The How Of The Bahamas!

A few weeks ago I noticed that there was a free poker tournament online so I said to myself, "If it's free, why not?" The first round of the poker tournament was 10,000 people strong. The game was No-Limit Texas Holdem. Texas Holdem is a poker game sort of like seven card stud and no-limit means you can bet from the minimum bet all the way to your entire stack of chips at any time. If you lose all your chips, you're out of the tournament. In order to advance to the next round I had to finish in 18th place or higher. The tournament would be stopped when there were 18 people left. I made it(!) and moved on to round two.

There were 1349 people in round two and in order to win ANYTHING you had to come in first place. In a poker tournament that means that you are the last person to have chips. Eventually you have to win all the chips that originally belonged to 1349 players. Second place got zero - not even a gift certificate or a cup of coffee. I outlasted the entire field of players and was very thankful to win. What did I win?

First, I won a trip to the Bahamas for two adults. Second, I won $1000 to help with air fare. Third, I won another $1000 to help pay for food (which is not cheap). (And, the hotel kicked in another $150 for food since they are raising their prices the day before the tournament starts.) Last, but really and truly not least, I won a $10,000 seat in a poker tournament that last year paid $2 Million to the winner! All this came about because I happened to notice a free tournament and decided to give it a try.

My beliefs also come into play here. While I don't know what the ultimate outcome will be and I certainly hope to be the big winner in the Bahamas, I feel the need to mention something else. I prayed during the second round many times and I visualized being victorious in a race. I saw the finish line of a foot race with the tape across the winner's chest. I also thought of the boxer's hand being held up at the end of a bout. I definitely had some mathematically unusual occurrences during the poker tournament. I had some excellent cards and I never had (what I consider the toughest spot to get out of) two kings with my opponent having two aces and more chips than me. I'm pretty sure that I had all my chips in the pot when my opponent had more chips than me about a dozen times before I made it to the final table of nine players. When you are "all-in" that many times and still prevail, that is definitely a cause for celebration, as well as being statistically unlikely.

Do I believe that God was with me in this tournament? Yes. Do I believe that means he wants me to win in the Bahamas? I don't know. I hope so. We will see. I'm sure that whatever happens, it will be a chance for me to share a little about my beliefs to those who are open. I'm not interested in creating a debate here or forcing my beliefs on someone. If you don't buy it, you don't buy it. I still live in the United States of America. Here you can have your beliefs and I can have mine. We can agree to disagree when it comes to that. However, this is an appropriate time of year to consider what this whole season is about. Like Tiny Tim said in Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol, "God bless us, every one!"

Keep walking!

We're Going To The Bahamas!

Just got home from Los Angeles. Marianne and I were able to get passports in less than a day! I'll share more of the story tomorrow. I am so tired (a good kind of tired) that I can barely think to type this. Check out Atlantis.com.

Keep walking!

You Are A Soul

This quote seems profound to me. Happy December.


“You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.”

C.S. Lewis

CSLewis.com


Twitter quote 114 http://tinyurl.com/BMW777178 at ThinkExist.com

Another Down Day

Some people might see the title of this post and assume it's a downer, but it is definitely not. I've titled a bunch of posts recently in a similar way and I wanted this to be different, but it could have read,

"I've Lost Over 15 Pounds In 17 Days!"

This morning the scale read 112.5 kilos, which is another .3 kilos down from yesterday. Just in case you're wondering - no, I'm not hungry all the time. I'm RARELY hungry at all. Once in a while I get hungry for a few minutes before it's time to eat. I can live with that and I know you can, too. (Maybe you don't have a weight loss goal because you simply don't need one right now. Is there someone who could benefit by reading my blog? Who do you know that would like to be motivated,encouraged or inspired by my unfolding story? Copy & paste this URL - http://theBigManWalking.blogspot.com and send them an email or message! Thank you, by the way...)

Let's do the math. I started at 119.6 kilos 17 days ago, so by subtracting 112.5 kilos we get 7.1 kilos. We multiply that by 2.2 and get 14.2 plus 1.42 which equals 15.62 pounds lost in 17 days. My total weight is now 247.5 pounds. I had actual cream in my coffee this morning. Today I didn't have anything but coffee and tea until around noon. I don't do that everyday, but that's just what felt right. I was not hungry. If you've been reading my posts you know the name of the book and you can see Amazon links on the right side of this blog. Get yourself or someone else a Christmas present! Are you ready to make a New Year's Resolution? That's how Big Man Walking got started in 2008.

Keep WALKING!

Lost Almost 15 Pounds In 16 Days

This morning I stepped on the scale and saw a number I haven't seen before - 112.8. When you multiply 112.8 kilos by 2.2, you get 225.6 plus 22.56 which equals 248.16 pounds. I'm now safely in the 240's and it's been a dozen years since I was there. I started at 119.6 a little over two weeks ago and that difference of 6.8 kilos is 13.6 plus 1.36 which equals 14.96 pounds. I'm sure a lot of people would say that that is close enough to 15 pounds. What do you think?

I think I like Perfect Weight America!

Keep walking!

On Being Tired

Yesterday I was really tired after many hours of activity and pretty long days at the end of the week. Just being over the cleanse and walking more did help. Some might wonder "Why not more energy?" We do have a capacity as humans and I was running up against it. So how did the cleanse and the walking help? Before the cleanse, if I had gotten this tired, I would probably have been in a grumpy mood.

You can even honestly say that the grumpy mood would be my responsibility, and you'd be right. But what made it easier for me was to have the better circulation benefits from walking and so much of the "crud" cleansed from my body. When I have the toxins built up and I'm as tired as I was yesterday, it doesn't feel good at all. With my body cleansed I was simply tired. Very tired, yes, but it was a more gentle kind of tired. I was either way less grumpy or not grumpy depending on which family member(!) you ask. That's a big benefit in my book.

Keep walking.

(BigManWalking has walked over 1000 miles in 2008.)

1000 Miles This Year!

This morning I logged my hours at Lime.com. I had high hopes starting out this year for walking and for how helpful Lime.com would be in keeping track of my mileage. My opinion of Lime.com is that it is too cumbersome. Sometimes it takes too long to open a page and sometimes the page comes up blank. I sent them an email a long time ago and haven't seen a response. I recommend keeping track of your miles, but somewhere else.

Now, the good, no, GREAT news. After checking my records at Lime.com, I'm pretty sure they will confirm that I went through the 1000 mile mark for the year on Thursday, December 11, 2008! Yes! I feel good about that and we will celebrate at some point, but not by eating! Part of the reason I am walking and keeping track is to encourage you. Of course, it's good for my health, but I really, truly want to inspire you to walk more. Or, if you are exercising regularly and more ambitiously than that, you can add walking and that can allow you the opportunity to slow down and appreciate your surroundings and your life. You can walk 1000 or even 1500 or 2000 miles or more in a year. Some of you may have to start with 250 miles in 6 months. Others will be fine with more than that. You can do it. You can do it. You can do it. I did.

Keep walking!

Design Meme

Today I find myself in awkward position. I did not anticipate the time crunch on Friday and yet today is the day I introduce BigManWalking's Blog of the Week. I want to spend more time and do a good job for this week's winner, DesignMeme.com. My fatherly duties will take me away from the internet for a good long while, so I will get back and do a proper post either tonight or tomorrow. For now, visit DesignMeme.com and check it out.

Shakespeare On Diligence

Keep on going. Shakespeare said it hundreds of years ago. If you're a writer, keep writing. He did.


"That which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in; and the best of me is diligence."

William Shakespeare (King Lear. Act i. Sc. 4)


The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare

Study Shakespeare

Twitter quote 113 from Bartlett's Familiar Quotations at Bartleby.com

Walk A Little Bit At A Time

Different people have different expectations and capacities. If you've been regularly working out, you might not be challenged by walking four miles. I'm sure some who've read my blog wonder why I don't just get on a treadmill and jog or run the mileage. If you are working out regularly so that a four mile run or more is no big deal, then my hat is off to you. I want to encourage you to keep pushing yourself, but not to the point of injury. I believe you want to keep from being injured so that you can continue to exercise without interruption. So I guess I'm saying that you should really, truly go for it - within reason.

Now, for those of you who don't think that a four-mile run is a walk in the park (no pun intended), I encourage you to keep walking. During my 10 day Perfect Weight America cleanse I didn't walk much so that I could demonstrate its weight loss power. Yesterday I started the actual diet, also called The Maker's Diet, and I'll be reporting on my weight less often. I know that some people can get discouraged when they see that they've had weight gain over a day or two, and that happens. Most people can do just fine weighing themselves once a week. You have to stick with it and you probably won't lose weight on the diet at the same rate as the cleanse.

When I went to bed last night I had walked four miles throughout the day. I'm not necessarily going for a big cardiovascular workout when I walk. Sometimes and sometimes not. If you're ALWAYS looking for the cardio, then you might dismiss walking for five minutes. I want you to walk more than five minutes a day. Really. I know you can do that. The thing is, the miles and fractions add up. You can walk five minutes 12 times a day and that's likely to be three miles. Starting yesterday morning before 7 a.m. my dog and I walked 1.5 miles. I got busy and didn't get back to walking until four hours later when we walked 2.0 miles. Last night I walked .25 miles twice and that's how I came to walk 4.0 miles total. Why am I using .25 and 2.0 to describe my mileage? Because if you aren't thinking this way then I want you to start thinking of a quarter mile (or even a furlong - one eighth mile) or .25 miles as significant enough to keep track of.

When you keep track of your miles you can have a record to look back on and that's encouraging. If you're encouraged you'll keep going. You will look for opportunities to walk one half, one quarter or even one eight of a mile. I'm tall so 500 of my steps is a quarter mile. If you're shorter than me it's likely to be around 600 steps to the quarter mile. If you go to a local track at a community college or high school, you can count your steps as you walk around it. That will be close. Or you can get a pedometer. I have done both and a pedometer is easier if you can find one that works and doesn't break. My wife just got me another cheapie Sportline and the last one worked well until it broke. My good buddy in San Clemente has a more expensive Omron and it has worked for a while. I'm sorry to say that those are the only ones from personal experience that either work for a lot of miles or don't break down. In fact, when my Sportline (calorie step distance) pedometer broke, it was not the pedometer but the clip that kept it on my belt which broke.

Let's be clear. If you have a pedometer it can help you more accurately keep track of your mileage. If you keep track you will be more encouraged (or you will see the need to improve) and you will keep going. If you let it be ok to not ONLY walk for cardio, then you will become used to adding up the smaller units of walking. Remember, for weight loss 35 miles equals one pound lost. It's right around there for everybody. Don't get into fuzzy/mystical thinking here and say that it doesn't work that way for you. If you are human and make all other factors (eating, mostly) equal then you will lose a pound for 35 miles walked. Some people eat more and don't notice and that's a challenge. Well, don't eat more because you're walking more if you want to lose weight through walking. I started off this year by not changing my diet one bit for the first seven weeks and simply walking more. I lost seven pounds in seven weeks. You can read some of those posts here. You can make more walking part of your way of life. It makes a big difference over the long run. Even if you lost seven pounds during the first seven weeks of the year every year you would be doing better than most. But don't settle for just better than most. Achieve health and wellness.

Keep WALKING!

I Lost Over 13 Pounds In 10 Days!

On the front cover of Perfect Weight America, Jordan Rubin asks the question, "Do you know YOUR perfect weight?" I know this- I'm above my perfect weight and I have been for about 20 years. I'm not telling you what I'm about to tell you to get sympathy, nevertheless, it is factual. I have basically gained weight since my mom died in November of 1987. I'm not making any judgements about that. My weight has gone up and down, but mostly up in the long run (like the stock market - despite the current once in 80 years financial unraveling). Unlike the stock market crash in 1987 I don't want my weight to get back up to where it was - I want to keep going down for a while.

Before 7 am I walked the dog 1.5 miles and it took a little over 30 minutes. I'm just about ready to go again. I weighed myself and here is the final number for the 10 days (but I'll keep going) on the Perfect Weight America cleanse - 113.4 kilos. Sooo, I started at 119.6 minus 113.4 equals 6.2 times 2.2 equals 13.64 pounds! I have lost over 13 pounds in 10 days in a healthy way and I feel great! I have more energy and I'm excited to keep going on Jordan Rubin's regimen.

One more thing before I post, Twitter, and get out the door...I will have to check my records but I'm pretty sure that I am at my lowest weight in over a dozen years! And, 113.4 kilos translated to pounds is 226.8 plus 22.68 which means I weigh 249.48 pounds! It's been a while since I was in the 240's! Yes!

Keep walking!

9 Day Total - Down 12 Pounds

Yesterday I had mostly yogurt (by choice) as I was a little tired of the soup and then I had the salad with avocado and cheese and raw nuts and it was all really good. After "breaking even" the day before I thought maybe that adding the nuts and cheese and yogurt was going to take me up in weight just a little. After all, this is the Perfect Weight America cleanse, not diet. The diet will start tomorrow. However I was pleasantly surprised to find that I weighed 114.1 kilos this morning and if you look through previous posts you will see that I was 114.4 before today. That's a .3 kilo loss! I'll start from the beginning of the 10 days to make it quicker...started at 119.6 kilos minus 114.1 equals 5.5 kilos multiplied by 2.2 equals 12.1 pounds. Yes!

Keep walking!