If you have not already done so, please check out Days #82 and #84 for the first two parts of how I lost 45 pounds in 4 months. This is the third and final post discussing how I got physically and mentally prepared for this tour.
Step 7: Keeping it off
One of the main reasons why I dropped all of the weight, was to give myself a buffer for when I inevitably put some of it back on doing this tour. Sitting in a car for 300 plus hours and eating ballpark food every other day was bound to have an adverse effect on my body. I had to stay diligent and not succumb to the trappings of the road trip diet. I kept reminding myself that this was less of a road trip, and more of me living on the road for three months. That meant no chips, candy, soda or fast food. Every ten days or so I would find a Costco or a Sam's Club in whatever area I was in. I would buy four pounds of green grapes, four pounds of red grapes, two pounds of blueberries, two pounds of strawberries and two 35-packs of water bottles. This served as my road food the entire summer. I had a cooler in the car and every new city that I arrived in I would take it all out and store it in a refrigerator if available. On my non-game days I would search for healthy restaurants in the area. One restaurant that became a lifesaver was a place called Seasons 52. I went to my first Seasons 52 in Tampa during Spring Training this year. The concept of the restaurant is that everything on the menu is under 500 calories. It is also quite tasty. I had initially thought that this was a Tampa only establishment, but I quickly found out that there were several Seasons 52 all over the country. Whenever I could not find something relatively healthy, or if I was just too tired to look, I ordered a shrimp flatbread and a cedar plank roasted salmon.
I tried to work out as much as I could, but at a certain point it became too much for me to handle. With all of the driving, writing, recording, editing, interviewing, not to mention the hours at each ballpark in the hot sun, I decided that I would use the extra hour to sleep in as opposed to go to the gym. Now that I know that I am capable of staying healthy, it will be easier to get back into a regiment when there is more regularity to my life.
Step 8: Do not be discouraged
What I did to lose the weight may seem like a lot to some, or barely anything at all to others. To those of you who feel like it is overwhelming, trust me when I say that if I was able to do this, absolutely anyone can. I was the embodiment of unhealthy living for more than half my life and I was able to turn it around. Do not get discouraged and do not give up. It may not happen today, tomorrow or anytime soon; but it can happen. All you need is something real to motivate you and get you out of bed. If it was not for this tour I am 100% certain I would still be a smoking, drinking, insomniac, depressed mess of a human being. I wanted to change for years but could not do it. In the teaser episode of my podcast I made the statement that “baseball saved my life”. I was not being melodramatic. Baseball saved my life.
If you are somebody who has struggled with smoking, drinking, weight issues etc. I want to tell you that I understand. What I have laid out in these three posts is something that worked for me, but it may not necessarily work for you. Nothing frustrated me more over then when someone would try and tell me how I could lose weight, or quit smoking or drinking. I tried a lot of the gimmicks, I tried some of the programs and none of them ever worked for me. The one thing that I learned is that whatever works for one person may not work for another. Find the thing that works for you. If you have not found it yet, keep looking. It took me several years to get my act together and I seriously never thought that I would. If you have any questions please feel free to email me at roundingthirdpodcast@gmail.com.
And now back to your regularly scheduled baseball frivolity.
Travel Stats
Miles Traveled: 0
Time in Car: 0 hours
Sleep Time: 6 Hours 15 minutes
Bottles of Water: 5
Food Eaten: Grapes, blueberries, pizza from Femi's
Total Money spent today $129.00
Cumulative Miles through today 15,864
Cumulative Time in car through today 289 hours 50 minutes