Thanks everone! I appreciate all your congrats! This was really a LOT harder to do than I ever imagined it would be. The strategy was to dramatically increase the amount of exercise and sleep, and significantly change my caloric intake. I travel a lot coast to coast, and finding time for regular, targeted, intense exercise (other than sex :biggrin2
had fallen to an afterthought. Even carrying extra weight, I never felt weak, tired, or short of breath, but I also didn't feel myself. Just didn't have the quick response 'zip' I used to have, and did find my endurance during hard work (like all day outdoor construction at the summer house, or fiddling under the hood of the hobby cars) was starting a noticeable decline. I also didn't like watching my pants size slowly moving up the scale.
The past 8 months have been filled with lots of sex with my fav SPs as always, but also added tons of running, cycling, soccer, golf, tennis, swimming, football, and time back training in the boxing gym. The hardest was the running, as ankles, knees, hips and back screamed in pain even after a light 1 mile jog at the beginning. Now I run 5-8 miles a day, every day, at a pretty quick pace very comfortably...but man, getting there was brutal.
I also cut out tons of foods that are nothing more fat producers for the body, while drastically reducing the overall amount of food I was actually eating every day. The first 3-4 weeks was almost like starvation until my body adjusted to the change. I did cut out red meat almost totally for the first 6 months but have found as I ran farther and faster each week during training, having
some red meat really helped with recovery time for my legs. I think the fact that I've never smoked, and don't drink almost at all helped the transition to a harder training regimen.
I also worked very hard at getting much more sleep than I was accustomed to. I was typically going on max 4-5 hours sleep per night (sometimes less) simply because I have SO many hobbies, interests, and business/community obligations I was involved with, and I have a really hard time saying 'no'. I made some tough choices for the year and got back to 8-9 solid hours every day and that's also made a huge difference.
I got good advice from some buddies who said 'Don't count calories, per se, or track pounds lost or you'll quickly become disillusioned and impatient with the process. Instead, track the inches and shape of your body as it changes, blood pressure, and energy levels - all much more relevant indicators.' It worked. I never stepped on a scale from Jan 1 till August 15th when my pants size went from a 44 to 34 and I needed to move down from XXL t-shirts to keep from looking like I was wearing a moo moo.
Sexually, what I've noticed is that although I've never had a hard time getting and staying hard for 3-5 rounds with the girls, all my erections now seem to stay hard longer now, and my 2nd, 3rd, 4th erections are as rock hard as the first, where before they'd start to taper off quite a bit and need more loving encouragement from the goddess of the moment. :LMAO:
All in all, I feel great, and have a massive sense of personal accomplishment for having set a much harder goal than I first realized and still hit the mark dead on schedule.
EACE:
