After a grueling effort, I have achieved my goal weight of 130lbs (well, 129.2lbs to be exact). I started at 150lbs in October of 2011 and 160lbs at my max in 2010.

It’s been a trying journey but I put my body to the test. People say you gotta put your mind to it, I say you gotta put your body to it. Your mind can trick you, tell you “oh it’s ok to just eat ONE donut…”, your body doesn’t lie.

“Pain is weakness leaving the body.”

- Quote I saw on a poster at Exeter

I’m proudly sporting my “Goal Achieved” LoseIt! t-shirt today. I’ll post an official comparison picture later on, but here are a quick couple pics I thew together

Here are some pics for your enjoyment:

[Show as slideshow]

The entire car buying process took way longer than I wanted and due to Massachusetts registration laws (and NY dealer’s lack of experience dealing with it), I ended up getting my car on April 7th as opposed to March 15th (the day I technically purchased the vehicle). I was originally going to write a very negative review for Bay Ridge Honda given the timetable it took for me to get my car, but after meeting my salesman, Joe Barca (a sweet scatter-brained old man), I couldn’t bring myself to do it. For those who are interested, I’ve created a timetable of my experience.

If anyone decides to factory order a car or purchase a car out-of-state, seek me out for advice.

I’ve also completed my required vehicle state inspection and ordered my custom plates (“DSTYLZ”) with the RMV. I’ll post more pics when they get here.

I spent a week in NYC waiting for my car and ate anything I felt like eating, gaining 2 lbs in the process. This is how I fell into my spiraling hole last time and I refuse to let myself get back to that state. I took a progress picture that actually doesn’t look too bad, but I’m going to use it as a starting point to improve from:

The picture was taken at my home gym that I set up today (ie. the multi-purpose man-cave) and I’m excited to say that lifting is so much fun to do to fight boredom. I hope to gain a six-pack by the end of the summer by first hitting my goal of 130 lbs, then lift more and put on some muscle.

Not much difference between the 2nd column and the 3rd unfortunately. I’ve been less able to control myself when trying to be disciplined about what to eat. My Panera soup lunch + Subway sandwich dinner has been less than regular lately and I find myself sneaking M&M’s leftover from the Super Bowl. I even lost my Mayorship at the Boston Sports Club, which I held for a very long time! Mega sad face. What do I do? My body is becoming less obedient when I tell it to hold off on junk food and less wanting to get down to the gym and work off those extra calories I’ve been taking in. Mimi says that there are studies that people feel like they’re in starvation mode for 6 years following dramatic weight loss. Mine wasn’t even that dramatic but my body is trying to fatten myself back up again. What I need is less WoW, more sleep, more gym, and more violin. I need to keep my mind active.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPYGeELPpno

Bryson Andres is a 20-year old Filipino violinist from Anchorage, Alaska. His talent with an electric violin is impressive and inspiring. After watching this (and a few dozen of his other videos) I decided to buy myself an electric violin (same one as Bryson! The Cecilio Electric Violin) and start taking lessons. Looks like WoW might have to take a break while I make more time for practicing. Unfortunately, this might also mean my second round of P90X might have to get delayed by a bit – I don’t want to go into it half-assed (Sorry Alex). Music that sends shivers up my spine is the type that I like most and Bryson’s playing has done that several times. Having a musical talent comes in handy fairly often and who knows, maybe Matt and I can start some kind of weird string band that plays modern music.

To start off, my desktop hard drive decided to “fail” on me. As in, everything seemed to be working fine, but Windows 7 detected a problem with the disc and alerted me to backup all my data for the impending crash. So…Windows 7 is smart enough to know when there’s a problem with the disc, but not smart enough to skip over the bad sectors? I mean, everything seemed to be working ok, but fine. So I proceeded to backup all my data onto my extra hard drive via Windows 7 backup (223GB of data). First try – failed. I thought, “Hm. Weird. Maybe it’s cuz I was doing something…I’ll let it sit overnight.” Second try – failed. I figured, maybe I’ll try backing up to my external hard drive. Third try – failed. One last time…fourth try – failed. So awesome, Windows 7 backup utility just doesn’t work. I decided to manually backup all my data. Disclaimer: I’m only using the Windows 7 backup utility so that when i switch over to my new hard drive, I won’t run into problems with activating Windows (especially since I paid for a legit copy), but obviously it doesn’t work so I’ll have to risk doing a straight up clean installation. I mean, they must be a little forgiving since you can’t always predict when your hard drive will fail, right? Anyways, as I’m prepping to do the new installation, I decide to make a boot disc. Stick the CD-R into the drive. Nothing. I remember, “Oh right, this drive failed a while ago.” Again, that’s my luck with technology, so instead I turn to my Alienware M14x and pop a CD-R in there (brand new laptop, what could go wrong?). I thought it was weird at first that it didn’t guide the disc in like it usually did, so I just pushed it all the way in. “Oh well,” I thought. It read the blank disc just fine and wrote the boot disc just fine. Ok, time to eject. Right click the drive, click ‘Eject’. Nope. Drive makes some noises like it’s gonna try to eject, then gives up. Awesome. Now I have 2 broken computers. The last technician they sent to fix my keyboard completely messed up the outside cover screws/springs as well as stripped the screws holding the optical drive in so there was no way for me to even attempt to fix the problem myself. Eventually I call Dell and speak to a STUPID rep. I tell him the problem – mechanical failure by the optical drive and EMPHASIZE 3 times that I need new screws/springs. I could tell from his responses that he didn’t order the screws/springs even though he kept saying he did. Of course when the technician showed up, he didn’t have the screws/springs. It made me hopping mad at the customer service rep, but whatever, I just want my drive replaced. He replaced the drive then tested it. Same problem. WTF?!?!?! Now I have to send the whole laptop in to probably get the motherboard replaced which will take forever on top of which my desktop is still dying.

Frustrating point #2: The NY dealer is trying screw with me by giving me 20-50% markup on accessories. It’s not a LOT of money, but the idea of it just makes me so mad. I’ve cancelled deals in the past with dealers who’ve tried to pull this shit and am ready to do so again. The CarsDirect rep promised invoice price and they’re going above MSRP. I’m so mad I could punch someone right now.

Third frustrating this this week has to do with my co-workers. I’m working hard while my co-workers are hardly working. Between the two of them, they probably show up to work 3/4 of a full time employee. I was once feeling guilty for moving off the team, but now I don’t feel that way anymore. I’m tired of holding down the fort dealing with issues all the time because the other two guys are never around. I’ve been on the hook for every project this team has undergone since Matt left and while it has presented opportunities to help me demonstrate my ability, it has allowed the other team members of my cohort slack off to an unacceptable point. Good luck when I’m gone guys!

Last thing I want to talk about is friends. You’ve got your friends that you can always rely on and the ones you can’t really. Well, it’s becoming too hard for me to make that distinction anymore. I categorize my friends into categories.

Friend types:

- There are the ones who will be there for you no matter what, rain or shine (and I mean that liguratively).

- There are the ones that will be there for you if it’s convenient for them.

- And then lastly there are the ones who will “be there for you” if it’s convenient or beneficial to them.

My birthday party was a great example. It wasn’t this week, but I’m still a little bitter about it. I made a huge deal about it and if people weren’t going to come, I would’ve preferred they told me straight up rather than apologizing later. Let’s just say several people were demoted on my list. Aside from the party, some other friends are moving on with their lives. I could once rely on Matt, but find it harder to these days when everything seems to be about Emily. Never before he started dating her would I have to ask him to do something twice. Everything that needs to be taken care of with the house I now do unless it has some direct effect on Emily – ie. we run out of shampoo/conditioner. I’ve been trying to get him to upgrade our cable modem for the last month now as well as go with me to Home Depot to get blinds for our back door and fix our fixtures. Don’t get me wrong, Matt’s still probably one of the best people on this earth in terms of caring for others, but I just feel like I’ve been demoted in his eyes and it’s frustrating.

On a happier note, happy birthday Hannah!

“Everybody dies but not everybody lives”

- Drake (from Moment 4 Life by Nicki Minaj)

If you’ve ever seen the movie “Yes Man” with Jim Carrey, you’ll come to appreciate this quote. Don’t get me wrong, the movie was sub-par, but the message was inspiring. Say ‘YES’ to life. You could be missing up on opportunities by closing yourself off to the world. See more, do more.

I was carded today at the local 7-Eleven by a Korean guy for buying a $5 scratch ticket…Do you know how old you need to be to buy one of those in Massachusetts?! 18. Who would have known that a benefit of weight loss was looking much younger! AND bonus points for the guy being Asian…I wouldn’t have been as astonished if he were non-Asian, since we all look younger in general, but damn.

Life is definitely on the upswing. Still getting frustrated with the same things: certain work people not doing their job, desktop and gaming laptop failing me in various unimaginable ways, not having my new car yet, etc, but none of it outweighs the [more] positive outlook I have on life now. It takes a little bit of effort at a time, but just aim for small improvements. They’re more manageable and over a long period of time, you’ll look back and see how those small improvements have accumulated into something big.

“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet…however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up.”

- Stephen Hawking

For someone who has and had every reason to give up, this quote is very inspiring (taken from an article from The Telegraph). I’ve learned to take small strides to reach my goals. Set-backs are inevitable, but as long as you keep your eye on the target and roll with the punches, you can get anywhere you want. Having the right attitude can get you a long way. Set your mind right and then proceed to reach your goals.

I think it all started with soccer. Playing soccer last season in the Rt9 soccer league and winning the championship really drove me to want to continue getting better and training post-season. I continued going to the gym doing the elliptical for 20 minutes at first, then slowly increasing the time/resistance as time went on. I’m also working lifting back into my routine. I decided to change my eating habbits with the help of technology and tracked my weight loss progress seeing small improvements which summed up to noticeable improvements.

I feel great, look great, and it’s only going to get better

Loseit says I’ve lost a total of 25.2 lbs since my heaviest. Man. NEVER am I going to let myself get back like that again. I’ve gotten compliments all over without having to ask “do I look like I lost weight?” Even my mom says I’m way skinnier (still not where I should be yet, but getting there -_- mom is the most critical)

For my birthday party, I want it to be even better than last year. Last year I had a pick-your-nose theme where there were cups with various noses on them and people got to choose their own.

I secretly want to have a 6-pack party

At this 6-pack party, you either have to bring a 6-pack of beer/soda or have 6-pack abs. Lol. Dunno if I’ll be able to get one by then, but I like the idea. Also to get in you’ll need to email a photo of yourself doing something silly to housemd@kodakpulse.com. That way there’ll be a ton of pictures to look at during the party.

Back to work for now…but more updates later!