Wanna See What it Looks Like When I Run?

I have been a sports fan my entire life. I can't remember a time I didn't root the Huskers on to victory, and sometimes, defeat. I remember getting up in the middle of the night with my dad in 1976 to listen to the Nebraska at Hawaii game on the radio. I collected NFL football cards starting in 1981. Then in 1985 I started collecting baseball cards. That really became my main hobby. By the time I was a junior in High Skool, I had enough football and baseball cards that when I sold them, I went on a 7 day trip to California, and buy a really nice baseball bat and new glove when I got back. When I was a kid, I liked to play football a lot. One time, one of my grandma Lilly's house cleaning jobs gave her some football uniforms, complete with pads and helmets. There were 4 sets. I was supposed to share two of them with my cousin, but don't tell him, because being an only child, I didn't want to share them with him. Plus, he didn't like sports. He was a country boy. He liked fishin' and killin' stuff. Therefore, I wanted to share them with my friends. Because my cousin wouldn't have strapped on the pads with his friends and ran at each other as fast we could and slammed into each other over and over again. Each time my friends and myself would always say, "Wow! It doesn't even hurt! This is great! Let's do it again!" That's the joy of being a kid and not having a whole lot of weight behind you to make you or your friend experience pain. Then, as I got older, and stopped being afraid of a baseball, baseball became my sport. Most of my friends at that time liked basketball, especially since Michael Jordan was huge then. But, I am 5' 6", and at my peek, I only had a 30" vertical, at the absolute most, and that might be stretching it an inch or two. So, baseball seemed the logical choice. I was good enough that the baseball coach saw me play softball during gym class and asked me if I wanted to go out for the team (baseball team, not softball). I wanted to, but I had this problem. I couldn't stand the jocks on the baseball team. For some reason, they were the most foul people in school. They all chewed tobacco, and seemed to rarely shower. The last thing I wanted was to be around them any more than necessary. Later on, I realized that even short people can be good at shooting the basketball. So I started to enjoy basketball a little more.

So, what makes me bring all this up? Well, I have a fantasy football team that needs a quarterback. So I was looking to see who was available and I came to Kerry Collins. I thought to myself, "Wow, that guy has been around forever, he's got to be older than dirt by now." Much to my dissatisfaction, I looked at his stats, and he is younger than me by 3 months. It was an awesome feeling...NOT! But, it made me reflect back on my "career" as a sports enthusiast. And, I don't think I am done. I really feel like I can get back in shape. I have lost 10 pounds over the past 3 weeks, and have an incentive to lose more for my SCUBA trip. I also would like to request that you help me. Each day from here on out, I will give you an update on if I went to the gym, what I did there, and what I ate for the day. This will give me some accountability since I am not going to want to give myself a bad report. I have 13 days before I leave for my trip. I think I can lose at least 6 more lbs. Actually, I would like to lose 10 more, but that is probably not too healthy, so as my aunt Diane would say, "I am keeping it real! Keepinitreal! Keepinitreal! Keepinitreal!" (She has crazy amounts of energy. )

We will start with today. Since I didn't know I was going to do this, it's not going to be the picture of what the next 13 days will be like. But here it goes. I had a chicken sandwich with french fries and a Diet Coke for lunch, from McDonald's, of all places. What's sad about this confession, is I literally go to McDonald's once a year. Today just happened to be the day. Then I had a hamburger for dinner. Protein shake for a bedtime snack. For exercise today, I did 100 crunches, 40 push ups, and about 20 minutes of cardio.

What I need to do starting tomorrow: I need to start having about 3 protein shakes a day, starting with breakfast. I usually don't eat for a few hours after I get up. That's not good. After all, after lunch and dinner, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. (If you can tell me what movie that is from, you win a prize!) I should have some snacks in between meals, like veggies or some fruit. Fiber is important. A nutritionist once told me that the shorter period of time your food stays in your body the less time your body has to draw out all the fat in the food. Yep, a daily poo is very important. I need to do at least one hour of cardio a day, at least 100 crunches a day and work out a couple times a week.

Well, I will let you know how it goes. Check in tomorrow to see how I did.