Self-Improvement

Separation is obviously never an easy thing to deal with.  Your life, schedule and routines suddenly are thrown up in the air and you try your best to juggle all the things that used to seemingly fit perfectly together.  In that struggle to find a new balance I was faced with one task that I never thought would ever be an issue in life.  Eating alone.  

Initially on those nights I didn't have William I would come home from work and walk around the kitchen thinking of things to make for supper but then putting it off until around 9pm and by then I was starving and would eat just about anything.  That led me to eat easy things that wouldn't create any left overs and  were higher calorie foods.  And I easily put on weight.

Finally in the spring of this year, I had had enough.  I knew that for no one other than myself and my self esteem I needed to get my eating back on track and lose the excess weight.  I needed to feel better about myself because I was healing in other areas and needed to be the best Jeff I could be right now.

And what did I turn to?  A diet.  Not a don't eat carb, only eat meat diet, but specifically "The Abs Diet" from David Zinczenko, Editor-in-Chief of Men's Health Magazine.  I had seen things online about this diet before and decided that I was going to give it an honest try.  And it's not really a diet, it's more guidelines of what to eat, and workout plans to help you get real results in 6 weeks.  

The "diet" basically has you eating from twelve power food groups six times a day.  This way you're constantly fueling the fire and the exercise plans combine ab workouts, weight training workouts and interval cardio training.  That all sounds like a lot but you only have to commit to 3 workouts a week and really anyone can do that.  And the only real equipment you need is a set of simple weights, actually, it even provides alternatives that don't require weights for most exercises.

I committed to the six weeks.  I did a minimum of three workouts a week and ate the power foods, except for my cheat meal on weekends and within six weeks I lost 15lbs.  Fast forward thru the summer, and I kept up most of the eating habits and tried to get in my three workouts but without complete success and I'm happy to report I'm down a total of 25lbs.  Basically, I currently weight at 33 what I did when I was 23.  Never thought I could say that but it's true.

Now I still don't have abs and realistically never will, but I definitely lost a lot of belly fat, I have some definition in my arms and little things like having clearer skin were all benefits of this "diet".  And now that it's September and life will slow down a bit I plan on getting back to it hard core for another six weeks and see what new level I can reach... plus knowing that I'm heading south in the spring and will be dating are good motivators as well.

Before (nice double-chin action)

Skinnier yet slightly older version