I was playing around with some numbers for other projects I’m working on, and decided to see how only one small change could affect my weight (in theory).

For example, a 12 oz. can of Coke is 140 calories. Now, let’s say I have only one can a day. If I’m not doing enough activity to burn that 140 calories, and I wind up with a 140 calorie surplus a day, everyday (either by drinking a Coke, eating a second helping of apple pie, or something else), then in one month, I’ll have a surplus of 4200 calories.

A pound is roughly 3500 calories, so I’m gaining 1.2 lbs. a month. Not really noticeable, right? My weight typically fluctuates within a few pounds during the week anyway. But, by the end of the year, I will have stored 50,400 calories or, to put it another way, a very noticeable 14.4 lbs….and now multiply that for any given number of years, and I’ve got trouble.

At that rate, over 3 years, I will have put on 43.2 lbs.

I’m using 3 years as an example because I weigh the same now as I did 3 years ago.

When all you see are diet and exercise plans for losing 10 lbs. in 10 days, 20 lbs. in a month, 50 lbs. in 90 days, and the like, it never really occurs to you that maybe — just maybe — losing 1.2 lbs. a month really can make a difference.

There’s no doubt that I’d be happy to be 43.2 lbs. lighter today.

I’m doing way more than just not drinking one can of soda, so I’m hoping that I’ll lose more than 1.2 lbs. a month (1.5 would be awesome!). But looking at the big picture one small piece at a time reminds me that it’s okay to slow down, and not feel disappointed in small victories simply because I think I could have or should have done better.

Celebrate victories, even the small ones. They add up.

Well, this is the beginning of Week 3 of my Back to the Gym adventures, and today was rough.

Last week, my knees (specifically, the area just below my knees) started feeling really achy and sore, and I thought I might have damaged them by overdoing “the running”. I have to use quotation marks with “the running” because I’m not entirely convinced that what I was doing was actual running. More like lurching maybe?

Anyway, I’ve dialed back “the running” portion of my workout to a half-mile, and won’t be adding more distance to my “running” until I can do the half-mile fairly easily.

Today, I stretched, did a nice 5-minute warm-up walk, and launched into my half-mile. It was painful. My muscles felt stiff, and my knees were not letting me do what I wanted to do. I thought “uh-oh”. I probably shouldn’t be doing this.

But I did.

Afterwards, I did I a 5-minute cool-down walk, stretched some more, and cursed more than a little. (I would have cursed more but I was winded.)

Then I tried running the short length of the gym. Back and forth I went. On the third round, I tried to sprint, which I more or less pulled off. I did some weights and, feeling light-headed, I decided I was done for the day.

On the way out to the car, I noticed my legs didn’t hurt.

They stiffened up again on the drive back home, but doing some Monty Python style walking around the house for a few minutes seemed to help.

So, I thought maybe it’s just a matter of conditioning, getting my body used to this. But while rubbing some sore muscle balm (it’s to relieve the pain of sore muscles; not to cause sore muscles) into my legs, Cindy noticed I have tight tendons, which probably accounts for much of my soreness. I don’t want this to become a major problem (or more of a problem), so I’ll take a little more time to stretch, and do more strength and flexibility training. And rest.

Taking the load off my legs and knees by about 50 lbs. would probably help, too. (But that comes later.)

Last month, after Cindy and I finished the juice fast, I wrote “I got to where I am by making lots of small negative changes over an extended period of time that felt good in the short-term but resulted in negative long-terms consequences. I’m not talking about just my weight here, either. So, the only way to undo it without ‘falling off the wagon’, to my mind, is to make lots of small positive changes over an extended period of time that may feel uncomfortable in the short-term but will result in positive long-terms gains.” And when I said “small positive changes over an extended period of time” I meant it  because I’ve now put myself on one of the most gradual running programs I’ve ever seen. It’s almost ridiculous, but since I’ve never been a runner — that is, I’ve never been able to run very far or for very long, even when I wasn’t overweight — I feel pretty good about this plan.

On Monday, after doing 30 minutes of cardio on the elliptical machine, and lifting some weights, I ran 0.20 miles on the treadmill. That’s one-fifth of a mile. That’s it, and that’s all. And it was plenty. I spent the next 20 minutes walking around trying to get my burning calves to loosen up. I could barely walk.

Yesterday, I ran 0.30 miles, and while I was huffing after just a few minutes, my legs felt fine afterwards.

My plan is to add one-tenth of a mile each day until I can run one whole mile without stopping. It’s something almost everyone I know can already do, but I have never been able to. Never. After that, I’ll keep going until I can do a 5K.

Today, I had planned on adding one-tenth of a mile to my run, bringing it up to 0.40 miles without stopping. Instead, I did 0.60 miles, which is damn good for me. My legs were getting a little tight near the end, but I felt okay. An hour later, I was feeling better than okay. I felt great.

Maybe there’s something to this running thing after all.

UPDATED: 09.22.2011 - Based on the advice in the comments from Scott, I’m making some changes to this plan. Now that I’ve reached the 1-mile milestone, I won’t be adding any distance to my runs for at least a week. Instead, I’ll be running the same distance (1 mile) every day for least a week to try to build up my cardio strength. When running 1 mile becomes easy, I’ll re-evaluate what my next milestone should be.  

I’m going to be better for no good reason.

I’m not going to lose weight because I’d feel better, or because, if I lose enough, I’d promised myself I’d get a tattoo, or anything like that. The truth is there is no one reason why I would want to do something like lose 50 lbs. There’s too many reasons why losing weight is a good idea, and no matter how long I could spend speculating about all the ways my life would be improved, I’m bound to experience unforeseen benefits.

So, I’m wondering why I should even bother trying to justify it with some one-off reason. I know I, like other people, have used those reasons for motivation. You see it all the time on The Biggest Loser — someone always says they want to see their grandkids grow up, or they want to be able to live long enough to walk their daughters down the isle, or they want to set a good example for their family — and while I totally get how that can motivate these people, the truth is they’re going to benefit from their new bodies and new mindset way beyond any single reason. The ability to lose weight was always there for them. And the reasons for losing weight have also always been there. But they haven’t been able to do it on their own. Having two trainers yelling and pushing them for 6 hours a day, and having healthy food provided and prepared for them doesn’t hurt though because it forces them to change how they think and feel about themselves, to stop using all the things that didn’t work in the past.

What usually happens when people attempt some life-altering endeavor — losing weight, giving up smoking, taking up running — is that, at some point, they get discouraged, or frustrated, or lazy, and fall off the wagon. I’ve fallen off so many wagons, so many times, I’ve lost count.

When it comes to losing weight, there are several ways to measure progress: calculate your Body Mass Index (BMI), use a tape measure, and the obvious one, stand on a scale. Weigh-ins are great, but I think too much is made of them, especially on shows like The Biggest Loser. But, that is, after all, what the show is about: who can lose the most weight.

Here’s the thing, though: inevitably, there will be a weigh-in where someone doesn’t lose any weight, or worse, they gain a few pounds. And then the breakdown starts. Here’s a person who was feeling fine one minute (not just fine, but in the best shape of their life), and the next they’re in tears, all because the scale said something different than what they thought it would (because they felt like they had lost weight), and they have a little meltdown. I’ve seen this happen in Weight Watchers, too.

On the show, which is part healthy living (eating and exercising), part confidence-building competition, part developing mental resolve, and part flat out game-play, not losing enough weight means the difference between staying on The Ranch and leaving. Does it make sense that, after 10 weeks of daily exercise and healthy eating, anyone would fret about a 0-pound weight loss? Only on TV. And only because of the game-play.

In the real world, most of us are only competing with ourselves, which is why we lose all the time. The goal of losing weight comes with all kinds of negative consequences. The two big ones are being forced to eat better, and exercise more. I think a lot of people see it as a punishment for wanting to do something good, which is why people try to cheat the system with magic pills, and taking courses in advantaged mathematics as applied to counting calories. Everybody wants to lose weight. Nobody wants to eat better. Nobody wants to exercise.

Every fat person I’ve known who wanted to lose weight also spent a lot of time bitching and complaining about the new foods they would have to eat. What they’re really doing is trying to convince themselves it’s just not worth it. I’ve even heard things like “I’d rather be happy than thin” as if this is an either/or proposition. I understand though because nothing makes me happier than being ridiculously winded after walking up two flights of stairs. Those health nuts out there don’t understand what fun they’re missing. Look, every fat person knows how to lose weight, I promise you.

Maybe the problem is that it’s too easy a goal to want to lose weight. Who the hell doesn’t want to do that? I say forget it. You know how people who have lost weight say it was a lot of hard work? Why? What about it was a lot of hard work? Well, they’ll tell you, they had to exercise everyday, and they had to learn how to eat better. Ah, so, losing weight wasn’t actually hard at all, was it? The hard part was eating better, and exercising regularly.

How most people think about losing weight is backwards.

Losing weight is an easy goal, something we want to do. But, if you’re the kind of person that feels that, as a consequence for this goal, you are punished with healthy food and exercise, you’re going to fail.

Focus, instead, on being better. That’s the mindset I’m working on right now. Don’t eat better foods to lose weight. Just eat better foods. Period. Don’t focus on exercising to lose weight. Just exercise better. Period.

I don’t need a reason to be better, do I? Isn’t being better reason enough? Isn’t everything we’ve ever wanted for ourselves simply the results of constantly working to be better?

I’m not talking about trying to be perfect. Nobody’s perfect, and nobody’s ever going to be perfect. But we can all be better.

There’s this scene in Serenity where Malcolm Reynolds is making a deal with two “businessmen”, Mingo and Fanty. And one of them tells Mal that he’s too unpredictable. “You run when you ought to fight; fight when you ought to deal.”

It’s not a pivotal moment, but sometimes I think about that line because I’m like that, sometimes responding to a situation one way when another way would be better. I think a lot of people do that.

Take any number of things that need to be done: bills that need to be paid, phone calls that need to be made, paperwork that needs to be filled out…a story that needs to be worked on.

Sometimes, I’ll put this stuff off because it causes me stress or anxiety. In other words, I chose the flight option. I run from the problem…maybe for just a day, maybe a week…maybe longer. And while that flight instinct could save me from any number of situations, it doesn’t really do me much good when it comes to bills, phone calls, paperwork, and writing because those things come with deadlines, due-by dates, and office hours. And if it’s one thing you can’t outrun, it’s Time. So, the flight instinct, at best, simply delays the inevitable. Fighting, that is, taking action, is really the only way to alleviate the stress. Delaying action increases our stress and anxiety, and makes us want to run farther from those unresolved tasks.

Hell, taking action makes some people feel better even in situations where doing nothing is the most appropriate response. They feel like they should do “something”, although they’re not sure what that “something” should be. We just don’t like feeling powerless, do we?

So, why then, do we delay taking action toward solving problems? Why do we run when we ought to fight?

Happy Star Wars Day, everybody!

Some of you have heard this before, but some of you haven’t. And this being Star Wars Day, I thought it’d be the perfect opportunity to write it down.

Those of us who grew up wanting to create for a living — writer, actor, artist, etc. — were often encouraged…right up until the moment we were actually old enough to give it a go. Then, things changed, and we were cautioned against it. As well-intentioned as that advice and concern was, for most of us, it came across like a sucker punch. These were the people who had always said yes, you can do it, but now they didn’t think we could.

The advice usually sounds like “Acting (or whatever) is nice, but you might want to develop a skill you can fall back on…just in case it doesn’t work out”. So, what do we do? We move our passionate pursuits to the back burner, and we focus on developing that “fall back” skill, like accounting, or construction work, or law. But unless you’re truly thrilled with accounting, construction work, or being a lawyer (and some people really enjoy what they do), maybe you should just ignore that advice…or think again about giving it. It’s confusing, and disheartening, and sends the message that you shouldn’t do something because you might fail.

The thing is you might not fail.

Whatever it is you’re wanting to do, that thing that people keep saying is risky, or is “a lot of hard work”, or whatever it is that somebody is trying to make you afraid to do, do it. You might fail, that’s true. But, you might not. Just do it, and see what happens. If it doesn’t work out, move on.

But don’t let your “fall back” become your life. Have a Plan B, they say. And while that’s good advice, you have to know how to look at Plan B.

In reality, there is no such thing as a Plan B. We use labels like Plan A and Plan B for convenience, so we can keep shit straight in our heads when we talk about them, but really there is no Plan B.

It’s all Plan A. When you find yourself making a living doing your “fall back” job, that’s not you’re “fall back” job. That’s your job. That’s your life. You might tell yourself “Oh, I’m just doing this until I have a chance to do [whatever it was you gave up]“, but that love, that passionate pursuit that you’re not pursuing anymore, that’s Plan B now, the back burner dream.

Let’s think about skydiving for a minute. You have a main chute and a reserve chute, right? And when you jump out of the plane, what are you going to pull first, your main chute or your reserve chute? (By the way, nobody ever says, “First, pull the reserve chute, because there’s a chance your main chute won’t open, so let’s just go ahead and assume it’s not going to work, and pull the reserve first.”) So, let’s say your main chute fails. If that happens, you have to try the reserve chute, right?

Now, let me pause here for a moment, because I want to say that I am fully aware that, as you’re falling to your possible death, there’s no way in hell you’re going to care what’s a main chute and what’s a reserve chute, but….

At the moment your main chute fails, your reserve chute becomes your main chute. It’s the only one you have. There’s no other chute. There is no reserve anymore. There is no Plan B. There’s just a Plan A, and failing that, there’s a new Plan A. It’s whatever you’re doing at the moment, here and now. It’s always Plan A. Plan B is just hypothetical.

Luke Skywalker never said, “You know, if this whole ‘becoming a Jedi Knight’ thing doesn’t work out, I can always go back to moisture farming on Tatooine.” Sure, he was a whiny little snot, but he stuck with it. He was told he couldn’t do it, that he’s too old, and he had moments of doubt, and he was shot at, a Wampa beat him up and tried to eat him, he froze half to death, his dad cut his hand off, he had to fight a Rancor, Jabba tried to throw him into a sarlacc pit, he made out with his sister, and the Emperor tried to electrocute him. He had every opportunity in the galaxy to say, “Okay, that’s it! I’m done with this bullshit! See ya, I’m outta here.”

Stick with it, whatever it is. As Yoda said, “If you end your training now – if you choose the quick and easy path as Vader did – you will become an agent of evil.”

Okay, maybe you won’t become an agent of evil, but you’ll probably have a few really shitty regrets that will make you hateful, or scared, or cynical, or bitter in your old age, and — well-intentioned or not — you’ll find yourself trying to sabotage someone else’s dream.

Oh, wait, that’s totally an agent of evil.

“Not a day without a line. By writing, reading, working and practicing daily, perseverance will lead me to a good end.” – Vincent Van Gogh

Not a day without a line.

I love that idea, that commitment. Whatever your endeavor — writing, painting, learning a new language, earning a degree, etc. — this is the commitment we should all make, isn’t it? Whatever the equivalent of “a line” is (if you’re not a writer or a painter or actor or something that actually involves lines), that’s the thing you should do daily.

Oh, how many times I promised myself I would do this, each time breaking that promise. And, after each failure, nursing my crushed spirit, breathing deeply, gathering myself up, and trying again. Maybe this time, I say to myself. And the cycle repeats itself.

“Maybe this time” is the problem. It’s indicative of a mindset — my mindset — that accepts the possibility of success or failure as reality. “Maybe” is not a commitment to an idea of being or doing. “Maybe” is the reasonable acceptance of two possibilities. Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t.

It’s so much better to just remove “maybe” from the phrase. “This time” is simply the reasonable acceptance of one possibility, the one I want. “This time” is a commitment to an idea of being or doing: writers write, painters paint, students study, teachers teach.

If I want to be it, I have to do it.

Not a day without a line.

This month’s theme on National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) is “Maybe”. I tried doing this daily-blogging-for-a-whole-month business once before in October 2009, but I gave up after a week. And like most NaBloPoMo themes since then, I wasn’t planning on participating in this one either.

But I’ve reconsidered because I’m attempting to do some of the same things that I have yet to see to the end, and this month’s NaBloPoMo theme fits in with my goals for the next 31 days.

So, today, I start (re-start) some big projects. With some motivation from some of my closest friends, and my lovely Cindy, I’ll be working this month towards writing 50,000 words of one of the stories I’ve been kicking around in my head.

I’ll also be making conscious efforts to write a daily blog post, eat healthier and exercise more.

And maybe, just maybe, this month, I’ll actually do it.

About a month ago, I picked up a copy of The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss. I’ve been off the better-eating bandwagon since about November 2010. Between the holidays, kidney stones (and with it, a lack of any kind of exercise), birthday dinners, Mom’s comfort foods, good-bye meals with friends, and eating out way too often in our new city, I’ve put on 10 lbs. I knew I wasn’t going to try doing anything about it until after the move, but I knew I was going to do something.

So, last Monday, I started the 4-Hour Body program, which means I ate a lot of the same high-protein foods (lots of eggs, chicken, and beans), and veggies (mainly broccoli). You can flip through the book, and pick and choose any information that might be relevant to whatever your goals are, but for now, I’m focusing on the Slow-Carb Diet.

Basically, there are 5 rules to follow:

Rule #1: Avoid “white” carbohydrates (or anything that can be white).
Rule #2: Eat the same few meals over and over again.
Rule #3: Don’t drink calories.
Rule #4: Don’t eat fruit.
Rule #5: Take one day off per week and go nuts.

I wasn’t supposed to eat any dairy, or white carbs/starches, or fruit, but I slipped up a few times, eating pizza twice, half a cantaloupe, and a big bowl of Three Sisters Marshmallow Oaties with Shatto banana milk (this combo is awesome!). I also added a slice of Tillamook cheddar cheese to my turkey sandwiches, and I used a ranch dressing instead of lower-calorie vinaigrette. And one night, I split a World’s Finest Chocolate bar with Cindy. But, aside from a glass or two of milk, I drank only water, coffee, tea, or wine. I didn’t have any sodas.

Saturday morning, I was worried that I hadn’t actually lost any weight. I was full all the time, it seemed, and I still cheated a little, but when I stepped on the scale, I was down 3 lbs.

Now, on the 4-Hour Body plan, you get one cheat day a week. You can eat anything and everything you want, and you don’t count calories. My cheat day is Saturday because that’s when we’re more likely to go out exploring the town, and eat out. I weighed myself in the morning before eating anything, and my first Saturday meal was still slow-carb, then I started my cheat day.

After a cheat day binge, I can expect to gain a few pounds for a couple of days, but as long as I’m back to my usual weekday meal plan, I should lose anything I gained, and lose a pound or two by next Saturday morning, when I weigh myself again. I hope this is the case because according to the scale this morning, I gained 4 lbs. over the weekend. (Oh yeah, I totally cheated on Sunday with a huuuge Mexican lunch and a scoop of Baskin-Robbins Jamoca ice cream on a sugar cone. Criminy.)

Still, the first week was promising. Losing 3 lbs. without doing any exercise is not bad at all. For Week Two, I’m starting some kind of daily exercise, and drinking more water.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

And just because I think you could use a musical pick-me-up…

UPDATE: If you want to see them, I have pictures of what I’ve been eating here.

UPDATE, THE SECOND: I’m writing this on Wednesday morning. Okay, so last week, I lost 3 lbs. Binged on Saturday, and gained 4 lbs. over the weekend (even cheated a little on Sunday). Weighed myself this morning, and shore ’nuff, that 4-lb. gain was gone.

This year, I’m focusing on writing. One of my biggest problems with getting it down on paper is that I think about random scenes that go somewhere in the story, but I don’t like to write them down as they come to me. I like to write them down linearly, as they fall into place in the story. So, what happens is that I walk around with a head full of jumbled parts of a story. This is stupid, right? I mean, I just need to write the damn chapter or scene and be done with it. But, I’m also not well-organized, and I’ve done things like write one chapter in Word, one in Google Docs, one in Pages, one in a notebook somewhere, one in a different notebook, etc. You get the idea. I’m a wreck.

So, in additional to MacJournal, I also bought StoryMill. Todd asked me how it was working out, and I told him about the stupid hang-ups I have about writing, and that my plan for this year is to make things easier, short-circuit self-imposed obstacles, not just with how and when I write, but with everything else, too. But as far as the writing goes, StoryMill helps me do that. Like MacJournal, it gives me a centralized place to keep all my scenes and chapters, and allows me to move them around wherever I want, so I know where they go in the story’s timeline, and I can change it easily anytime I like. Linear, non-linear, who the hell cares anymore? It’s not a magical program or anything. It just lets me work in a way that works for me. If I was better organized, I could do the same thing with shuffling 3×5 cards around on the living room floor. It’s just a way to get the scene out of my head.

When I told him that, Todd suggested I listen to the Creative Screenwriting Magazine podcast with Michael Arndt taking about writing Toy Story 3. (If you want to be taken to the podcast, click this link.)

There’s so much to take away from the conversation, but because I’ve just finished reading A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life by Donald Miller, in which he looks at his life as a story (and tries to create a better, more meaningful story of his own life), I think a lot of what Arndt says can be applied to our own creative projects and our lives. So, here’s what I got from Michael Arndt:

Get the Clay on the Table
Whatever you’re working on, it doesn’t have to be perfect before you start bringing it into the world. If it’s vapor, you can talk about it until the cows come home. But if it’s on the table, it’s something tangible. You can point to it, and say you like this about it or don’t like that. You can sculpt it. In other words, get it out of your head, and onto the page. Have something to work with. Even if it’s something like building a birdhouse, gathering up some wood and nails, and setting them on the workbench in the garage might not seem like much, but it’s a start. It’s like unrolling a yoga mat. It sets your intention.

Fail As Quickly As Possible
(this one is actually attributed to Andrew Stanton)
Don’t be afraid of trial and error. The faster you find out what doesn’t work, the faster you find out what does work. Don’t pre-judge your ideas. You’re going to come up with a bazillion reasons why doing something is impossible. Get it out of your system fast and move on to figuring out why something will work…because you only need one of those. Failing = learning.

Articulate Yourself
It’s not enough to say something doesn’t work. You have to think about it. You have to say what the problem is, why something doesn’t work, and how to make it work or improve it. Vague problems can only have, at best, vague solutions.

Work with Smart People
Share with your tribe. When you’re stuck on something, let people know what it is. Maybe they can help you find a solution. Let them play with the clay on the table.

I’m taking it all to heart, especially the idea of just getting the clay on the table.