Back on the quitting train...staaarting...nowish

As I said in my post yesterday, I unfortunately caved on the quitting and I'm glad to announce I'll be getting back on the train after the one I'm smoking right now. Honestly, I'm not even enjoying this, and I hate like hell writing about it, but here's what I taste.

1) Gross
2) More gross

The main reason I started back up again was after a considerably bad day at work where everything seemed to conspire against me, but the truth is, everything turned out alright by the end of the week, and I had nothing to worry about it. As for the why I turned to cigarettes as a response...I have no idea. Years of a habit tend to have that kind of effect, and it was an almost knee-jerk reflex.

Anyways, once I'm done with this, I'll once again begin the laborious process of destinking everything, and enjoying those wonderful cravings.

Aaaaaand....start!

Still bringin it...

Alright! Almost at day 45 of P90X, and so far I'm loving the results. I just feel all around much stronger and slimmer, and have had a few people notice as much, which always feels good. One thing for sure, it is REALLY hard to fit in every workout, every day, but I'm hell bent on making sure I get through at least one round of this thing. And I get the feeling that once I'm over the hump, it will be way easier to finish it out.

Speaking of getting lighter, I just installed an ultra lite Linux OS on my desktop computer, and holy potato pancakes is it great. Don't get me wrong, Windows will always have a special place in my heart, but the reality is that I don't use my computer for much else other than music and the internet. So, sick of all the wait times, I just got this very simple OS, burned it to a cd, reboot my computer, and now I have little to no lag for everything I do online. It's a dream!

On a sadder note, I fell back into the nicotine habit briefly. And while it hasn't been a total relapse, it's been enough to justify posting. Basically, a few weeks ago I had a rough week, and it felt justifiable to start back up. Completely dumb, but I'll be getting back on the quitting train starting tomorrow morning.

However, on the plus side, I was able to save nearly $300 by not smoking that whole time! And speaking of money, I also need to get back into my regular budgeting...something that summer doesn't seem to appreciate all that much. This is basically going to mean more brown bagging it, which will in turn keep me healthier.

Also got some blood work done recently, and my cholesterol and blood sugar are right where they should be! Not that there was any worry, but it's always nice to know. No HIV either, always a plus :)

Other than that, got some more hiking in, doing about 40 miles in a 24 hour period, which felt insanely badass. Yesterday I took in a bluegrass festival with a bbq cookoff (tasty AND festive). Tomorrow, whitewater rafting to wrap up my Memorial Day weekend! Then back to work.

Anyway, next weekend I'll post my monthly progress towards goals, shouldn't be too much new, but alas, it must be done! Or not...but yes.

Bringin it!

I gotta say...I'm pretty excited by my progress thus far. I'm really setting 2012 up to my best year ever, and to add to it, I'm finally starting to get to more of my tertiary goals out of the way. And one that has been on my board since I started this crazy adventure was getting through a full round of P90X. It's cliche as all hell, but let's face it, when something works, and then becomes popular, cliche seems like kind of a dick label to attach to it.

I don't know for sure that P90X works, I know a few people who have at least started it (I myself did P30X, which is when you do the first phase and then eat pizza and skip working out). But here's what I do know, from my limited knowledge of working out.

1) When you work out, you get more fit (fitter?)

2) When you work out six times a week for an hour+ at a time, you're going to get really fucking fit.

3) Ab Ripper X makes me cry.

There's really no rhyme or reason for my choosing of P90X, it's a matter of already having the system and never completing it before. And besides, after cancelling cable, Netflix, and Hulu+, I have a surplus of time on my hands, one that's only going to increase as my favorite shows end their seasons.

So what do I expect? 


Simply put, I just want to FEEL better. All around, not just in my upper body or my legs. And while I love running, the truth is that it's not a great all around workout, and in fact depends on the extra core work to make it doable. And while I expect to get stronger, I don't necessarily feel the need to look stronger, even though that'd be an awesome side benefit. Also, taking this on has led to another first, but this one unfortunately kind of adds to the cliche....I totally took cell phones in the mirror with my shirt off. That part is just out of sheer curiosity than anything else, but I'll be excited to see if there's a noticeable difference between now and then. I'm about to hit the third week, and I'll be following the diet a lot more strictly to see if I can get the maximum benefit from this program.

Finally, I've pretty much shit-canned the 100 pushup challenge. It's just too boring. I like P90X because at least it mixes things up, which is important when you're dumping all that time, money, and energy into a program. So here's to bringin it!

(on a side note, that freakin Someone That I Used to Know is stuck in my head like crazy)

And why the hell does Maroon 5 have a song called payphone in the year 2012?

Awesome April Actuality Awareness!

Well, I was going to hold this off for the actual end of the month...but I figured, what the hell, I'm edgy, I'll post my monthly update a day early. Occupy that.

First up, my progress on my resolutions.

#1 - Quit Smoking - DONE- 40+ days under my belt and going strong. I feel great, I smell great (...alright, better), and I have the energy of someone who isn't hacking up a lung. Basically my energy level has from Neo in the Matrix when he's all shot up and dead, to the jumping in that Agent dude and watching him explode into a bunch of itty bitty pieces. Ha, find that on your stupid TV quit ads, which are WAY more annoying when you're trying to quit. Imagine you're Catholic, and all you see and hear about on Friday are ads about steak. Yeah, thanks public ad campaign.

#2 - Positive Networth  DONE - In the black and growing! I've also made my first....83 cents off ad revenue from this thing. I'm not in this money, and like I said, I would donate whatever I made during Lent and triple it or something. I'm just gonna go with $5 (I should probably clarify that this isn't my only charitable donation of the year). Luckily the market continues to do well, and my budget has finally gotten to a settling point, which means I have more room available for fun!

#3 - Run a marathon - IN TRAINING - I've done the research, and I've decided that I'm going to run the Atlanta marathon on October 28th. I should have ample time to train up for it, and I'll be kicking off that effort in the next few weeks.

#4  - Travel more! - Doing! - This past month or so I've visited the Atlanta and Charleston areas and have had a blast at both. In addition, I bought a season pass at the US Whitewater Center near Charlotte, and quitting smoking has now covered that! There are a few more cities and places within driving distance I plan on visiting, so hopefully I'll be able to get to those places soon!

#5 - Write/create more! - Needs improvement  - Now, I've been writing a fair amount on here, so on one hand, I feel like I'm getting somewhere. However, it has gotten my kind of antsy and wanting to do even more.

One of the big ones is that I really want to enter, and eventually get selected, for one of the Cracked.com photoplasty articles. Yeah, it's dumb, but I'm making it a goal to enter at least 3 of those a month.

In my next post, I'm going to cover my next whiteboard item...tackling P90X!

#QuitNow! Achievement Unlocked: First thirty - No smoking for 30 days

Done, done, on to the next

It has been a crazy month since my last update, but I'm happy to say that I've continued on my trend of quitting smoking, and am now a month into my quit. It's been rough, but I'm finally past all of the withdrawal symptoms, and most of the psychological symptoms have finally subsided as well. Unfortunately, this has also meant that I've had to come face-to-face with my other addiction, sweet sweet caffeine.

Let me put this into perspective. In college, my academic adviser drank coffee until about 4:30 in the afternoon, and this is a guy I spent a lot of time with my senior year. To say I picked up the habit is an understatement. My last semester as a history major had me writing somewhere around 90-100 pages between all my classes, and I was drinking coffee from 7am to 7pm and switching to Wild Turkey at 7:01pm, while smoking a pack a day.

Even nowadays, my morning usually started with three cups of coffee that I finish before 8am, and then I drink at least 3 more. And then on my way home from work, I'll grab a Monster from the gas station. On weekends, I'll easily drink 6 cups from the start. You can get a pretty good idea of how this can mess with my sleep cycle, and thus create a vicious cycle of dependency.

This is all well and good when you're smoking, because nicotine messes with how alcohol and caffeine effect the body, mostly in that they reduce the effects. Take away that nicotine, and you have a super-powered drunk/hyperman running around. So in honor of my one month of smoking cessation, I've decided to confront my caffeine addiction. I started out trying not to drink anything containing caffeine, but that turned out to be what scientists define as fucking retarded. After about an hour of feeling like my brain was being pried open, I caved and had a small coffee, and for the rest of the day I felt okay. And that night, I slept like a baby. No waking up in the middle of the night, it took me all of about 10 minutes to go to sleep, and I didn't wake up two hours before my alarm went off. The next day, I decided on drinking my 3 cups of coffee in the morning to get me going, and under no circumstances would I drink a Monster after work.

Now on day four, I've also had the bonus effect of not ingesting between 200-250 calories of God knows what, nor any of the gas station snacks I'd buy and eat as well. Baby steps to a healthier me, woo.

In any case, this post has focused mainly on my resolution of quitting smoking, which I feel confident enough to say I can cross off my list of resolutions. So now, between having a positive net worth and this, I've finished 2 of the 5 things I've set out to do this year. I'll do the full first third of the year update next week, but so far, I'm pretty pumped! And I'll keep posting my QuitNow achievements as I get them, because life deserves to be played like a video game.

#QuitNow! Achievement Unlocked: Half a thousand cigarettes - 500 cigarettes non-smoked