Stellar Path

I have quite a bit that I need to share. My last blog post was all pictures. This one largely is not, but I have had such an amazing thing happen in the last few weeks, that I have to share, even without pretty pictures to go along with it.

And because I am a very visual person, I’m still going to share one picture.

Do you know what that is? Unless you are from south central Kentucky, you probably don’t. That’s Cherry Hall, the “Flagship” building, so to speak, of Western Kentucky University. WKU is my alma mater. I have earned three degrees from WKU in the last fourteen years. I graduated with a BA in Psychology in 2001, a BA in English & Allied Language Arts in 2004, and a Masters of Arts in Secondary Education with an English Minor in 2007.

I LOVED my time in college. If I ever win the lottery, I will quit work and just go to class forever.

I’m not even entirely sure what is about college that I adore so much. Or rather, I’m not entirely sure what ALL it is about college that I adore so much. I love the campus culture, and by that, I don’t mean the student antics. I just mean the culture of learning and academia. I love knowing that I am in a place surrounded by people who love knowledge so much that they are there to pursue it, and in some cases, even dedicate their careers to it.

Suffice it to say, for a LONG time now, I have wanted to work at WKU. I’m proud of my school. I’ve applied for a few different jobs there. I once even had an interview that didn’t pan out.

On Monday, August 16th, I walked into my place of work and quit. I hated it. I truly hated this job more than I have ever hated any employment I have ever had. I’ve mentioned on this blog a few times the stress I felt at work. Frankly, I wasn’t even being completely honest in how stressed I was. I won’t say why I quit, and I won’t badmouth them any more than just saying I hated my job. Frankly, there were some wonderfully nice people there. (Also some real A-holes there, too.) It just was not a good place for me to be in any way, shape, or form. The salary sucked. I had been offered a small part-time job, and that small job was going to make 2/3rds of what I had been bringing in with my hated full-time, salaried, on-call job. I realized that even working at McDonald’s, I could make up the other 1/3rd, so I quit without a plan fully in place. I was scared, but it felt right. And the immense relief I felt upon walking out the door forever solidified that yes, I had made the right decision.

I started job hunting. I was going around, getting job applications from different places. I was going to put in at Hobby Lobby, Kirkland’s, Sam’s Club, and I was going to apply to be a waiter at a few different places as well.

On Thursday of that week, I got a call from one of my professors at WKU. She offered me a full-time job. With full benefits. Improved salary. Improved benefits.

And most importantly, improved health. Both mental and physical. Since I’ve quit and started at WKU, I’ve started losing weight again. I’ve always heard that stress can be an obstacle in losing weight. Yep, seems like it was. I’m sleeping through the night for the first time in MONTHS. I don’t dread my alarm going off. I don’t feel nausea at the thought of going to work. I actually LIKE going to work! I enjoy my job! I was beginning to think this wasn’t even possible.

And yes, I am still in training to be a personal trainer. I’m probably not going to pursue it full-time now, but I definitely want to still do it. Just because I have my dream job doesn’t mean I’ve lost my love of fitness and health.

Oh, and one of the perks of my new job? I get six free tuition hours every semester, including summer. 18 free hours of college every year. Yeah, I frickin’ won the lottery!

We all know that I like pictures. Well, today’s post is going to be a short one, because I have SO much to tell, I just can’t tell it all in one post without writing a novel.

So, here are my pictures.

First of all, a few shout-out pictures to some people who have made huge progress lately!

Jess lost 90 pounds. (And she even did it in gorilla feet!)

Brandon ran 13.1 miles! (That’s more than some people drive in a day.)

I quit a job that I utterly, utterly hated…

And started training to become a personal trainer!

(and please do not judge me for my creepy smiles)

Yeah, I’m much happier. And this morning, what did I see on the scale?

I haven’t seen below 330 in well over a year.

Life is frickin’ sweet. More info tomorrow.

Today is August 8th (although you are probably not reading this until August 9th, because I’m writing this pretty late). Right now, I am “single.” In exactly two months, Tina and I will be getting married! On October 8, 2010, I will be marrying the love of my life, and I truly cannot wait to continue spending the rest of my life with this wonderful woman.

And because I don’t think I’ve shared it here, this is the beautiful ring that I gave to Tina on August 16, 2009.

This will truly be a quick post. All about the wedding, not about weight loss. I am going BACK to the doctor tomorrow, and I may report about that tomorrow, because I have good news. We’re getting my medical issues taken care of, and I have lost seven pounds in the past week. It looks like we’ve probably got it figured out, and I hope that my dieting and exercise is going to finally pay off. But today, as I said, all about the wedding.

As I’ve mentioned before, here is where we are getting married. Lost River Cave.

These are just some random photos. We’ve got tons of Christmas lights and garland and greenery and flowers and other random prettiness to decorate and make the place uniquely ours. I just hope it is as beautiful that evening as we are planning.

We’ve done a few other things as well.

This is what we’re hoping our centerpieces look like.

This is our invitations, which we just sent out. I’d love to invite all of you! (Seriously – if anyone thinks they might be in Bowling Green on October 8, let me know. We’d love to have you!)

Our band is going to be City Lights Band from Nashville. I can’t even tell you how excited I am that we are both able to get this amazing band AND get them for a price we could afford.

Tina has also made some custom water bottles for our guests. (Since we are doing an outdoor venue, we thought that guests might be thirsty while they’re waiting for the ceremony to start.)

I’m sure there is plenty more I can tell you about, and I will but in a later post. I’ll also post more of our engagement photos.

I’m getting married in two months! I can’t believe it’s almost here already, especially considering that we had fourteen months to wait when we first got engaged!

A lot has happened this summer. Some good, some bad on the surface but still ultimately a blessing, and some just… well, busy.

The good – I am still trying to lose weight. Trying is the operative word. My trainer has connected me with a doctor. She thinks I have an issue that may require medication. I trust her expertise (she’s been doing this for over fifteen years), and I’m willing to see what comes of it. I go to the doctor on Thursday; I’ll let you know what happens. All I know is this – if there is some type of imbalance in my body that is keeping me from losing weight, I am MORE than happy to take a pill every day to get me back in balance so my hard work will drop off.

The bad on the surface – my mother in law’s house burned down. She essentially lost almost everything. (I’ll post about this probably next.)

The still a blessing – she is okay, no one died, and insurance pays for things. Yes, some irreplaceables were lost, but she is still with us. God was definitely watching out for her that day, and for that, we are all very grateful.

And the busy… work. Wedding planning stuff. Cleaning. Random miscellany.

I know I haven’t posted in over a month. It’s just so frustrating seeing the same 330ish weight pop up when I am working SO hard. There have been times when I knew why I didn’t gain weight. This month hasn’t been one of them. That’s what is facilitating the visit to the doctor.

And I am now more determined than EVER to be a personal trainer. I love everything about working out; I love eating healthy; I want to help other people get to their fitness ideals, too. I WILL be working in fitness by next summer. Maybe part-time, maybe full-time, maybe for myself… don’t know yet. But I am getting my medical issues straightened out, even if it requires a visit to every doctor in the state, and I’m going to do this for a living. I’ve never done what I truly loved; the closest I’ve ever gotten is what I kinda like. Well, I love fitness and health, and I’m going to do it.

Now, on to my blog… Yeah, I really haven’t written to it in over a month. I know that quite a few people have lost their blogging spark. Frankly, I miss Craig and Erin, and while I’m glad that Jess, the various Josies and Dianes, Kat, Lynne, Mary, Seth, Tara, Brandon, Carla, Staci, and so many others are still posting. I’m still reading, even if I suck at posting. (Sorry guys!)

I’ve been trying to decide what I can do to re-spark my interest in blogging. I thought about posting my daily food diaries. Well, that didn’t happen. I ultimately decided to re-format my blog slightly and make it into the types of blogs that I most like to read.

I LOVE picture blogs. I like blogs that have tons and tons of pictures with the text. So that’s what this blog is going to become. Still about weight loss and nutrition, still about my quest to be a personal trainer, but also tons of pictures. I don’t know if I’ve shared this or not, but I love photography. In fact, I did my first set of wedding pictures just a few weeks ago. Well, my camera has a decent phone on it, I have an absolutely awesome Canon camera, so at least once per week, I’m going to post tons of photos in a post. We’ll see how this goes. Bear with me, okay? And please, feel free to contribute any thoughts, suggestions, or anything else that could help me improve Stellar Path!

So, without further ado, this is the post of what we did yesterday!

We started off going to the gym for an hour of Aqua Zumba and an hour of weights. No picture of either. (I never take my phone in the gym with me because I don’t want it in my pocket, and I definitely am not taking a picture of myself doing Zumba in the pool shirtless. No one wants to see that.)

We came home, rested a bit, ate lunch, and then went out for the rest of our day.

We took off down I-65 South and I went to Great Escape to try and sell some of my old Playboys.

They didn’t want them. They offered me $3 for a 1967 Playboy. I declined. These babies will probably end up on eBay. I did, however, buy a CD of music from the Simpsons for $4.99.

Then, we went to Sam’s!

I love Sam’s. I don’t know why; you have to pay to shop there, but I still love it. It might be because of free samples!

That’s Tina getting us a tiny slice of pizza from the tiny pizza lady. (The pizzas were tiny, not the lady. She was regular human size.)

I saw some Rice Krispies that I really, really, really wanted.

I didn’t get them.

I did, however, get my blood pressure taken. Top number was a little high, pulse was ridiculous (my resting pulse is not that high – I dunno what the deal was), but my low number was where it should be. I need to get my overall numbers lowered, but they are better than what they’ve been in the past!

After this, we went to TJ Maxx so Tina could look for a present for her mom whose birthday is coming up. She didn’t find one, but she did try on a hat, both without shades…

…and with shades…

I like the second one best.

Then we went to Nat’s Outdoor Sports. Tina needed a new pair of shoes, and she saw some Vibrams Five Fingers calling her name. The salesman, Chris, was honestly the most helpful salesman of any type I have ever met. Tina ended up purchasing a pair of Five Fingers, which were actually cheaper than another type of shoe she was considering. He also diagnosed my shoe problem (my feet roll outward, and I need a shoe that will roll me inward), and in a few days, I’ll have a specially ordered pair of shoes waiting for me. I can’t wait!

This is Tina’s feet at home later that night.

This is Tina reading all about her Five Fingers shoes, which she so far loves.

Before we headed home, we decided to go to Jackon’s Orchard to buy some in-season fruit. They have apples and peaches in season now, and some fresh white peaches were definitely calling my name!

This is the steep drive up the side of a mountain to get to Jackson’s Orchard. Seriously – you have no idea how steep this drive is. This picture does NOT do it justice.

This is a view of a cute little pond once you get to the top.

And this is the actual “barn” of Jackson’s Orchard where you buy all kinds of fresh produce and plants and local crafts.

They had tons of peaches, affordably priced.

They also had a cat, who was not for sale, who mostly just laid around and did… well, pretty much nothing. Luckiest cat in the whole world.

Also had the funniest sign I’ve ever seen regarding produce. I don’t know why it made me laugh so hard.

We ended up buying 1/2 a bushel of white peaches. Some we are eating fresh, and some others we are going to make jam, jelly, and preserves out of.

This is our first batch that is going to become white peach preserves. I’ll let you know more when they’re done.

Okay, that’s pretty much what our weekend consisted of. I plan to post again before next weekend. Have a great day!

One quick note before I write this quick post. I wrote my weight wrong last week. It was not 334.1; it was 344.1. That was a typo on my part.

Which is why I am still elated to tell you that I weighed in this morning at 339.1, exactly five pounds less than last Wednesday! Woo hoo!

This is a Personal Trainer weigh-in, because I am five pounds closer to my goal of having a career in fitness. I’ve made no real secret of the dissatisfaction I feel with my current line of work. It just isn’t me anymore. I want to help people get healthy, and I can’t do that at 339 pounds, but I can do it at a healthy weight. I’m five pounds closer.

Replies to blogs and comments coming soon. I just wanted to write this before I had to the gym, because after the ten hour day at work I pulled today, I know I’m probably just going to crash when I get home.

Still, on June 23, 2010, I weighed in at 339.1, five pounds less than last week, with a total loss of 63.9 pounds. I know I probably won’t lose five pounds next week, but I’d be very happy with two.

Hey, remember that time you had a blog? Something about a path? Something path dot org?

What’s a blog? Is that like a sinus infection? I get those all the time.

No, remember, you used to write on your blog, and you read other people’s blogs, and there was like a community, and you were a part of it.

Sounds vaguely familiar…

So yeah… I’ve kinda sucked at the whole blogging thing this summer.

Some of it has just been sheer busy-ness. We started summer camp at work, and pulling these fifty and sixty hour weeks has been killing me.

Some of it has been non-work real life getting in the way. Tina and I had both of ours cars broken into about ten days ago in our driveway WHILE we were at home and we had several hundred dollars worth of electronics stolen. That kinda unnerves you, more than I would have guessed it would, and internet time just hasn’t seemed as important.

And sadly, the diet has fallen by the wayside. I’ve kept up the exercise, but I haven’t been tracking my food, I haven’t been being cognizant of what I’ve been eating, and things are just slipping farther and farther away.

But I’ve spent the last few days thinking, and I have to get this back under control. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. I want to weigh under 300 before my wedding in four months. Tough but doable, but I can’t sit around being tired and whiny and expect it to happen.

So here is what I’m doing.

Instituting a new weigh-in day. Weigh-in day is now Wednesday. I can’t promise my posts will be big and elaborate on weigh-in day, but there WILL be a post about my weight.

Today is Wednesday, June 16, 2010. My weight is 344.1. At my highest several years ago, I weighed 403. I have lost a grand total of 58.9 pounds. That number is going to keep growing.

I am also going to commit to posting at least twice per week. I’m also going to commit to reading and responding to other’s posts. My apologies to those of you I’ve been ignoring. I still remember and care about you, and I’m about to show you.

I hope you’ll come back to Stellar Path. I’m still here.

The Star Trek Weekend Warriors Edition is well under way. If you haven’t signed up yet, it’s not too late! To participate, all you have to do is select a few easily measurable goals related to health and fitness and stay on track for the entire weekend! This is a great challenge. It’s up to YOU to determine how well you do.

And of course, those who participate get to take part in a little link lovin’, too.

The Weekend Warriors Challenge isn’t at its home over at So Long Fat Ass this month, so the turnout is significantly smaller than usual, but I hope there are still plenty of people participating who just haven’t officially signed on, yet. If I’ve missed you, please remind me and I’ll put you up asap!

Tara at 263 and counting
Brandon at So Long Fat Ass
Rinn at Ring Around Rinn
Frank at Male Weight Loss Now
Joe at Joe the Runner
Vinny at Fat to Fit Diary
Molly at Fluffy Girl
Shelli at Shelli Belly
Jeremy at Stellar Path

Oh, and my three goals…

One – Post an update about my weight loss status and what I’m trying now. I’m pretty excited about it, both from a physical and mental standpoint. I think I’ve finally found something that’s working for me, and while I won’t be sharing EVERYTHING this weekend, I definitely have something pretty big coming down the pike that I’m thrilled to share.
Two – Work out in the weight room twice.
Three – Drink a gallon of water both Saturday and Sunday.

It’s not too late! Let’s show this weekend who’s boss!

We are Weekend Warriors. Resistance is futile.

The first weekend of the month has rolled around once again, and this time, we are doing a Star Trek theme! I’ve been bugging Brandon over at So Long Fat Ass to do a Star Trek themed Weekend Warriors challenge for about two months now. Well Brandon is heading out of town this weekend, and he knew I was itching to go all Star Trek on weight loss, so he asked me if I would be willing to host the challenge this month.

My response? Heck yeah!

What does Star Trek have to do with weight loss? A few things. (Watch how I make this fit.)

First of all, except for Scotty, is anyone on Star Trek fat? How many of us wouldn’t set our phasers to kill to have Trip Tucker or Captain Archer’s physique or possess Seven of Nine’s curves?

Secondly, Star Trek is about exploring the unknown. Many of us are exploring unknown lifestyles and health habits as we go on our weight loss journey, and the end result will be just as amazing and stellar.

And finally, we frequently challenge ourselves to eat new and healthy foods. Is that any different than Guinan introducing Worf to prune juice? (Okay, that one was a stretch. Bear with me here.)

The challenge is going to work the same as it has in the past few months. For those of you new to the challenge, and as a reminder for the rest of you, here are the rules of the challenge:

Set 2-3 goals for yourself for the weekend
Goals can be anything, as long as they are health/fitness related in some way
Goals must be specific and measurable, so that you can give a definitive pass/fail result at the end of the challenge. For example, “workout at least 30 minutes every day this weekend” is preferred over “get more exercise this weekend.”
Sometime between now and Friday afternoonish (June 4th), write a blog post about the challenge, and detail what your goals for the weekend are. Then, come back here and leave a comment with a link to your post, so we can all keep an eye on each other and offer encouragement.
The Friday before the challenge starts (June 4th), I’ll put up another post with a list of all the participants.
The Monday after the challenge (June 7), I’ll put up a post where everyone can report back on how they did over the weekend.
Everyone is encouraged to write an after-challenge post with your results, and link to all the other participants (my after-challenge post will have a list of all the participants with links, so it should be easy to just copy/paste that section). That way, we can raise more awareness of the challenge by getting the word out, and hopefully have even more participants next time. That, and everyone can share in a little link-lovin’!
Everyone is also encouraged to tweet about the challenge using the #WeekendWarriors hashtag
Maybe something like this: I’m participating in the #WeekendWarriors challenge from @SoLongFatAss, are you? http://bit.ly/9OUbTv

Hopefully, we’ll all be successful this weekend. Whether you are paying Quark for some time on the Holosuites for a workout, taking a jog on Risa, or climbing around in the Jeffries Tubes, get out there, get moving, and may the Force be with you… Er, wait. That’s not right.

Oh yeah! Live long and prosper!

This has been a pretty full weekend. We’ve cleaned out our closets, filmed several episode of our cooking show, Stellar Cooks, and eaten fairly healthy. I think I’ll get to 340 quicker than I got to 341.

In the process of cleaning out our closet, I also pulled out 160 Playboys. I had a subscription for several years. Jokes aside, Playboy really is a good magazine. While I wouldn’t pay $30 a year for it just for the articles, I really DID read the articles when I had my subscription. I also briefly entertained the notion of collecting every issue available, so this collection covers a few issues from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Tina could care less that I have it; there’s no jealousy over a bunch of magazines. However, she made it abundantly clear that she wanted to reclaim that closet space. Therefore, I am going to part with MOST of my Playboys. I’ll keep a few – those that have an interesting interview, and I’m going to save the one from April 1978, which was my birth month. The rest I’m going to be getting rid of. Want to buy some Playboys? Please email me at jeremy@stellarpath.net. The majority of these I’m hoping I can sell at the Great Escape. Comic nerd boys must be desperate to see naked women, right? I know I was fifteen years ago.

Early this morning, Tina made us a Florence-inspired soufflé. This was huge, healthy, low-cal, very filling, and fun to eat. Plus, it had some garlic and veggies in it, and that made the house smell fantastic.

Okay, the event I’ve sort of been promising for weeks. It’s the second episode of Stellar Cooks! However, it is NOT the Almond Joy Larabars. Instead, this one is for Bacon Wrapped Cream Cheese Chicken. We did make the larabars, though, and that episode will be posted next weekend.

What would you like to see us cook in the future?

Tonight is Saturday night, Tina and I are about to fix dinner, and we’ve got some movies to watch and we’re going to settle in for a nice, cheap date night. Not even sure yet what dinner is going to consist of, but we just got back from the gym a little while ago where we did forty-five minutes in the pool. We are both ready to eat.

This is going to be a quickie post. As I said, I’ve got a hot date waiting. But at lunch, for reasons I’m still not entirely sure, I snapped a photo of what I was eating. I like seeing photos of what other people eat. I’m not sure why. It may be that voyeur gene that causes me to look as I walk by when people in hotels have their doors wide open.

But regardless, I find that I read several blogs where people often post about food, and I enjoy it, so I’m going to do the same here.

For lunch today, we had grilled corn on the cob and two chicken sausage brats from Sam’s Club on whole grain white bread. The reddish one is sun-dried tomato with provolone cheese and the other is spinach and asiago cheese. This lunch looks pretty fattening, but it was actually pretty healthy. The brats were only 120 calories each. The corn was absolutely delicious. One of these days, I’ll film a cooking show about grilled corn. So much better than boiled.

Oh, and tomorrow, I’ll post our second episode of Stellar Cooks. Thanks to Jess for the name suggestion.