Slam Duncan Version 2.0

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UPDATE!!! Slam V 3.0 achieved July 26, 2010 - I've decided to continue this journey and target 219lbs -  Stay tuned for Slam V 4.0!

UPDATE!!! Slam V 2.0 achieved June 28, 2010 - I've decided to continue this journey and target 229lbs -  Stay tuned for Slam V 3.0!



What is Slam Duncan ver 2.0?


Well, Slam Duncan is me. I’m a husband, a long time martial artist, an avid movie watcher, I consider myself a good brother/son/friend, hard worker, and I love my food!

As a younger man I considered myself to be in fairly good shape. I didn’t own a car growing up so I walked everywhere and enjoyed going to the gym fairly regularly. My weight hovering around 170-180lbs. Throughout the years I found myself giving into bad eating habits, using the usual excuses most of us make such as “I work hard why shouldn’t I enjoy myself” or “One more doughnut will not make a big difference” etc..etc….

Needless to say I have grown up to be a Super fat-ass. Perhaps not the most PC term but I own a mirror. I know what I am.

Recent events have put me in touch with some old friends that I knew years ago and I had made arrangements to meet and catch up. A realization soon dawned on me. They knew me as fit Slam Duncan and not SFA (Super Fat Ass) Slam Duncan. Perhaps they wouldn’t judge me but in my mind I felt like they would say “what the hell did you do to yourself fatty”. Don’t get me wrong, its not as though I would curl up in a ball and cry like a wuss. I would probably make some self-deprecating joke and move on. But let’s face it, it's still a kick in the nuts to one’s pride.

I haven’t been pleased with my appearance for some time now, and I know that my weight has been my biggest hindrance to my martial arts training, but for the first time in a while I felt ashamed of how I could let myself get to this point. 

I started speculating on how much I weighed. I won’t lie. I have done the rollercoaster weight loss before so I am fairly in touch with how my body looks and what that translates to weight. I had guessed 250lbs. At this time I was sitting on my couch eating another unhealthy dinner as my wife watched “The biggest loser” (oh the irony). I quickly ran up the stairs to the bathroom and weighed myself. The results….Drum roll….. 249lbs

I knew I had to do something. So it was at that point I decided to lose 10lbs transforming myself to Slam Duncan 2.0.

Why only 10lbs you ask? Why go from Super fat-ass to fat-ass? Why not set your sights a little higher?

Well, I’m a true believer in goal setting. I of course would like to look into the mirror and someday see a person that looked like they just walked off the set of Spartacus but, through personal experience, I have found that in order to see a goal through to completion there are 4 key rules I have to set.  

1 I have to make my goal vocal (Hence this Website and Blog). I find it much harder to cheat myself if I know others are watching 

2 I have to make my goals specific and measurable. If I were to say my goal is just to lose weight I would quickly lose interest. I need specific markers along the way and I NEED that sense of accomplishment as I hit these markers to keep going.

3 Another way of avoiding losing interest is not to set my goals too lofty or to set them with too much time required to accomplish. They need to be short term. Not that there is anything wrong with making long term goals but if the light at the end of the tunnel is too far away then sometimes you can lose site of it (At least in my experience). 10lbs will be struggle enough in my estimation. 

4 I find it helps to write the goal down. Something about reading it back seems to make it much more real and important to me. Something I am doing right now.

Why start on a Thursday?

Well why not. I’ll be honest. When I had this revelation last night to start losing the weight I already found the excuses flowing. The first and foremost was why start on a Thursday maybe I should start SD 2.0 on Monday and enjoy the upcoming weekend. My inner voice quickly gave me a backhand and I knew this would a disastrous start, that’s if I even started at all. Thanks inner voice. I have waited much too long already to start this journey and wasting another day would not help the cause. Plus maybe I could avoid reaching the dreaded 250lb mark.

The way I am going to set up this blog is just a quick daily status update with a weekly weigh-in on Monday mornings. The set up will be.

Exercise – what physical activity I did that day.
Food – what food I ate that day. Yikes! My biggest weakness I would say.
Personal victory – well I guess this is my own pat on the back. It can be in the form of temptation avoidance or anything that took willpower to make my goal a reality.
Observations – Any learning’s along the way to may this journey easier and more efficient.

Thanks for reading this far. I'll do what I can not to disappoint.