30 by 30

Ever since the thrill of losing 30ish pounds before our wedding and the following 15ish I gained back, I have been trying to find ways to motivate myself to committing throughout such a great goal again. Examples are as follows:

• Trimming down for my high school reunion 
• Running 5K's to keep the pounds coming off
• Coming home and making a nice vodka drink after work sometimes (most times)

Funny enough, none of those kept me committed to losing the weight I want to lose. I'm mostly disappointed the vodka idea didn't work. The real problem with anything I have tried since the wedding was needing something big to keep me tied into the goal. I'd have a really good week and then just let the immoral majority inside my head take over and before I knew it I was slinging back hot wings, playing video games instead of running and making excuses instead of effort.

Now, in this the year the Mayan's predict "something's gotta give," I have something to really push for: I am marking 30 years on this bouncy ball we call home. And it is for this joyous occasion I declare the Tri-Wizard Tournament has begun!

Wait, sorry, I got carried away. This isn't Hogwarts and we all don't live in a present-day England where no one seems to carry a cell phone and everyone wears bathrobes.

Three points for Hufflepuff.

No, I am declaring that I will lose 30 pounds by my 30th birthday. Trademarks pending include "ThirtyBY30," "30x30," and the ever popular "las gotas gordinflonas 30 libras." This declaration is brought to you by the letter J for jelly rolls and in part by viewers like you.

I have been circling around this 30x30 thing for a few months now and even did something BIG to help push me to it. I signed up to run the Indy Mini 2012, a half-marathon throughout the splendid wonders of Indianapolis this coming May.

So, as of tomorrow (Monday, February 20th 2012), I have the following time left until my 30th Birthday:

  233  Days   -- or --   33  Weeks and  2  Days

You could put that at roughly 1 pound per week and with that thinking this is "very doable" as my lovely wife just said when I woke her up to tell her about this post.

I will do this the same as I did for the wedding blog and post reports throughout the week (at least once) and record my weight online every Monday morning.

The first official weigh-in will be in just about 8 hours or so. That means I have just a few hours to stuff as much chocolate and carbs in my face as I can before this thing starts!

Actually I won't be doing that. Instead I am going to watch TWISTER (such a classic) on Netflix instant and slip off to a slumber land filled with candy cane kisses and puppy dog dreams (editors note: WTF?).

ALSO, Cara and I are really going to try and keep this blog updated. We had such fantastic hopes for a newlywed blog but never really made the time. If this blog were a gerbil we would have killed it. Good thing we don't have kids yet if we can't even manage an online blog.

Tomorrow should be an especially fun day since we are purchasing our first bed as a couple! I hope to have a full post on that experience (disclaimer: we already picked it out and I am just going in to purchase it whilst Cara is at work tomorrow since I have the day off).

To those of you who will keep tabs on me through this slim shady of a journey I embark, I thank you and will gladly accept unmarked bottles of booze as tokens of appreciation. To those of you who see this post and say "meh," well that's just fine too. I most likely "meh" you as well.

In Dave Grohl's name we pray, amen.

KJ