One of the things I have “preached about” over and over on this website is the absolute necessity to conquer fear! Fear is the ugly gift that keeps on giving. If you contemplate something you’re terribly afraid of–let’s use encountering a person you absolutely dread as an example–you will pay the price of  that event actually happening even as you just think about it! Fear raises the levels of destructive hormones, and in the long run it even increases your chances of dying earlier than you should. Especially of a heart attack. So, fear is NOT your friend!

So, how do we conquer fear? Several things. Admitting you have it, rather than relabeling it, helps a great deal. I like to admit my fear in the form of a prayer, so that even as I own up to it I am beginning the steps to getting rid of it.  I often find myself saying out loud: “Lord, You said “fear not” so many times in the Bible that it is the most common commandment you give. Yet, I find myself fearful today of _______(then I name the specific situation or person I fear)____and I ask that you help me to face that fear and that you help me to get rid of it and conquer it forever.” Amen.

Next, taking a specific action regularly is an excellent idea. Yes, at the outset of any strange event you will have a fear or anxiety of approaching it. You may be afraid of embarrassment or of physical harm. The question you have to ask yourself as you face this fear is this: “Am I justified in being afraid or is this irrational or overreacting behavior?” Think about it; pray about it; and then face it! If the fear is justified, then don’t do the thing you are afraid of. There is a thin line between being fearful and foolhardy, and crossing that line is never a good idea. BUT, if as it is in most cases, your fears are more apparent than real, face them by forcing yourself to go do this thing you dread. If necessary, take someone with you. Another good way of forcing yourself to do this thing is to tell others what you are going to do.

The most recent example in my own life of conquering fear is my entry blank to a running race tomorrow. I am fearful of embarrassing myself, because I haven’t run competitively in my entire life, and I’ve done very little actual running since rupturing a disc in my back in 2003. Yet, I think it is time to once again enter this area of activity, and I know that there is no better way to do that than to enter a local 5k race. Tomorrow morning at 9:00 A.M., I’ll be in the middle of the starting pack in downtown Lansing to run that race. To be sure of that, I preregistered for the race and got a timing chip so I would have to show up. If that sounds silly for a 62 year old man, I agree with you! Still, it was what I needed to do to make sure I don’t talk myself out of it tomorrow.

Well, that’s it. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. Face your fears, and find the joy of victory!

Here’s  what I’ve learned about finishing several challenges over the years, as well as failing to finish  a couple of them. (Those two failures were due to injuries and surgeries, but led to top 1000 finishes during the next challenge.)

1. The strongest finish begins with careful planning, goal setting and preparation. By taking the time to plan thoroughly and set excellent, achievable goals, you have invested time, effort and resources into ytour challenge. This is really no different than booking a nice vacation trip at the end of your challenge as a reward. Whatever you can do to add value to your challenge at the beginning will make it more likely you’ll finish it through the hard times.

2. Consistency is critical to success. IF your life is chaotic and you don’t know from one day to the next what you will eat, where you will eat, and and when and how long you’ll work out, and who you will be interacting with, that kind of bvehavior will accumulate stress rather than confidence. It will impede performance. Unless you can master your own schedule, it will master you! You only acquire consistency by two means–discipline and acting your way into better thinking instead of trying to think your way to better actions.

3. Adversity is the pruning shears that will make a better, stronger man or woman out of you. Pruning producces strong, healthy and beautiful plants and trees. And, guess what, it does the same thing for people! So, when that dreaded person, place or thing comes along to knock you out of the catbird seat, just look it in the eye and say, “bring it on!” You don’t have to welcome it or enjoyit or even laugh about adversity, but you DO HAVE TO GO THROUGH IT, or it will go through you! While it’s going on, make good notes, because the judges love the stories of adversities turned into triumph during a transformation.

4. It is the most difficult when you are very close to a victorious finish. Human nature is that the nearer we get to a victory, the more we want to quit! Instead of quitting, put up your countdown calendar, a board with the remaining days you have to go, and check them off, one by one. Seeing how close you are to the end keeps you in the game.

5. Stay in touch! Get close to people on the guestbook or in the other communities.

6. FInish with a fourish! Take professioanl photos.; get tanning either naturally or artificial–it really reveals results best; be creative, you want those photos to be great! Then, buy yourself some new clothes. After all, there’s a new YOU that needs them!

I was listening to a sermon on Saturday night, and when it came to the part about being real and authentic, I heard something that really stood out. It was this: “Behavioral scientists from all cultures agree that the one universal trait among all cultures is that NOBODY LIKES A LIAR!” I believe that to be true. I also believe that lying to ourselves is at the core of most challenge failures. Let me explain before your blood pressure goes up here!

When I was in recovery from alcoholism I learned the difference between self-honesty and cash register honesty. I learned that anyone can be outwardly honest and not lie to or steal from others, but that part of the reason that people become addicts is that the drug or alcohol or food is selected for its pain killing properties, and that the pain comes from lying to ourselves–failing to practice self honesty. In my case, most of my resentments were aimed at “them.” I had a whole list of folks who had wronged me, or frustrated me, or who didn’t like me, and on and on it went. And every failure I had–real or imagined–I blamed on “them.” Even my drinking! “If you’d been treated like I had, you’d drink too” I often said.

However, the plain truth was that I was the cause of all my failures, not “them.” I was the one who made bad choices, who nursed grudges, and who took the easy way out every time. Once I was faced with the truth that I’d never be able to stay sober unless I dealt with my own lying to myself, my life completely changed directions. Though it was initially painful to be responsible, since there was no one else to blame but me, ultimately I became much better at doing life and at not allowing other things or people to get in the way of a goal.

Sadly, I see from the guestbook and elsewhere that many are afflicted with my self-deceit problem, and that since “nobody likes a liar” they actually don’t like themselves, though they are not really able to realize that. Instead, they blame their spouse, their co-workers, their parents or their children for their own failure to stick with the program. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen that the evil spouse was at fault for bring home a pizza, even though exactly why the challenger felt they had to eat it is never really explained! Others take one relatively harmless remark, such as “how long are you going to stick with this latest diet?” and they allow it to be like an arrow into their heart. Soon enough, they give in to temptation, and blame it all on the spouse. It’s just too much to take the responsbility for their own failings. Problem is, unless they do, they’ll never get this right, because spouses, children, co-workers and others–they just don’t get the memo that says “don’t ask stupid questions or bring home unauthorized food!”

How do you get self-honesty? Making a searching and fearless inventory of yourself, of your weaknesses, and of the times you’ve lied to yourself. Then,, tell it all to someone who won’t be harmed by it, a trusted friend, or an anonymous clergyman for example. Above all, you must accept the entirety of your role in all these failures, and not simply acknowledge “my part” in it. Once you’ve cleaned up the past, it’s much easier to go into the future with a clean slate. Next, pray for the people who do this to you. Not praying that they quit doing it, but praying for them to get the desires of their hearts, whatever that may be. Next, be intentionally and relentlessly nice to them. Spend time with them if it’s friends or family. Do things to help them, if it’s co-workers or others. Never return bad for bad, but always give them your very best.

Is this easy? Not at all. It’s simple, but progress will be slow at first and rapid after a few weeks. You will find that you no longer bristle every time someone says, “Oh, ANOTHER ONE of those shakes? When do you get to eat normal?” Honest, this is all possible, once you stop lying to yourself by blaming others for your own shortcomings!

Well, not really spanning the globe, but more like spanning the central U.S. Right now I’m in the Lansing Michigan regional airport, one of the few places where web access is truly free, and heading to McPherson Kansas to see my mother. Mom is 86 and lives alone there, so it’s always good to go check up on her, and to become a Kansan again for a few short days.

It’s great to be back in Kansas where the weather can be brutal, but the people are the best in the world. There’s no hurry there. No one tailgates you on the freeways, and people wave at you even if they don’t know you. They are always willing to help, and it’s just kind of like life the way it’s supposed to be.

How do I maintain exercise and diet while I travel like this? Well, I used to take it all with me. But the days of charging for extra bags, banning liquids in flight, and all that, make that less than ideal. So, what I do these days is to hit a Wal Mart as soon as I get in town, buy the RTDs I’ll need for my meals between “earth food meals” and that’s about it. If I’m in a muscle building phase, which I’m not at the moment, I take my creatine-based supplements in baggies and bring a shake cup with me. That shake cup is the Blender Bottle, which you can buy at better health food stores, GNC, and a few other places. Accept no substitutes. THe blender bottle is great! It has a stainless wisk in it; it does NOT leak or ooze. It’s almost indestructible. There are look a likes that are not that good, so be sure you get the real deal. It’s almost $10 but believe me you’ll go through five of the junk shake cups long before anything will happen to your blender bottle.

As for workouts, that’s no prob. I belong to the Y and that means you can work out free or very cheap at any YMCA in the world! My mom swims every day at her local Y so it just works out great.

I’m doing more running right now than weight training. I’m going to try to train up to a marathon, but we’ll see how it goes. A leg damaged due to nerve problems following a back surgery has created some weaknesses and structural issues in my left foot and ankle, so I’m going to get an evaluation to se if it is possible to use braces or orthotics to reach that goal. If not, then I’ll be on a bike or an elliptical again I guess.

Why a marathon? I don’t really know, except that it is a lofty goal for a 62 year old guy who really has never been a runner–and I’m big on “lofty goals!”

Leave some comments if you have time! God bless!  If you’re a runner and have never participated in running podcasts, here’s a website you should really check out!  www.steverunner.com   

This is a really big day for me! I couldn’t be happier than I am right now, even though my political favorites took a serious beating yesterday; my job is completely insecure at this point and I won’t know whether I ‘ll get to continue past January, and our retirement funds have taken such a thorough beating that retirement is not an option at the moment. So, why am I so happy?

Because twenty five years ago today, a Saturday in November 1983, I was able to make it through an entire day without taking a drink of alcohol or using any other mind-altering chemicals!  That first sober day, my recovery birthday, was spent in a treatment center in Wichita Kansas. That’s probably the only reason I didn’t drink that day– I was locked behind doors of the treatment facility, in a hospital, and that’s where I stayed for 28 days.

I must tell you that I was anything BUT happy the first day I walked into that place. I was unable to see that it would help me. I was an angry, self-pitying, sarcastic and unhappy guy, and I just knew it was everyone’s fault but mine! As I walked down the hallway to my room, with a nurse escorting me, I remember distinctly thinking, “This is it–my life is over.”  How crazy it seems to me now that I was unable to see that this would be my salvation, and that an entirely new life was possible beyond the curtain of alcohol that I had been living behind.

I want all of you to one day be able to say the same thing about your battles with food. See, I know for most of us that Body for Life is about much more than just battling a few pounds of fat and putting on some muscle. For most of us, it is a desperate attempt to reclaim our lives and the joy we once had. That joy, for many of us, is long gone and sometimes seems like it’s never coming back. If we are honest, we would admit that we use food just like I used to use alcohol, to get us through pity parties, to help us avoid feeling those uncomfortable emotions–things like fear, anger, resentment, jealousy, envy. The list goes on.

And Body for Life is not really the vehicle to reclaim your life, but it is certainly the place to start. If you are faithful in your exercise, your eating, and your journaling, you’ll find a new life for yourself. That is, you’ll find it IF you make a conscious effort to change your entire outlook and attitude. That takes cleaning out your closets and really looking carefully at the relationships you’re in, the habits that have overtaken you, the attitudes you have copped, and the denial that has swamped your life. If you’ll do that, and then go ask for forgiveness from those you have harmed, and sever any toxic relationships as well, you’ll find a new life for you.

Best news of all is that it is simple, not easy, to make this change. Your faith will see you through, if you have faith. If you don’t, then just do the next best thing and act like a person who has faith. In recovery, they call that “faking it until you make it.”

One last thing. Be good to yourself during this transition time. Your attitude will improve if you treat yourself better, and talk nicer to yourself.  God bless!