Defiantone.com

I’ve been on a quest - a quest to regain some of my youth. In particular, I’ve been trying to get rid of weight that I shouldn’t have been carrying around in the first place. When I left the states I was carrying 195lbs on my 5′11 frame. To put that in terms of a BMI I was a whopping 27.2 - I was overweight - and I wasn’t far from what they consider obese. Today I am a svelte 165lbs and with a “normal” BMI of 23. I haven’t been at this weight since I was 20 (I’m almost 27)

The last five pounds went when I gave up one more thing. I gave up Gatorade. Sure, Gatorade tastes great (I swear to god they aren’t paying me for this) and it replaces lost salt but it has calories. Each bottle contained something like 230 calories - I was going through two of them a day. I ended up drinking another bottle or two of water - a drink that is devoid of calories.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do when I go home. I know that if I go back to my old habits I’m going to have to work three times as hard to stay at this weight. I had a soda a few weeks ago and I thought I was going to go into sugar shock - maybe, just maybe, I can figure out moderation. I’ve been able to do it with my meals and I have been able to cut out snacks - snacks are simply food that I really don’t need. I allow myself something sweet (cookies or ice cream) about three times a week and I’ve found that watching the portion size has really helped me reach my goal. Gone are the days when I use the “shovel” method to crap heaping mounds of ice cream into a bowl. I always felt ill after eating that much - I think that I’ve finally figured out how to listen to the signals my body is sending me.

If I can do it, you can do it. Its going to be hard and you’ve got to manage your portion sizes and get to the gym. Sure, you can try diet alone but your progress is going to crawl at a snails pace.

I’ve been crashing the last few days for some unexplained reason. I’m not driving vehicles into solid objects but rather experiencing my body deplete its energy reserves. Last night, about an hour before chow I noticed that I was having an extremely hard time concentrating. Little bits of time were disappearing and I was wearing down quickly. I knew that I needed to eat soon but I don’t have the ability to speed up time.

We got on the bus to the chow hall and I promptly passed out and woke when we reached the parking lot. I entered, ate my food in 5 minutes, and returned to the bus to sleep for the next 40 minutes. When we got back to work I attempted to check my email and I found that I was falling asleep between messages. I knew that we would be returning to work in 40 minutes and that we would take the bus so I went back outside and passed out.

When we arrived I was a little groggy until we started working. At that point, my body found its energy and I was fine for the rest of the night. I fell asleep, at the normal time, with relative ease.

I woke up two hours early today and I haven’t been able to get back to sleep. I decided to eat something - I am never awake for what the day walkers call “lunch”. I’m not sure how this is going to affect me later. Only time will tell.

My only guess to the cause of the crashes is that is related to my diet. I am not eating enough whole grain foods (that break down slower and provide longer lasting energy) so I’m going to tweak things a bit. We’ll see how it goes.

I’ve been feeling a bit better and have spent some more time at the gym in the past few days. So far, things have been going well and I’m slowly working my way into my program. I spend a lot more time stretching than I did last time because I’ve found that a few parts of my body are prone to repetitive stress injuries (my left shoulder and my ankles). I’m going to be at the gym 7 days a week but I only plan to spend 4 days lifting out of that time. It should allow me adequate time to properly recover so that I can hit it hard again the next day. On weight days I’m going to start at 20 minutes of cardio. On off days I’ve cranked it up to 40 minutes. I’m not sure if I want to increase the cardio times or if I just want to ratchet up the intensity. Only time will tell as I see how my body reacts to it.

The food here is actually quite good - for once I have Dick Cheney to thank - in a roundabout way. KBR, a Haliburton subcontractor, is responsible for the food on base - so far I’ve had beef brisket, chicken curry, crab legs, lobster tail, and steak to name a few. Lets just say that its quite easy for me to eat a high protein diet. I’m starting to sleep a little better and I barely wake up when the other guys come into the room. I’m cramped in a room that is made for two people that has four beds. All of my stuff is in my bags underneath the bed so I’m literally living out of my suitcase.

I’ve got my daily schedule worked out fairly well - I think I’ve got 90-120 minutes of straight study/reading time before I head to work. There are quite a few things wrong with the programs at work and they need some TLC - as soon as I get finished working through them all I should have some additional time to study there.

The hospital on base needs volunteers. I’m going to help out on my day off because it keeps me busy and its a good thing to do. I know they need help carrying litters from the choppers when our guys come but aside from that I could be doing almost anything. I don’t know how I’m going to react to it but time will tell. I took a few more pictures today and I’ll try to edit them so I can upload them tonight. I’m not sure how the firewall is going to react to it so it may have to wait until tomorrow.

When I’m unsure or uncomfortable about a particular situation I am oft reluctant to write about it or anything else for that matter. I’ve logged in five or six times in the past week and started to write only to delete it all and leave my computer with no new information. I’m not sure if I am more worried about the information being out in the open, something that rarely effects my judgment, or knowing that as soon as I write it all down I admit to it and must own up to it and all of the reprecussions associated with it. I do have a hard time finding something to write about most days as I live a mundane and simple life… lets face it, I’m no movie star and I’m not saving small villages from evil global corporations. I’ve never been in an arm wrestling contest and little I have done in my life would be worthy of a montage. I do wonder, if I were to have a montage, what the music might be. Think back to all of the terrible montages that littered movies throughout the 1980’s. I feel a little cheated by them in some aspects because well, its just freakin lazy. Rather than take the time to clearly explain all of the details you get some cut scenes with some relatively corny music. Sure, at the time you don’t think much of it but if you watch it years later you’ll discover that it is absolutely awful.

It appears I don’t have writers block after all.

I started back on the “diet” in an effort to make my pants fit comfortably again. I only get carbs for breakfast and lunch and almost none after that. My body complains like its in a constant state of hunger but I know better than that… its just lazy and I need to push it to do more. Never have I been able to look inside myself and find the motivation to complete a task, at almost all times (well its not really never but I don’t care) I need to look to another person for inspiration. I wonder what might happen if I were alone and had no other person to look to. Would I stop living or would I toughen up?

I had a strange dream last night. There was a man that was walking along a balance beam that was over the top of a swamp that had a large gator inhabiting it. The gator was trying to bite at the man as he struggled to make it across. He threw out a large piece of pizza that he happened to be carrying and it distracted the gator for a few seconds. The gator quickly chomped down the pizza and began pursuing him yet again. He lost his balance at that point and fell in the water. Quickly standing up from his fall, he put his foot out (barefoot of course) in an effort to ward the gator away. The gator approached with his mouth open. The man put his foot in the gators mouth to try to stop him when the gator bit and rolled the man in the water tearing off the lower portion of his leg. Somebody told me to help him so I grabbed a folding chair, jumped into the water, and began to beat the gator on his head. I grabbed the main and pulled him to safety.

I walked away and the man bled to death as the other people watched and failed to react. They didn’t have a clue as to how to save him. I guess I didn’t know or I didn’t care.

There should be more later if I find the words…

In a few days my best friend is leaving. In some ways, this individual left more than a month ago and did so because I didn’t trust them enough. Hell, I was so afraid of how they might react I didn’t give them the opportunity to effectively evaluate what I did and how it impacted them. I arbitrarily made a decision and forced my friend to live with it without letting them know all of the details of the situation. I wish I could go back and do it all differently; but, as time and life go, there are no repeats.

So, I’ve got 30 days remaining on the island before I get my ticket to ride and I can only think of one thing to do with all of my remaining time. Some would think that I should spend all of my time drinking because thats all I might be doing for the next few months. My liver has already taken a beating in the past and I don’t think I’m going to let it get beat down again in the future. I’ve proven to myself that drinking causes me undue pain and stress… in other words, if I drink I turn into a mean mother fucker and thats not good for anybody else.

Instead of training in that fashion, I’ve got 30 days of hardcore physical training. I’m going to start the whole shebang on Saturday… yes, its a few days away but I know that I’ve got to plan it out to such an extent that I can’t avoid it. What I’ll do, I’m not really sure but it will probably involve running (an activity that I loath), biking, crazy cardio, and weight lifting. At the same time as all of this insanity I also need to ensure that I keep my diet in check. If I eat really healthy food all of the time, I tend to eat really awful high sugar sweets often. If I eat a moderately healthy diet I tend to eat moderately unhealthy food once in a while. With me, extremes always bring out the worst in me… why I have been unable to acertain.

What I do to myself could be considered torture but from what others tell me, its what needs to be done to get into shape. I wake up each morning ready to stick with a diet that has maximum protein intake with very few carbs. Carbs aren’t that bad of a thing, most people don’t know when to eat them because if you eat them at the wrong time of the day you are much more likely to store them away rather than using them. My diet works like this

0530: 2 eggs, oatmeal or cereal and milk (400-500 calories)
0900: protein bar with 20-30g protein and 20-30g carbs (300 calories)
1030: pre-workout shake and supplements (200 calories)
1230: two skinless plain chicken breasts with a vegetable (700 calories)
1300: 50-60g protein shake (450 calories)
1430: meal replacement shake w/ 40g protein and 35g carbs (250 calories)
1630: fruit (apple/banana) and 4oz mixed nuts (yep, more protein) (600 calories)
1800: two skinless chicken breasts (seasoned this time around) and a vegetable (800 calories)
2000: 40-60g protein shake (450 calories)
2100: 4oz mixed nuts (600 calories)

Thats roughly 4000-5000 calories a day.

Each day its the same darn thing. I consume a large number of calories but I have very few complex carbs throughout the day. I tend to crave things like bread and potatoes but I know that my body does a poor job digesting that. I walk around all day and I feel like I’m starving despite eating as much as I am. This is absolute torture but I know that I cannot quit, I need to stick with this as I keep my body fat percentage down and I allow myself to build as much muscle as possible. I have become a gym training freak, I will do everything I possibly can to ensure that I don’t miss any of my time at the gym (4/5 days lifting, 3/4 days cardio each week).

This is what I must do as genetics aren’t in my favor, there are only a few of my family members that don’t gain weight regardless of what they eat… I’m not one of them, I need to have a scientifically balanced diet.

In my quest to turn myself into Conan the Barbarian, a quest that is moving slowly and never may reach its destination, I’ve reached a few goals along the way. A few months ago I finally benched 225lbs. This feat may not seem major to many people out there but considering that I’m a member of the S.B.A. (Scrawny Bastards of America) its quite an accomplishment. The goal that I finally reached today, after months of working and maintaining a balanced diet, was that my waistline has returned to where it used to be. I can now, finally, wear the service dress pants that the Air Force issued me without hurting myself by sucking in my gut. This means that I can be a cheap ass and not buy new pants, I figured I could be thrifty in this method (at least) so I worked at it and finally got to my goal.

The next step, to look like Conan.