Purging...

Since I've decided to retire from doing another Ironman I've had to purge myself of Ironman reminders, as best I can.

I can't change my wardrobe, I have to much invested in that. However I have been unliking facebook fan pages that are from Ironman and triathlon races. I've been unsubscribe from email lists that share the same information.

I've even started to change my profile pictures on my social media sites. Kind of a new beginning sort of thing. Man it takes a long time to do all that stuff and it's addictive. Once you get going you want to get it all done. It's like re-organizing or spring cleaning. It's therapeutic and feels good.

There is also the catching up on work stuff to get ready to push the launch of Salmon Social as hard as I can. I basically didn't think much of it for the 2 weeks I was away at Ironman Boulder followed by a vacation riding route 66. Now I'm getting my head back into the game and I'm starting to get very excited. There is unlimited possibilities of how to promote the app.

Promoting the app for the next couple months and trying to raise more money to further develop it will be my new Ironman journey. I'm just tying up all my lose ends right now on other stuff so I can absorb myself 100%.

Facebook and twitter and social media in general is one of those time wasters. I consider it modern day TV. At night Alice will watch TV and I'll be on my computer between work stuff and then always  periodically checking out my social media feeds. It's so damn addictive. I downloaded an app last night called Freedom that you can activate and it will go from 1 minute to 8 hours where it effectively cuts off all your internet access. I tried it briefly and was having withdrawal pains.

I'm not sure what it is but for the first time it's been easy not to snack. Mind you it's only been 2 days. I'm not sure if it's the simplification of my life and not having the pressure to train long hours or just a sign from my subconscious that I've made the right decision and the underlying stress is gone.

Yesterday I only had about 4 hours of sleep. I was up until 2 am the night before working. I was pretty much in a daze all day yesterday. It just shows the importance of sleep. Today is much better I had a good night sleep last night and I feel like a new person. I also had a shower, first since Monday. Again, I just get into something and I'm like a mad scientist to work on it until it's done.

My muscles are definitely atrophying. I can feel it. The upside is my weight is going down, but it's misleading as I'm losing muscle. As of this morning I'm 201.4 lbs. Not bad considering how poorly I was eating on our vacation. I threw caution to the wind for pretty much the last 2 weeks.

All I need to do to maintain my muscle is train 30 minutes a day and at least every 3 day do something. Today is the day I start to get into that groove. I'll use my Freedom app and just prevent myself from going on the Internet for an hour. I'll have no choice but to train.

My plan that I'm working towards is to simplify and focus. No more than 3 key objectives. Salmon Social, regular exercise and spending time doing things with family, which basically means Alice as the kids have their own stuff going and hanging out with me is not one of their priorities.

I still haven't fully got the road trip out of my system. It was a lot of fun and part of me just wants to get back into the truck and do more of it. I was telling Alice that next time it would be great if we did it in a convertible and had minimal luggage so transferring our stuff from the car to the hotel would be a breeze.

I updated my 4 year old images for an image that is less than 6 months old. May as well as I was much thinner 4 years ago. Want to keep it real. Too many images I see are the "best of the best" for someone and when you meet them you don't really recognize them.

As I was looking for new profile images I had no choice but to see the transitions over the years from super fit and 180 lbs to fit but 200 lbs. I saw the transition really began after I qualified for Kona at Lake Placid.

It became apparent to me in hindsight that I pretty much lost my overwhelming desire to continue to train as hard as I could. The reality was even if I wanted to I wasn't ready yet to retire. After every Ironman I still had the Ironman Blues and immediately had to book my next Ironman race.

Looking at the photos has been very motivating. It's me and I know I could look and feel much better and healthier dropping 20 lbs. I really feel I'm ready to do it. I've always said and have learned first hand that diet is 90% of losing weight. It doesn't matter how many hours you train you will not lose significant weight unless you watch your diet. Now I'm ready to watch my diet and in reality it's easier to diet, at least its less painful, than it is to train 18 - 22 hours a week.

Staying of the beer is critical as well. It is just not possible to lose weight and drink alcohol in my world. The alcohol screws up your insulin levels not to mention inhibits you and you want to eat more.

Another goal besides weight loss is to get out of the house more during the day. Alice does it all the time. In fact she walks near 5 - 6 miles every day just doing errands. Me, without Ironman training I'm about 1.5 miles a day. Working from home is great for me, I can work independently, it just makes me burn less calories.

I'm not yet sure what the routine is. I know some people get up and go to McDonald's or Starbucks for coffee and have some sort of a routine. Haven't figured mine out yet, I will be the end of this week.

I can't stress how much I feel like a new person. It definitely feels like a re-birth. It's not a mid-life crisis. I went through that last year and I no longer am pining for a Corvette.

The big test will see if these feelings and focus last 90 days. It's been said it takes 30 days to make a change and 90 days to make it a habit. A motivation for me is to get to 70,000 km of training, I'm currently at 68,434.31 starting from May of 2007 when I started my comeback and lost 50 lbs.

For my American friends that 42,460 miles. I've circled the earth once which is 24,901 miles and I'm only 6,000 miles from finishing my second lap. It should take me 1.5 or 2 years more at my more relaxed training pace.

I will say I hit a pretty decent milestone on my fit bit. I wore it during the Ironman. Put it on my cycling shoe during the bike and wrist during the run. Got my 75,000 step badge.

So now enough blogging. I need to get out and go for a run to stop the atrophying.