First week @40

Sunday was my 40th birthday. Yeah, I'm old, whatever. I was "old" at 20 ... chronological age means nothing. You're as old as you feel, I feel like a dinosaur and always have.

It feels like I should mark this occasion. Celebrate my survival or something. But, in my case, my survival is simply staying out of the path of danger. I like to see risky situations from miles away. People that go to NASCAR make me cringe. Breathing noxious fumes may be worse than the possibility of a flaming race car tumbling into the stands - you can run from that, see it on-coming.

Beyond all of that, I've made some changes to my diet and lifestyle. I'm just hoping I can hold onto them. Today is the 9th. So far I have been to the gym everyday this month, save one, and even God rested on the Sabbath. My goal is to hit the gym every business day and most weekend/holidays. I went to the gym on my birthday!

I've also changed my gym habits. I'm doing more weight training. My boss, GmrGirl, is also my trainer and defacto nutritionist. (She can be your trainer, too.) We started getting me to do some lifting last week. She also ran my numbers when I began complaining that going to the gym and my 2000 calorie diet were showing poor results on the scale. Her point: I'm no longer sedentary. I need to eat. She wants me to do 3000 calories a day. Adding 1k of calories without adding carbs isn't easy!

My diet is now much larger. I've added an armload of fruit, less salads, more lean meat and I bought $150 of protein powder the other night. The easiest to find protein powder is Whey protein. Whey comes from milk. I'm lactose intolerant - so I figured this was a no-go. But, it turns out, the highest quality whey powder (and thus the most expensive) is also the lowest in lactose. That also makes it the lowest carb. So, I have two five pound jars of protein powder in my kitchen. Should last me a month or so the way I have been using it.

In short, lots of changes. I'm hoping, as always, to just keep the momentum. At this point, I might get on the scale toward the end of the month - maybe. My body is about to make some big changes if I can keep this up and not a lot of progress will show up on the scale. Two or three months from now, again, if I can keep this up, the scale will show drastic results ... or so I hope.