Cooksey's A Quitter???

First…I know what some of you are saying…”Cooksey hasn’t posted in like 36 hrs …he must be running out of material”.

Folks, “that isn’t happening”. Just been busy over the weekend and the first of this week. I have much more to say…you may not want to read it… but there is much more to say my friends!

So here we go!

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Honey I Shrunk Myself!

First Rule they tell you with Beachbody, the company behind P90X, (ok, it may not be THE first), do not watch the scale. Follow the meal plan, follow the workout schedule and don’t worry about your weight.

That is what Steve is doing from now on. I am not watching the scale any more… (we’ll see).

The reason I bring this up…I have reached a new low of 171.5 pounds!

I weigh in every morning and I’ve been in the 172-176 range …until today. I am not going to worry about it, I am going to follow both the workout plan and the nutrition plan and let the pounds fall as they may.

* For the record, I have not run / jogged in 9 days.

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Steve’s A Quitter??

The day I was diagnosed as being Diabetic (Feb ’09) and I was told that I would likely be on insulin for the rest of my life, I was in the hospital. At that moment…

I did decide to fight for my “freedom”, freedom from the shackles of measuring and injecting insulin FOUR TIMES A DAY and freedom from having to take pills for cholesterol and hypertension.

My relatives are from the mountains of NC where fatback, cornbread, biscuits and gravy were daily staples and I had seen too many of my relatives go down the same road I was on…it was a slow ride down….and I wasn’t going down without a fight. Having said all that, the day after I came home from the hospital…I was wavering.

I can only assume I was wavering due to another fight that was going on at the same time…I was fighting depression. I remember thinking that I could learn to deal with taking shots FOUR TIMES A DAY, “it wasn’t that bad” and I could continue eating like I had been…maybe a little better but basically the same. Yes, I could just take the medications and insulin and life may not be that bad…I could learn to deal with it.

I was considering “giving up” and not becoming more fit. But all is not quite as it seems. At this point in time, I didn’t know if any of my efforts would help my situation. In other words, for all I knew, I’d be on insulin all my life, regardless of my efforts! If that were the case, why should I try to improve my condition? My mind was trying to cope with the “reality” as I perceived it to be.

Unlike some people that I have spoken to since my hospital stay…

I decided:

-NOT to settle for taking diabetes drugs just so I could eat a lot of simple carbohydrates.
-NOT to settle for taking more pills just so I could continue being a couch potato.

So why do I tell you all this?

So you will know the depth of my depression AND how close I was to “giving up”.

Obviously, I decided to fight for my fitness, not give up and at least at the moment, I am medication and insulin FREE! But I must stay vigilant, for I never know what tomorrow may bring.

Spring Forward to TODAY, Tuesday 07/07/09…today, it is difficult to describe how great I feel. Another reason I went back through some of the “old stuff” is so….

YOU WILL KNOW HOW THANKFUL I AM TO BE WHERE I AM TODAY!

Sunday - I played basketball and I felt GREAT! I am lighter, stronger and generally more fit. Words just can’t describe how I feel…ok that’s enough but it does feel great.

BTW, I know some of you are saying…but didn’t you get hurt….YES, but my injury was not related to my fitness level. I could have had the same injury if I’d been my old sluglike self and I was rebounding for my 10 year old nephew.

Monday & Tuesday – Worked out with P90X and FELT GREAT! (I know it’s redundant but what can I say???)

Let’s see what Wednesday brings….shall we?


Steve