Day 395-Weigh-in Day: 294.6lbs

WEEK 56

Start Weight: 365.4

Last Week’s Weight: 296.4

Current Weight: 294.6

This Week’s Weight Loss: 1.8lbs

Total Weight Loss: 70.8lbs

Miles Biked this Week: 0

Total Miles Biked: 2206.86

Miles to Go: 5293.14

GEOGRAPHY (Where I'd be on the map having started at my house in Salt Lake City, Utah, heading for Tokyo):

Pacific Ocean (1493 miles off the west coast. I am heading for the Hawaiian Islands which is 2650 miles from San Diego)

This Week’s Workout

Monday: Rest

Tuesday: Rest

Wednesday: Walked 3 miles

Thursday: Rest

Friday: Rest

Saturday: Rest

TODAY:

Life isn’t very fun in a cast. The doc did another x-ray to check on progress and things are good. I’ll go see him in 3 more weeks and hopefully get out of the cast. I think this injury is a bigger set back than I realize. Doc doesn’t want me riding a road bike right now and putting pressure on the wrist. So I will stay off…but this week I will jump back into the gym, and start racking up the miles. It’s hard to see cyclist out biking, and I’m not. I will make up for it in the gym and at home. I am at the 5-month mark right now in counting down to “The Ride.” I am so anxious to start riding! I’ve got to be patient.

This week I didn’t do any workouts except for a nice long walk…but again I continued to stay on track with eating. I had a “free-meal” on Tuesday evening. I was feeling sick and was craving a double bacon cheese-burger down at the Amber Restaurant. So I ate one with onion rings, and a hot fudge sundae. It was perfect and I woke up feeling better.

There is another side to this experience that I haven’t been sharing. You’re only seeing what I’m doing to lose weight. However, there is quite another story going on behind the scenes in how I am getting this Japan trip pulled off. The bottom line is that I don’t have the money right now to get me and my family to Japan, along with a camera crew, a bike, pay for meals, some accommodations, and all the extra things that must be done. I have some of it.

That is the other part of this story that I am keeping fairly quiet about as when it’s all over I will include that as part of the documentary. The story on the surface is about weight loss, but what it’s really about is how one goes after a seemingly impossible dream.

It’s also about getting a second chance to go after your dreams. I’m 48 years old, and in some ways I feel that my best years are behind me. But in other ways I am discovering that my best years are in front of me. Have you ever felt that you wish you could have taken a big risk and gone after something? If you’re young, you may not totally understand what that feels like until you get down the road in life a little bit. There are a lot of regrets. A lot of: Why did I get fat…I should have gotten into biking years ago…I should have done this or that.

I was having a pity party a few nights ago while laying in bed next to my wife. I was thinking about all the money it is going to take to get me to Fuji. I then started thinking that nobody really cares about what I’m doing but me. I’m an old guy that is still pretty much a beginner on a bike. I’ve asked various bike companies to sponsor me. What bike company really cares about sponsoring some fat guy in his late 40’s? They don't! Blah, blah, blah…it went on and on and I truly felt sad. But the next day I snapped out of it.

I have 5 months left ‘til the ride, and I am going to surprise a lot of you by what I am going to do. The story is not over, and the best is yet to come.

There have been some bummer-type things happen in my life recently. They have made me angry and have caused me to not look at the real problem…myself. A little voice inside me has been whispering that I am wasting energy worrying and being angry about things I can’t change---that I should waste time focusing on them. I think I understood something at an even deeper level this week that I’ve already known, but for some reason it really made sense to me. You and I know that we’re the captains of our ships. It’s easy, and even sometimes feels good to blame. But again, something clicked this week that made me want to take my life to an even more accountable level. Read this quote that Stephen Covey made:

Well I’m off to a free day. Don’t forget what this weekend and tomorrow are really all about! Happy Easter!

Keep up your stuff and hopefully your left arm is working!!

Don