Advanced Accountability

Throwback Thursday

On August 18, 2012 I posted on Facebook that I had started walking and would start riding soon. I'd lost 61 pounds at that point. I got some positive feedback but I said it then and I said it now, I wanted to make it harder to quit. I was halfway to the spot I got to a year later but I hit a wall and even though I feel better than I ever have I want to finish this journey so here I go again ... 

Help wanted

I signed up for the pace group at the Hotter than Hell Hundred this year. It's a group that rides the rally in less than 5 hours, non-stop 100 miles at over 20 miles an hour the whole way. The thing that stands in between me and that goal is the last 20 or so pounds I've been dragging along since I hit this level in 2013. I'm asking Paul Mossa to help me with this challenge. All the years of excess weight has created a condition called spinal stenosis in my lower back. Oddly enough, I can ride for hours but can barely walk to the kitchen every morning. I am much more comfortable leaning over than I am standing up. 

The only cure that isn't surgery is to strengthen my core, lose these last 20 plus pounds and by doing that, I will also be able to ride faster and further so the Pace Group made sense, I am signed up so I am all in. I'm also telling my friends on Facebook about it so it will be harder to quit, or sneak lemonade into my green tea or to grab a cookie instead of a banana. 

Added incentive

Plus Craig Hodges said he'd tattoo my name on his ... fanny over 25 years ago if I ever got my weight under 200 pounds and everyone knows there is no statute of limitations on stupid dares so I've got that out there. I'm not sure I want my name on another dude's buttocks but if it's got to go on anybody's it might as well be his.  Paul and I are looking forward to making him squirm. 

The Usual Suspects

I've also got Doug, Jeff, Jim and Ozzie out there riding with me. Oddly enough Jeff was one of the guys that commented it was awesome that I had started walking, three years later he borrowed a bike and started riding with us, I'm picking him up at 7:30 tomorrow morning. Circle of life. 

Most of all I have my incredible family, Katie, Will, Andrew, the AshMan and most of all my bride, Linda, there with me. When I quit drinking, so did she, when I quit cheeseburgers so did she and when I decided to take on this challenge I knew she would be there, picking me up, helping me find something I set down, sacrificing something tasty so I won't be tempted.   

So here I go again, looking forward to the journey with you. 

Thank You Junior Miller

Inspiration Comes From Strange Places

140 plus pounds ago

2 years and 140 pounds ago, before I started riding, I really knew very little about cycling other than once a year they have a big race called the Tour de France and guys rode ridiculous distances every day up and down huge mountains very fast. Lance Armstrong woke the sport up in America but as a guy incredibly out of shape, I kind of assumed that was something I wouldn't do. That being said, the marathon and the long rides always fascinated me, for a guy with an incredibly short attention span, the idea of a marathon intrigues me, I don't know why. It certainly isn't something that translates to TV very well, even though I ride a lot now, I don't follow the sport that closely, like a lot of riders do.

Tour de Pac 12 at Cal

I do know that not much was said about the sport other than some friends of mine who rode and a radio host in Dallas named Craig (Junior) Miller. He did more than talk about it, he lived it, he went to France and rode the course after it was done. He is an incredible story teller and he would spend several segments of his morning radio show talking about the ride and it got me interested. One of the things about Junior that struck me is there weren't stories of his athletic achievements when he was young, he tells a lot of stories about electronic football, collecting baseball cards, and things like that but I have never got the feeling that he was an all-state three sport athlete that things like this came naturally to but yet he could ride the toughest courses in the world and he did it at my age. He is now an incredible athlete, through hard work and determination, in fact, he just completed his first Iron Man a few weeks ago when I started this ride from Canada to Mexico aka the Tour de Pac 12.

17 Mile Drive in Carmel

So almost two years ago, when I started my cycling journey he gave me that bit of confidence that the fat kid, me, that didn't make the cut in the sports that he tried out for, could ride a bike. Probably not as well as he did, but at least I could try. I have always dreamed big so the fact that Junior rode the rides they ride in the Tour de France got me thinking along those lines. It gave me the perfect mental backdrop in 2012 when I saw a group of riders when I visited the Rose Bowl on our first trip to California and they just glided down from the mountain and majestically swept around that venue. I thought "I have to do that" (and I will on the UCLA leg of the Tour de Pac 12) in part because Junior Miller told those funny stories about lost bikes, big rides, and continuing on after his friend said he couldn't go on. Those kind of stories stuck with me and made me think those things a month before I dusted my bike off and took it to the shop. I have listened to that station since the first day it aired and been a fan of the morning team since they made the shift from afternoons so it has been something that just kept coming up every summer when the Tour de France came up. He got that ball rolling and for that I am very thankful. 

Tour de Pac 12 w
Oregon State Players

On Friday I head to Santa Monica Pier in LA from Santa Barbara and on that ride I will pedal through Oxnard California, where the Dallas Cowboys are holding training camp this year. I tried to ride from LA up to Santa Barbara last year when Linda and I came out to renew our vows on Venice Beach and I couldn't get it finished. I did make it through Oxnard and, candidly, the part of Oxnard you ride through on a bike is kind of a dump, I wondered why the Cowboys would ever leave Thousand Oaks for Oxnard so Friday I can see why and ride by where they are practicing. Additionally if I veer off the path there I will actually make my ride 100.2 miles, so I can vindicate myself for last year at the same time. 

Of course the Ticket will be there covering the event, so it's the perfect way to ride by and get a selfie with the Ticket setup in the background in what I am dubbing the Junior Miller leg of the Tour de Pac 12. It's hard to say thanks to someone like that who you really don't know so this is my way of doing it. It will be fun, I will be sure and post a picture or two on Instagram and Twitter so follow @fordbaker on either and maybe you can get a chuckle out of it. 

Tour de Pac 12 – University of Colorado – Folsom Field

Lessons learned and things I saw on first ride in Tour de Pac 12

What a beautiful place to start the ride and what a great reminder that the best laid plans often don’t pan out. I didn’t get an email that was supposed to update me of a new start

After ride at Folsom Field. #todayican

point and therefore the ride started much later than planned. I had to jump into my ride right in the middle of the route I laid out. I couldn’t tell if the Garmin was picking up the route in midstream or another route and it seemed to lead me all over the place, when I thought I should be turning right, it told me to turn left and it took forever to get rolling.

#todayican at Mile High Stadium en route to Boulder

It was a great reminder because while on the way to Mile High, where the Broncos play football on Sundays, the Garmin told me to turn left and I could clearly see the top deck of the stadium stands sticking out on the other side of a building in the opposite direction it told me to go, as I went up the street it told me to turn again and I was not heading to Mile High, of that I was positive. After all the stands were sticking out of the building behind me now so I turned around and headed back, got back on the trail by the river and headed to my destination while my Garmin screamed OFF COURSE! OFF COURSE! OFF COURSE! I was certain it was giving me the wrong route or trying to lead me away from the stadium instead of toward it, after all I had been in Denver all morning and that pretty much made me the expert on where the Broncos play football. Since I rode the trail by the river I really could not see much of the landscape up along the road so I worked my way back up right where I thought the stadium was and that is when I found out that thing sticking out was not part of the stadium  but actually was a unique

River trail by downtown Denver

piece of architecture protruding from a museum I later learned. It was not even close to the size of a football field and several miles in the opposite direction from Mile High Stadium. In fact, as the pictures from my ride show, there isn’t really a top deck of the stadium that sticks out. Not only did I not know where the stadium was, I did not even know what it looked like.

What it reminded me is how I so often live my life, I’m pretty sure I know where I am going and that the man upstairs does not really understand the best way to get there even though He has a view from above that actually knows what is behind the next corner where I think I want to go and when I get warnings that I am off

Haunted Colorado State Capitol in Denver

course, I plow ahead and ignore those messages. I got a lot of those messages from a couple of Doctors that told me to lose weight or suffer the consequences and when canes and sore backs and high blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels showed up, I plowed ahead and just took more meds that put a different Band-Aid on my problem without ever stopping the bleeding. Thankfully in 2012 I listened and even though I did to that message I find it funny how frequently I still miss those messages.

Victor Davanzo with All My Sons Moving in Denver 

Colorado Rockies home field 

Enough of my deep thoughts though, how about some pictures from the ride, after all Colorado is a pretty state and a lot more interesting than my rambling. I got some good climbs in but I picked a route that would challenge me but not wear me out. I had a rough spot with the weather toward the end but I felt really good about getting up and down the hills and fighting through some wind. It’s on to Salt Lake where I am going to ride one of four state rivalry rides I am going to do, where I ride between two rival schools, this time it is riding from BYU to Utah. We are plowing through Wyoming now and cutting over to Utah and Linda is ready for me to shut up, hope you enjoyed my thoughts and the pics from the ride. 

Beautiful lakeside park outside downtown Denver

STATS FROM THE RIDE:

Ride #1

Saturday, June 21, 2014

41.7 Miles ... 2,489 feet of elevation 

Colorado Football

To Date

41.7 Miles ...2,489 feet of elevation 

Total rides 1

Pulling up to Folsom Field

doing the airplane thing on my bike

 

Folsom Field in the Summer

10-net 1: These Are Not Steps

These 10-nets that I have been writing about are not steps or stages that you pass and do in succession. As I have said over and over again, this mentality is a lifestyle. This is not a diet with a start and finish; this is a new approach to how you live your life. The 10-nets are beliefs that are enacted in my life on a day-to-day basis. Some days I focus more on specific ideas, but they are all part of my daily routine.

So if you choose to take the “Today I Can” mindset, then remember, I have no formula or routine specific for you. I have no “eat this specific food and do this exercise program today” to get you healthy. My recipe is this: Each day I try to make the right decisions about what I put in my body and when I exercise,  and if I succeed Today, I will start again tomorrow. Today I Can be healthy, and so can you.

10-net 2: Evict the Icants

Everyone has heard of the Minions, the little yellow guys that hung around with Gru in Despicable Me, right? Minions are more than just yes men, they are YAY men. No matter how bad an idea Gru has, they literally go bananas like it's the best idea in the history of ever! Steal the moon? Hell yeah baby, let's do this thing! All we need is a shrink ray!

The Icants are the exact opposite of Minions, they are the little guys that live in my head and tell me I can't do things. Oddly enough, they gain strength from my weakness, from my failures, from me quitting and most often from me not even trying.  I think it's something that all of us that have suffered with obesity can relate to. “I can't fly” because of the looks other passengers have when I get on the plane, they might as well stand up and scream “Dear Lord NO! Please don't let the fat guy sit next to me!” Even though I've lost a lot of weight the Icants insist on still screaming the thoughts people aren't thinking when I get on a plane. They love it when I can't and they are the kryptonite of Today I Can.

A couple of weeks ago I rode in a rally called the Richardson Wild Ride, but I did not adequately prepare for it. I rode too far the night before because I thought everyone was going to keep an easy pace. When we got going it was obvious nobody remembered the talk of an easy pace and we all roared off like we were going to win the thing, my legs weren’t fully recovered, we hit the hills and I fell off the back end after a couple of climbs. Immediately I returned to the kid in junior high who finished last in every track meet, I can’t keep up with these other guys, I can’t do this, I can’t climb as fast, I can’t ride this fast and I ended up being right. Not because I wasn’t physically ready but because I said those two little words that are one of the key ingredients of every missed opportunity. I said “I can’t”

As I prepare to leave for my coastal ride, there are a lot of Icant’s that say a lot of lies, but there is one that speaks the truth. I can’t listen to them. I know I can do it. I’m sure there are lots of you with Icants that are keeping you from being all you were created to be. Before you can, you got to shut up the Icants, they are tougher than big hills, big winds, or high heat.

10-net 3: Encourage Others

You could be the final push for someone to get healthy. I don’t share my story and my success to brag, or remind myself of what I have accomplished. Quite frankly, I don’t view this success as my doing, but something that was a product of faith in the Lord and a tremendous amount of support from others. I could not have done this if it wasn’t for people pushing me to start. So I share my story, because if one person sees my story - and the dramatic change that has occurred in my life - and is inspired to make a change in their life, then all this is worth it.

Maybe this story has inspired you to make a change, then continue to spread the word! Share my story, and share yours! Maybe this message isn’t meant for you, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t share and encourage others. If you know a person that needs to make a change, be the one who steps out and challenges them. They may resent you for it at first, but one day they will thank you for. Get out there and encourage others to make a change!

10-net 4: Find What Works For You

There are two different sides to healthy living, and those are diet and exercise. Dieting is pretty straight forward. If you are deciding between a burger and fries, and chicken and veggies, you know what the right choice is. But even in dieting there are many options, whatever you choose to do, stick to it, don’t let the diet expire.

When it comes to exercise it is crucial that you find something you enjoy. For myself it was riding. You get to ride in races, wear cool flashy jerseys, and riding a bike is very entertaining. For my wife, she hops on the treadmill an hour a night. She doesn't run in big races or marathons because that’s not her. She turns on Netflix and just runs for an hour in the privacy of our own home. You have to find whats going to work for you. If you want to ride, I’ll help you get set up with a bike and get you spinning. If you wanna run, my wife will do the same. Maybe you want to swim, or rock climb and hike, or do interval training and weightlifting. What specific exercise you do doesn't matter to me! Just get out, get active, and get fit!

10-net 5: You Can't Do It Alone

"But it's called Today I Can! Why do I need help??"
Because, hypothetical stranger, accountability is essential.

In October of 2013 I was featured in an article in the Dallas Morning News and I talked about weight loss and my road to a healthy lifestyle. In that article I talked about my good friend Doug Walker, and referred to him as my "Fitness Mentor". Doug was key in helping me get to where I am today. I am not a very athletic person, but he is, and when I first started riding he could have left me in the dust. But instead he dragged me around and patiently held back with me, always challenging me to work a little harder than I would have challenged myself. He is actually going to be joining me in the later part of the Tour de Pac 12, helping me stay motivated, and doing what he does best, challenging me to push harder.

Another man who I get the pleasure of riding with is Ozzie "The Wizard" Buckler. He too helps me stay motivated and rides with me at least once a week.

These two men have been essential in my road to health, especially when I was first starting out. Exercise is hard, and quite frankly it hurts sometimes, and if you're going it alone, it's pretty easy to say no to yourself. But it is hard to say no to someone standing in front of you saying "time to ride". It wasn't a constant battle for me to stay at it, but on the days that it was, having someone there to keep me going was crucial.

Find someone to keep you going, and if you need someone, I'd be glad to help.

10-net 6: Don't Be Afraid to Call an Audible

The road to a healthy lifestyle is not easy, and obstacles will arise. You could be running and sprain you ankle, pull a hamstring, or maybe even just get sick for a couple of days. For myself, I rode into a curb, flew over my handle bars, and fractured my wrist. I could not put pressure on my wrist for 6 weeks, which meant I couldn’t ride outside. In the past, this would have been the end, I would have been defeated, and stopped riding. But I didn’t do that. I called an audible, hopped on a stationary bike, and simply road in my house. Not only did I not let this injury halt me, it actually helped me figure out a great alternative for when there is inclement weather.

When obstacles arise, do not get defeated, call an audible and overcome it. Its not always going to be easy, but I pray you keep pushing, because its so worth it.

10-net 7: Goals are good!

Now I know this may seem counterintuitive to the “Day One” mentality, but having something to strive for is great! But you should strive for the right thing. My objective remains the same, make good decisions today but somewhere along the way, I decided I would ride from Vancouver to Tijuana so I started to think about and study what my daily exercise routine would look like if I was going to do that and what my diet will look like heading into and during the ride.

When people go on diets they say “I am going to go 10 days without eating a cheeseburger” and then they celebrate by eating a cheeseburger. If that's the reward, I want it now, what do I do to get it faster and what can I do to get two? Your goals should be in line with the habits you are making and the reward should be something that fits in with both of those as well. I want the reward of a new bike after I ride the wheels off my old one is a goal and a reward that doesn't get in the way of my daily routines or potentially get caught up in the details of being real tangible. It does line up with what I'm doing.

Eliminate prescription drugs, get your blood pressure down. Run a marathon, run two! My wife’s goal for 2013 was to run 1,000 miles, and she did! Pretty tangible goal but she's not like me, my goals are generally to ride more this weekend than last weekend and if I don't I just reload for the next weekend. When she did that she didn’t stop running, she continued, I might not react the same but this weekend is always coming up and last weekend is always something I can improve on. So Aim high? Dream big? Absolutely but not at the expense of living in the now.

10-net 8: Maintain a Day One Mentality

The Day One mentality is how I operate. Each day is day one of my diet and exercise routine, it ends today. A life style is not a “10 day juice cleanse” or a “30 day work out program”, it's a fundamental change in what you do today. When my family went on a 21 day cleanse diet, I finished the 21st day of the cleanse, and started again on Day 22. My new start date is today, my end date is something I simply don't focus on. If you put an expiration date on healthy eating then your healthy lifestyle is destined to expire! You are living to reward yourself by doing something that, in reality, is not rewarding. 

My approach is not complicated, I simply hope to make the right decisions today when it comes to what I put in my body. Today is my day one, if that works out, I will try it again tomorrow. Today is your day one as well, you just need to decide of what. 

10-net 9: The First Step

The most important step in any journey is the first one, and my story was no different. And my first step was quite literally a step. I had to start exercising, but I could only walk, so that’s what I did. And I started eating healthy. I decided to have a piece of chicken instead of a cheeseburger, and steamed veggies instead of fries. Those first steps were hard, but they became easier, and they eventually became habit. Those steps turned into gears on a bike, and thousands of miles ridden, but I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t take my first step.

The path to truly changing your lifestyle starts with the first step. If you are contemplating that first step, I hope you will take it. I pray you will take it. If you know someone who needs to take that first step, then talk to them. If you need help taking your first step, talk to me, talk to a friend.  Its hard, but its worth it. This is so much better than a cheeseburger.

The 10-nets of Today I Can

It’s June 11 and that brings us to our final countdown, the 10-nets of Today I Can. These are the things I really hope to convey on the Today I Can ride. Each of these are a work in progress for me. I hope I have communicated that I am not Lance Armstrong, I’m not even Doug Walker, I’m Ford Baker, the accountant. I struggle to get up hills, my legs hurt after long rides, and my back hurts if I pick up something heavy. Heck, I’m 50! I must pee 3 times a night now and at least 50 times a day.

The point is that these are not just a list of ten things you check off and then are done, they are changes we make on the inside, in our perspective on life. We won’t ever be done, we are too big of a mess to start with. In reality, I always feel like I’m just beginning. Each ride teaches me something about myself, reminds me of something someone tried to convey before but I wasn’t paying attention. I have to be careful here because I know if I read this ten years ago, I’d have already quit. I am wired for short term projects with a definite start and a definite end.

This wouldn’t appear to have that but that is where I would be wrong. Several years ago, I started down this one day at a time path just trying to figure out some of the side effects my poor decision making skills had generated. I used what I learned about me there to deal with my food issues - first in how I could change my eating habits, then how I could use my tendencies to workout and ride a bike, and then how I could change my desire to eat food that made me feel better to eating the food to made me fuel better. I still don’t have it all figured out, I know that now. I still have to ask God for help to make good decisions in what I eat and drink, and that I exercise and stay safe, but now I have seen that I can add and that I pay attention to the signs He sends. Those tendencies of mine cringe at the long term prospects involved with goal setting, but note that none of the things I found out were long term goals when I started, they were by-products of just trying to make good decisions in what I ate today, to exercise today, to ask God for help today.

Tomorrow it could be start being on time, be more organized, or stop using so many swear words. I don’t know for sure, that’s why it always feels like the beginning; today He may teach me something I never thought about before or he may reiterate something that I ignored before. Who knows, but it will be on to a start of something new, a new beginning. This starting each day with a new beginning has helped me progress way more than when I thought I knew what my goals should be and ran my life myself. I had goals and passed tests and did all kinds of things but in reality, I was getting further and further from where I wanted to be and I was getting there fast.

So check back in over the next 10 days and then follow along with my ride but more importantly realize that today is the day you can #getmoving. And by all means, share this feed with others, if not you, then someone you know might be the one He has me doing this for. 

The Cleanse Question

I have been asked a couple of times about what cleanse did I use and what protein shake do I take now. I am a sports fan and I listen to a local sports radio station called the Ticket, I work a lot of Saturdays during tax season and George Digianni has a Saturday morning show on health and fitness. It wasn't really my bag but i was too lazy to change the station so I would listen, eventually I checked his website and gave him a call and we started the cleanse. 

I would recommend his 21 day cleanse because it comes with a complete diet plan for those 21 days and it makes it black and white. It is a list of eat this and this and this and don't eat any of this. If you are anything like me having a diet with cheats included is a recipe for failure, who wants to reward themselves with 4 Cheetos if there is a bag there waiting to be plundered? If you stick to it in 21 days you will have lost some weight and gained some energy and that momentum can carry you into other phases.

Most cleanses are going to focus on cleaning out your system and that is a very good thing, for 21 days. It is not something our intestines can take long term. After the cleanse ended the black and white part of it worked for me, in fact i was the only one in my family that didn't cheat at all, additionally we had 3 people doing it together in 2012 and the 3 week supply was gone in 7 days and all we could find included videos and pamphlets etc, we just wanted the powder so we went to Whole Foods, the Vitamin Stop and Ultimate Sports Nutrition and asked the folks there what we were taking and what they had in stock we could mix in with our protein shake, we tried a million different protein powders before we found Oh Yeah, i like the Strawberry and Linda likes the Vanilla. From there I add in a lot of vitamins, minerals, supplements, cod liver oil, a banana, some frozen grapes, ice and coconut water. I take all the pills, my wife adds them to her shake because she's not big on pills. 

We got a nice blender, it actually counts the number of times we make a shake, we are getting close to 1,500 now so I guess we are good at routines once we settle in. I would definitely suggest using a program like George's, he has a good product and a plan to help you get started, it's not the worst $100 you will ever spend, for me it's the best. From there, who knows maybe you go a different route, 
but give it a shot, it could help get you going.

I had a nice couple of rides this week but was discouraged a bit by there being so many accounting emergencies, i thought we ran out of work after April 15th. I got those Franchise returns filed and extended, rode to work with Doug on Thursday and home with a stop by Richardson Bike Mart to see if they had anything I didn't know I couldn't live without. We got the wild ride on Saturday and then a bunch of us are going on the dam ride through Grapevine on Sunday.

Thanks for checking in!

Announcing the Tour de PAC 12

The Beginning

Earlier this year Doug Walker and I started a new organization called The Today I Can Foundation, we are in the process of obtaining non-profit status from the Internal Revenue Service. It's goal to demonstrate to anyone currently suffering or will be suffering from the pain of a sedentary lifestyle combined with an unhealthy diet.

Some of you have heard it before and have spent a lifetime dealing with it. For some reason your desire for weight loss was never greater than your desire for whatever comfort food would make you happy. There are a million reasons why you can't and you cling to them all, nobody understands.

That lie is only true in your head and because it is the truth there, it is a lie you live out every day. What we want to do is simple, we want to show you that you can and you don't have to cling to those lies. In 2011 I weighed somewhere around 350 pounds and took 45 mg of Actos and 2,000 mg of Metformin for type 2 diabetes, 100 mg of Losartan and 50 mg of Carvedilol for high blood pressure and heart disease, 45 mg of Simvastin for my high cholesterol, and a baby aspirin and they did nothing but create symptoms, they were very poor band-aids. During the spring of 2012, at 48 years old, I needed a cane to get from the parking lot to my office and that's when the light bulb went off. 

"Light Bulb" always cracks me up

I realized I was morbidly obese and it was going to kill me but before it did I stood a very good chance of subjecting myself to a life full of painful side effects from diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. In May I did a cleanse and in July I started to walk, I walked each day a little further than the day before and I started to feel better about it, this July I want to encourage someone to do the same thing, to show them what can happen if they just get moving, I am going to attempt something I did not think was possible 2 years ago when I was using that cane to get in from the office. This July I am going to ride my bike all over the PAC 12 conference, we are calling it the Tour de PAC 12. I live in Dallas Texas and my wife and I are going to drive up to Vancouver and I am going to do a couple of rides on the way but starting around July 1 I will get on my bike North of Vancouver and start a ride that will end up at the border of the United States, entering Mexico. My ride will be over 2,000 miles long. I don't have a team, it's just me and the road. 

A little about me

Before: ESPN Studios in Connecticut

Before I go much further, I'd like you to know something about me, I am going to be vulnerable. I am a CPA, a tax guy. I am not a jock or former high end athlete that called on something I've done before to do this. I am an accountant because I am good with numbers not because I ran a 4.4 40 yard dash or could bench press a Volkswagen. In fact, I never made a cut for any team that had one. I played basketball for three seasons in elementary school and scored two baskets. In the 8th grade I was the kid asked to play on the 7th grade team when they needed a player to fill out that lineup, the only 8th grader on the 7th grade team. In track I always brought up the rear in whatever race the fat kids raced in. There is nothing special about me athletically, in fact, I always kind of sucked, so if that is your excuse, consider it moot.

Back to the Tour

During: Venice Beach, California

Each day I am going to get up and ride and at some point that day, I'd like someone that needs that encouragement to just go for a walk, that's it. I don't want anything else, just for you or someone you know to go for a walk, I will ride across the country if on that first day, you will go for a walk for 15 minutes and then turn around and walk home. It would be great if you posted something on Facebook or Twitter and included #getmoving or #todayican - folks are going to like that on Facebook and if that feels good, think about doing it the next day. Maybe it will catch on.

That's it, I will keep on riding and encouraging and if you like, you can walk the next day, maybe a little further or longer than you did before. I will keep going and when I get done, I will come home and we can see what folks want to do next, if it's ride a bike and you're ready, we can help you find the right bike. If it's lift weights or swim, let's do that but let's wait until that day gets here and focus on taking that first walk, maybe pick up some comfortable shoes and something that will be comfortable to wear but that's it.

A note to the friend and loved one

If you know someone that might need a push in that direction, say a prayer for them and ask them to lunch or go to a movie and listen for the chance to tell them about this fat guy that just went for a walk one day and it changed his life, point them at my blog and maybe they get moving. Offer to walk with them, it would do you good as well, don't overdo but do something. They may offer you an expletive filled answer or they may give you a couple of very good excuses but send them the link to this note and let's see if they would take that walk with you. Also, encourage them to track how far they walked on the "Map My Walk" or "Strava" app for their smartphone and then post it on Facebook or Twitter. Use that #todayican or #getmoving and then like the hell out of every walk they take, make a comment and be supportive. Encourage them and keep on praying for them. It let's them know you care and if you believe in a higher power pray for the things that will get in their way.

A note to the guy who gets this link from someone

Don't lash out at them, read it and be thankful they care. They can't fix you, they know that. They just want you to be healthy. Don't be mad at them for caring and don't let it hurt your feelings, it is personal, it is personal and they care. Let me tell you something else, it feels incredible, it's better than a cheeseburger to jog up stairs, seriously. It's better than Cheetos to not take prescriptions each day. Seriously better. That's why I am doing this, it's this super great completely legal drug and I'd like you to experience it and it can be done not with some crazy diet or surgery or gym membership, it's just a walk. Try it one day and see what happens, if it works out try it again tomorrow.

Riding with life's experiences

Adversity comes in different forms

Just like life, riding a bicycle comes with it's share of adversity. Most of it revolves around the elements, heat, cold, rain, wind and gravity (aka hills). Well, the toughest adversary we actually face is the angry white guy being denied his constitutional right to drive 45 in a 35 MPH Zone on Ohio Drive in Plano ... but that's a thread for another day.

In Dallas we don't deal with gravity a lot, we are blessed with a pretty flat terrain. It's an incredible place to live if you like to ride because other than a couple of months we can always ride. Each spring, after the couple of months of "winter" we get here a new cycling season starts and we are greeted with one of our toughest adversaries, the wind. I guess since we don't have a lot of hills, we don't have a lot of things to slow the wind down. It seems as if it starts picking up speed once it clears the hill country south of Waco and doesn't slow down until it's halfway through Oklahoma. If the wind is from the North, I just assume the reverse is true.

Deal with it

Still like our life, the wind is an adversity you just have to deal with. It's inevitable, it's part of the game and you deal with it or it deals with you. When I encounter adversity, I turn to two ex's, my experience and the examples set by others. Both of those are used a lot on the bike but this week my experience came to mind, so that is where I am going to focus on. 

On my rides this week I had to deal with the wind, a lot of it. At points by the lake it was blowing at least 25 MPH, when that happens I draw upon an experience that helps me deal with the wind. It goes all the way back to the early 80s, when I played football and all of the linemen (of which I was one) would drive those blocking dummies and sleds all over the field. There was one set of commands I will never forget because it was said over and over again, "C'mon Baker! Drive your legs! Stay low!" It was a concept I apparently never grasped because every time the ball was snapped, I'd pop up like a jack in the box and if I ever chased down the man I was assigned to block, my legs would quit driving and I'd attempt to lean my opponent into submission. A jack in the box might be an effective spokesperson for cheeseburgers but there aren't many of them in Canton Ohio because of their effective play along the line of scrimmage. During my senior year, there was a sophomore lineman, let's call him Clark, who earned the designation "Sophomore Varsity Star" using the confidence that I instilled in him by trying to use my jack in the box technique on him.

It wasn't because I couldn't stay low and drive my feet, it just was when the chips were down and the ball was snapped, I did what I instinctively thought was best, I never disciplined myself enough to change my actions. It made staying on the field a difficult thing for me to do, a coach couldn't leave a guy in the game for long if he consistently did not do what was best for the team to keep moving the ball. 

Lesson Learned

Riding into the wind is really what being a lineman is all about, it's the job that has to be done, so the climbers and sprinters can stay fresh. There are guys on a team that do nothing but knock a hole through the wind and their opponents so the superstars can ride off in a yellow jersey. Stay low, keep your legs moving and create a hole for others to move through sounds a lot like a lineman's job. When the ride's been long and the wind is relentless, you naturally want to sit up tall and open up your lungs, your legs are heavy and you really want to coast and give them a rest. When you sit up tall though the wind grabs hold of you like it does with a sail and pushes you, but not in the direction you are heading. If you don't keep spinning, the wind makes it impossible to coast and you slow down. If you are doing both, you start grinding just to keep from falling over. After that you discover that it takes considerably more effort to speed up than it would have to have maintained your speed. The very thing you thought you were doing to rest is actually making you work harder. Inevitably, the same thing happens with the jack in the box technique in cycling that it did for me in football, you stop moving and your opponents pass you by. 

At those moments, for whatever reason, I think back to those points, where I learned that doing what I wanted, against the instructions of those who knew better and only wanted to see me succeed, didn't work out very well. The wind will blow so hard I can't hear myself think but that's when I can hear Coach Beane, Coach Nail, Coach Aaronson, Coach Harris and Coach Peterson repeating that same phrase they did from Junior High to High School, "C'mon Baker! Stay Low! Keep your legs moving!" with one big difference, I've learned it's easier for me if I follow those instructions.

Earlier this week I was riding my second lap around the lake (there is a reason they "issue wind advisories by area lakes") and I was in the into the wind part of that lap. I was staying low, my legs were spinning and I was punching open a hole into the wind. I wasn't really thinking about the wind because it's not as hard if you do it right. I may not have been moving as fast as I would like but I was getting there and in so doing, I passed a guy quite a bit younger and certainly more athletic than me. He, unfortunately, was using the jack in the box technique and his legs were barely moving. He looked miserable and it didn't help that a 50 year old grey bearded dude with a belly passed him with a cheery good morning. 

He looked a lot like what I remember Friday nights feeling like back in 1981, watching that sophomore take my spot on the field. As we get older, the roles reverse, freshmen aren't supposed to win the Heisman and run over and around the SEC like Johnny Manziel did when he was a freshman. Years later we discover that old pitchers aren't supposed to be strikeout kings and whip up on Robin Ventura like Nolan Ryan. I will probably never know what Clark or Johnny felt on the gridiron but my new favorite experience is getting to feel just a tiny bit like Nolan Ryan did by whipping up on a younger guy. It's an experience I am looking forward to having again.

Feeling good vs feeling good

My gut feeling

When I was a kid and I was running fever and had a headache, my mom would make me a cold compress, give me some aspirin and let me know it would make me feel better. If I had a belly ache, I'd tell my mom and out would come the Pepto-Bismol that crazy big silver spoon and a reassurance that this would make me feel better. If I came home from school after I had a rough day, my mom would feel bad for me and she would fix me a snack and set it in front of me, turn on Gilligan's Island and I'd feel better. I don't know that she was doing anything but trying to make her little boy happy but the thought was there for me, this made me feel better.  So I had it all figured it out, got a headache? Take an aspirin.  Got a tummy ache? Take PeptoBismol. Got a heart ache? Eat some Cheetos. She's not a bad mom, it's not her fault, she just didn't know that's what I was thinking, but it was and it got worse. 

Eventually food became this thing I used to change how I felt, now. If I was sad, mad, tired, beat, bored, anything I would get something to eat. If I felt really bad, I'd eat more because if a little food made me feel a little better, a lot of food would make me feel a lot better and it did it, right now, or at least I thought it did. Cheetos eventually became anything I could hold still long enough to deep fry and cover with gravy. It was my Xanax. 

Eventually, I managed to eat and drink my way into a bunch of XXXL shirts, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar and a fatty liver and it started to make me feel like crap. I was ashamed of who I had become. My doctor said to quit drinking, eat raw veggies, exercise and do a bunch of really awful things for a long time and I would "start" to feel better. 

I would do that for a week, maybe two and I still was in XXXL shirts and I still felt bad, except now I was always hungry. So I'd get depressed, think I could never do this and head to McDonalds for a Sausage Egg and Cheese Biscuit with two hash browns and a diet Coke (I know, never could explain it either) and then I would feel even worse, so I'd go get an Angry Dog Cheeseburger with fries for lunch and I'd love the way it tasted but I'd be ashamed of the failure. I was convinced I had to do it so I'd eat a salad in front of a client and a cheeseburger on the way back to the office and the cycle continued. 

The problem was my perspective, nobody ever told me after a bad day that if I sat down and ate Cheetos every day after school for 3 years in a row, didn't cheat or anything then I would "start" to feel better, I felt better right then, right now. Then I just did it over and over again until I ballooned up to 350 pounds, in a crazy sort of way, I proved I could follow a strict diet over the long term by focusing on feeling better now, today.  

So what's the point?

Before I figured out what to do about food, I started to ride and on an early longer ride I bonked. Bonking is a biking term for running out of energy and it's exactly like running out of gas, one minute you are moving and the next you are spitting and sputtering and you're done. You can't make it up the next hill, you just need to stop and call someone to come get you and to bring some carbs and some water and a long nap with them. 

I got home and called my fitness guru, Doug Walker, and he said let's figure out what went wrong, to start with ... and then he said four words I'd heard a million times but this time would completely change how I felt about food ... what did you eat? I told him I got a banana and some peanut butter crackers and he stopped me and said "no, before the ride, what you eat in the 24 hours before you ride will impact your ride more than anything you do."

I really don't remember what I ate but I do remember thinking that I'd have to check that out and I started looking carefully at what I ate and how my body used it. I focused on my proteins and limited my carbs and over the next week my rides got better faster than they had in a long time. I started to realize that veggies and fruits and lean proteins made me ride better and I would feel better right now, today. So I became more focused on it, I learned when to eat fats and how my body was meant to absorb them and I felt better, on that ride, today. 

My regimen essentially boiled down to a couple of things, get up early, ask God to help me be safe on my ride and make good choices in what I ate and drank, ride my bike and eat to recover or prep for the next ride. If I ate right, I'd ride better and feel better. I also learned when things I didn't think I'd eat again actually helped my rides, peanut butter delivered the right fat with a protein to really stretch out my ride, a sugar cookie was an easy carb on a long ride, especially if I had been pushing hard. The interesting thing is the food I liked before because it tasted good was reintroduced because of other real benefits. However the things I used to love, cheeseburgers, fried anything, gravy, none of those make me feel better anymore and I really have no real desire for them. I was in Eatzi's tonight and they had fried catfish, I looked for a second, remembered how great I thought it was and remembered I want to ride with the Greater Dallas Bike Club tomorrow and thought that won't do anything for me. I can pass on cheeseburgers at the Angry Dog and pull thru Wendy's and order a dry baked potato.  I honestly do not crave or think about ordering the other choices any more, simply because I know they no longer make me feel better. 

Therefore I did the exact same thing to lose weight as I did to gain weight, I used food as a tool to change the way I felt with one big difference, I learned what feeling better feels like and I learned what parts of me that food makes feel better. If I'm depressed or sad or whatever, food won't change that emotion, I can pray about it, meditate on it, talk about it or ride it out and be okay but a cheeseburger doesn't offset the hurtful words or actions of others. The right food gives me energy and stamina and normal blood pressure, cholesterol and sugars, those really feel good.  

Hindsight

In hindsight, that's a lot about me. People that use foreign substances to change the way they feel, right now, are often described as addicted to their feel good substance of choice and we share a lot of common traits. One is an inability to do things in moderation, we don't have a governor, we are all in or we are all out, there is no middle ground. So when we set a long term goal to never eat Cheetos again, we either succeed or we fail, completely. 364 days without Cheetos is completely lost in one little orange puff, complete failure. As strange as that may sound, it is my reality. I simply cannot balance the 364 good days with the one bad day and after the bad day, I thought well, I blew it and was done and with that kind of all or nothing perspective, I failed hard. History taught me that I could not do that long term thing so weight loss always overwhelmed me. However, if I boil it down to today, I can get my head around that, I am not overwhelmed by the thought of never eating another Cheeto, I just won't have one today and if that works out, I can try it again tomorrow. Adding the ingredient of ringing that feel better bell made it quickly become a habit, a habit my doctor claims I can live with.