight it has to come from within and you might as well quit waiting on someone else to hold you accountable. You have to want to change your life and do it yourself for your own reasons. Some of us need more motivation and accountability than others but the majority of the motivation will have to be in your heart and mind and soul.

Weight loss is work both mentally, physically and spiritually. Weight loss encompasses every single fiber of your being. I say that because weight loss affects every part of your life. Weight loss has to be a life change. One day you look in the mirror and you say to yourself, I want to look different and I want to feel different. My motivation for losing weight is to become healthier and to live longer so I can enjoy more years of life with my wife and children. I want to feel healthy and be able to have increased mobility and physical ability. I used to play basketball as a sport when I was younger and loved it. I have had to give up that sport in the last 20 years thanks to obesity.

I have had to make some very tough choices. I have had to determine in my heart that I am going to do whatever it takes to lose weight. That means that I eat less food and I am learning how to eat healthier. I am also relearning the importance of regular exercise. At this time I am working out every other day. I started at the end of June 2010 and I joined Planet Fitness at Citadel Mall. My goal is to eat better, eat less and get enough exercise to lose one pound per week. Thus far I have met or exceeded that goal and I am seeing a difference in how I feel and how my clothes are fitting. It is nice to talk to people and have them mention to me that I am losing weight and that they can tell. More importantly I feel so much better. My blood pressure is under control and I have much more energy than I have had in a long time. My mobility has started to increase to where I can do things physically that I have not been able to do in a long time.

Yes, I have seen some success but the battle is not over. Every day is a new day and I have to remind myself that while I have had some small victories over obesity in my life I still have 100 lbs to lose. I am determined to face this battle head on every single day until I reach my goal. When I first started going to the gym I counted the days. At the outset that was important for me to count the days so that I could give myself the encouragement to keep on doing it. I would say to myself, ok, I have been to the gym and this is day 6 so if I can go six times then surely I can go to day 7 and so on and so forth. I have quit counting days and I am now just trying to live one day at a time and I am slowly but surely making healthy eating and exercise a regular part of my life. Thus far it is working and I am happy about that.

One of the things that I have seen that has really kick started my metabolism and helped me to start shedding some pounds and keep it off is aerobic exercise. Planet Fitness is a “judgement free zone” which means that it is not a typical gym where all the jocks hang out and all the fat people are afraid to show themselves in there for the fear of being ridiculed. You will find different people of all different shapes and sizes and varying degrees of fitness or obesity as in my case.

The important thing is that we are there doing something to make a change in how we look and feel. We are there to exercise and leave our fat cells behind. I get sort of tickled when I see the folks who come in there with their make up on and jewelry and get on the treadmill for 15 minutes and never break a sweat. If you are not going to the gym to “work” that body and break a good sweat then you are not getting an aerobic work out and therefore you are wasting your time.

I know that sounds judgmental so please forgive me if it sounds that way. The bottom line is this, the weight is not going to come off if you are not willing to work at it. The weight does not get on over night and it will not come off over night. It takes a lot of determination and will power and prayer and sweat to make it come off and stay off. I say this because the work I have been doing has not always been fun or easy. The hardest part of my day is when I throw my body onto the elliptical trainer and start running on it. I am very thankful that there is the ability to listen to my favorite radio station and that when they play the right songs I have a beat to run to. That helps me to tune out my body who is screaming at me to please stop. My flesh would rather that I not get out of bed and would rather stay there sleeping until 8 am if it could. I have to force myself to go to the gym and do this whether my body wants to or not. The good thing is that it is getting easier and easier for me to go. I am starting to get to the point where I look forward to going and that is a good thing.

Weight loss is work but it is work that will reap a lot of short term and long term benefits that will last you a life time. The work that I do today and tomorrow and six months from now at Planet Fitness will help me to increase the quality and quantity of my life in the future. I challenge anyone reading this blog that is struggling to get going to be encouraged and know that you can do it. I know this because if I can do it you can do it. If you have any questions or need encouragement feel free to contact me at chiefpropellerhead@comcast.net.

If you live local to the Charleston SC area and you need someone that can help you be accountable and work out with you then feel free to give me a shout and we can do that. Planet Fitness costs 10.00 per month with no contract. I don’t think you will find anything more economical than that folks.

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Once I am done with the hard part which is the elliptical trainer then I cool down for a spell and allow my heart rate to lower and then I hit the weight machines. Yesterday I tried out the torso machine for the first time with about 40 lbs. The left side of my abdomen seems a bit sore today which means I worked a muscle set that is not used to getting that kind of exercise. I work my upper and lower body with assorted different machines and then I do the bench press and free weights for the curls.

What are some of the benefits other than the weight coming off? My goal is to lose 1 lb per week and thus far I am losing between 1 lb and 3 lbs per week. One of the benefits is that I have lost 2 inches on my waist and my pants are fitting much loser. I figure when I lose another 5 to 10 lbs I am going to be forced to take all my big pants to the cleaners and have them reduce the waist size by 2 inches. I am looking forward to doing that.

Another benefit of regular exercise and eating right is that I feel so much better. I have more energy, my blood pressure is much lower than it used to be and my mobility has increased. My left knee no longer hurts, I can get up and down out of my recliner at home with much less hassle and I can climb the steps on the boardwalk at work without having to hold on to the side rails as much.

I am noticing that as I focus on getting regular exercise and try to build some muscle and cardiovascular endurance that I no longer want to eat garbage. At lunch I go to the general store next door and get their chef salad which is the only healthy thing they have. They have a lunch line where they sell fried chicken and french fries to all the contractors on the island. They have other fried things that is no longer of interest to me because I know that I know it is not good for me to eat and only leads to adding pounds to the body.

I hate the word diet because it reminds me of all the times that I half heartedly tried to “diet” so I am going to use the terminology “eating habits”. I am trying to retrain my mind to realize that if I eat garbage I am going to look like garbage and feel like garbage. Now that I am serious about my regular exercise I no longer feel like garbage and I can feel my body responding to the exercise nicely. When a person feels good it is so much easier to motivate one self to do the harder things such as increasing the work out time etc. My goal is to not eat fried foods and other things such as those foods that are “white” such as mashed potatoes, potatoes in general, rice, pastas etc. I am trying to stick to lean meats and veggies during supper time and at lunch I eat a salad and breakfast which is my worst offender I eat a breakfast burrito. I try to stay away from the biscuit with sausage egg and cheese. I will have one of those per week but that is it.

One other thing that I need to do more of that I am struggling with is to drink more water. I have gotten away from the sugary sodas and now drink either Diet Dr Pepper or Coke Zero Cherry. I need to drink 8 glasses of water per day and I struggle with that. At work I have a 2 quart container in my refrigerator in my office and I have sugar free drink packets that flavor the water so it makes it easier to consume. I guess the mind set is that if the taste is good then I will consume it. I need to get better at drinking that 2 quarts of water each day and only have the canned drink for lunch.

I hope that my blogging about my personal journey as I lose weight will encourage someone else. I weigh 340 lbs so I am no small person. I am six foot tall and big boned so I carry the weight well. At the gym the other day someone guessed me at 280 lbs. I am looking forward to the day that I am 280 lbs and I know that if I keep up the hard work and be consistent then I can get there. I can do it and so can you.

One of the things I love about Planet Fitness is that it is not your typical gym atmosphere where all of the jocks and hard bodies get together and laugh at the fat out of shape people that might wander in. I have seen people that are in shape at Planet Fitness and I have seen people that appear to be in worse shape than I am. The important thing is that we are there trying to make a difference. What is the cost for membership? You pay 10.00 per month and you have access to 90% of what they offer. Full membership is 20.00 per month and neither plan requires a contract. If you need to take time off because of illness or injury you can stop paying and then when you are ready to go back just pick up where you left off.

I know that I have said that one of the benefits of regular exercise and changing my eating habits is that I feel so much better. I feel stronger and more confident. My main goal is weight loss and my motivation for doing this is to increase the quality of my over all health. I have no desire to become Mr Universe even though I did dream last night that I was invited to be a part of that program. I do desire to live a longer and more healthy life so I can be around for my family. One of the wake up calls for me has been to realize that there are not very many old obese people around. The reality of this issue is that if I do not do this now at this point in my life I am a candidate for heart attack and stroke. Both of those events could be life ending or crippling in so many ways. I really do not care to reap those consequences nor do I want my family to witness it or experience the aftermath of those events with me either.

As I say in my accountability forum on Battle Plan Ministries I am starting over every single day. Every day is a new day and I have the ability to chose to eat right and get exercise. It is my choice and I can make the right choice every single day. I invite you to start your own journey and to do the right things. If I can do this any one can do this. The choice is yours.

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