The Final Boss.

Instead of writing a very important essay, I've decided to turn this blog back on. Don't worry, essays are a weird animal I tend to tame in minutes. Course that's after long hours of distracting myself and being consumed by that hopeless feeling of failure and waste that comes with being a student. Eventually an idea hits, motivation strikes, and I uncurl myself from the kitchen floor and walk boldly over to Word (or google docs) where I hammer on the keys of victory and vanquish my MLA cited foes mere minutes before the deadline.

Rejoice. Crash. Wake up cranky.

Moving on.

There's a lot ideas and life changes I wanted to pursue and accomplish by this time next year. And this little slice of Internet seemed to benefit me when it mattered the most a few years ago. You remember, that tiny little thing I did, Hot for Con, if you don't then ask around. Essentially I lost buckets of body fat and in the process had more than a handful of adventures and stories that could keep a small crowd entertained for at least 15 minutes.

* Disclaimer* Most photos will not have this D-Bag facial expression.

I timed it at D*Con this year, after 15 minutes people just kind of nod and say "cool story bro."

So it's time to finish the fight and instigate new ones.

Here I lay the plan before you in all its majesty, and it is ambitious to say the least.

* Lose 15 pounds to get down to 165. Which will become the final resting place of my weight.
* Quit smoking cold turkey. (Mostly 'quit' isn't good enough anymore)
* Enter Tough Mudder, and complete. Completion is key.
* 4.0 GPA for the next two semesters. (Full time student, part time Digital Ham Specialist)

So I hope to post something every few days. With a picture of myself to be used for later comparisons, inspiration, and research. (I have plans. Video plans. It's not vanity, promise.)

More details will be given soon since fights like these require timelines and rules, rewards and blog badges.

-Stiver

the further i journey into weight-loss

May 2011

January 2012

May 2012

Oh man. It's been 365 days since I was considered a big dude...

Celebrating a year of weight-loss and general good health. So I deleted the post where I did a progression about 5 months ago. Figuring that since I've hit the gym hard it's best to show the progression from beginning... to my Hot for Con goal... to today. Considering my bucket list for D*Con this year calls for furthering my physique, felt I would'n't get called out too hard for this post.

Besides, everyone likes a good success story right? And I believe I'm succeeding. 

Weird seeing me a year ago, and then even weirder seeing how I'd progressed since January of this year. 

In the May of 2011 photo I believe I was down to 240.
In the January of 2012 photo I was at 190 exactly.
In the May of 2012 photo I'm sitting at 180.

Goes to show that purely looking at the scale isn't everything. I don't know the ancient Chinese equations of muscle vs fat, but I do know that my face has lost a good deal of roundness since January and there definitely seems to be less of me. And that's only 10 pounds.

10 pounds was hardly noticeable when I started, which is something that brings a lot of people down when they first start their weight-loss journey. It brought me down, you could read my older posts on the subject, but you stick with it and 10 becomes 20 and the pattern continues until you see dramatic results.

The smaller you are, obviously, the more dramatic each pound gets and the more muscle you add...well I'm just babbling on about stuff that is common sense...

Just excited and proud, staying humble of course, but seriously dude, it's been a long road.

There's a difference with the way the world interacts with me these days, one I'll explore with you later, but just know that it's different. For better and worse, and the experience has been fascinating to say the least. For now I'm carving straight through the heart of my bucket list and, like last year, nothing will stop me.

As for the other items, I'll be posting about them soon enough. The tone tonight is light hearted and I expect a return to the more jovial side of life for a few posts. There's a revelation that I've got bigger fish to fry then previously explained, these pursuits, and others I haven't mentioned are making all the difference in the shape of my smile.

To quote a song...

"I use to hate cell phones. Now I hate car accidents."