I have been working out off and on for about a month or so. I wanted to note the following as I proceed to the next phase of my goals – one of which is to lose weight and increase muscle and have a body like Van Damme by time I am 33. I am 31 now. Good luck with that you arrogant son of a gun…

Where am I today?

I adjusted a vegetarian diet back in May of 08. Back then I weighed about 210-215lbs. I call it a “fast” so I don’t freak people out. What do you mean you don’t want to eat dead animals? Is there something wrong with you? I could ask – have you ever looked one of these animals in the eyes as it was being killed? No? I didn’t think so – let me eat my rabbit food in peace please

I have been told my numerous individuals that I “look better” since doing the vegetarian thing; however, my weight is now come back up between 225-230lbs and I am not happy about this.

Digging far back into the ol’ mathematics memory bank, I decided that I needed to look at the body as a differential equation of sorts. It seems that relationships are much the same and I have noticed that many things in life tend to have analogies else where on how things really work behind the scenes. Relationship dynamics equations vs. body equations… perhaps similar to how there are equations in the electrical and mechanical world that are basically the same but just use different methods of representation… for example, a capacitor stores / dampens electrical energy and so does a compressed spring. You may remember physics from back in high-school and that the equations for modeling eletrical and physical things are often very much the same even when looking at very different things. A spring and capacitor may be a bad example, but I hope you get the point. I’m trying to think about the body in some sort of equation format when I have no formal diet / nutrition training. Good luck with that.

Really though, I do see it as a system that does not look all that different from working some math problem years ago. I think the fundamental problem is that we tend to assume that some of the other variables are unrelated. I’ll have to take us back in time for a second.

So, for some reason, ever since 3rd grade I have been over weight. I played outide, sports, worked, etc. yet was still overweight. I do know what started it – bologna sandwiches all summer long with a grandpa who thought I was starving even though mom fed us very balanced meals. Something then triggered either genetically or I somehow managed to reprogram my body to retain fat during that summer and it has been the same ever since. I am now 6 foot 1″ and am often referrred to as “big guy” due to the bulkiness of my muscles. Sheaaah.

Here we are though today. I look okay, but I’d like to improve the weight thing for health reasons and so that my wife will be irresistably drawn to my new van dam like appearance (yes tongue in cheek). Now don’t get me wrong, for the second time in my life – women are finding me attractive again. There seems to be some sweet spot right at about 220lbs where I start getting hit on. That’s not exactly what I want, but it does give the ego a little boost when I get down waiting on my beloved wife.

So… here is the goal, lose 30lbs by next summer. That means I need to somehow spend 105,000 calories by next summer if a pound of fat is 3500 cals. If I currently go with the 2200 calorie a day diet and shave off 1000 per day – that could put me at the desired loss in 100 days give or take provided that the burn rate remains constant. That’s the problem – the body adjusts as caloric intake is reduced. It’s all very simple actually – they teach stuff like this in engineering classes. Since the body then compensates by dropping the metabolic rate – perhaps there are ways to better lose weight than starving for a 100 days? You seeing some parallels with relationship dynamics yet?

Okay, is there another way? I’ve done the Atkins thing and it works for the first 20lbs or so until the body catches on. Ultimately, no matter what diet I try, or heck even since I have been exercising more and generally eating quite healthy – my body has still decided to convert bell peppers and brocoli into … fat. This may be analgous to the success with the marriage last year. There are still some underlying issues though that need to be solved. Time to break out the jack hammer and relay the foundation.

I suspect that what may be occurring is that due to the vegetarian thing, I probably had a loss in muscle – not that I had any muscle to start with other than being a big guy. This loss of muscle may have then allowed for less burning of energy maybe. In addition, my body was somehow reprogrammed to gain weight when I was a young man. It must be reprogrammed.

Firstly, to counteract the lack of protein – I started working out and ingesting something called whey protein. I’ve been told that I am looking thinner – though my weight does not reflect it. Did I somehow gain 15lbs of muscle over 5-6 months? I doubt it, though my strength did go up tremendously within the span of 2 months. I shall continue with this program; however, I need to make some adjustments.

I’m going to investigate the role of the thyroid gland in regulating weight gain / loss. I may look at extra iodine for the old’ thyroid.

I’m going to see about accupuncture treatment for weight loss. I had been doing accupuncture to help with my blood pressure. It concert with other holisitic healing thingies, it seems to have dropped my blood pressure by 30 points in about 3 weeks. Eat your heart out Dr. Jinx – Topral XL and Diovan is for the birds…. the body already had what it needed to drop the blood pressure and I hope the same is true for weight loss because I really don’t want to starve myself for 100 days thus resulting in further lowering of my metabolic rate.

Beyond this, I’m going to see if I have any food allergies that may contribute to a lower metabolic rate.

That’s all for now. As of this writing I weight 230lbs. I would like to weigh about 200lbs. 215lbs seems to be my lower limit. I had gotten down to 205lbs at one point, but that was during the early stages of the divorce proceedings when I didn’t eat for like two months straight almost

Other things in the news… me and my mother in law have been doing Bible study together and she has been coaching me on a number of areas as far as better relating to women. Learning a lot still.

One effect is the emotional shutdown and clam up effect. I have known about this for about a year now, but unsure of how to deal with it. I’m still not sure if this is specific to women or not, but I’ll continue to investigate.

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Question:

It seems that some of the articles in the suite of web sites refer to being pure in action, thought, deed, etc. That sounds good and all, but I wonder about some of those areas that seem ambiguous at best – especially when one lacks knowledge.

For example, A thief sneaks into my home one night and I become aware that someone is in my home. I then become alerted to the fact that this thief is armed. The thief approaches my bedroom. Perhaps I seek to protect my wife / children from this particular thief, but then I also struggle with the concept of turning the other cheek.

To me it seems that protecting one’s family is more correct in this situation up to and including using lethal force than not defending one’s family by turning the other cheek.

Given my present probably about to be divorced situation I am trying to understand repaying evil for evil vs. not repaying evil for evil. It feels like I am at the beginning of what may be an opportunity to reset a karma loop that has been occurring for just under a year now. I struggle with forgiveness / mercy vs. allowing something to continue unchecked.

When is turning the other cheek appropriate? I have provided the house thief example to get a better gist, but ultimately the question for me becomes – what if that thief may also be one’s own spouse at times?

Answer:

With respect to your spouse: Do not call her names. Act justly and righteously towards her aggressive actions towards you. And while you would be a fool to give her all of your salary and leave yourself destitute, give her whatever you are able to provide and be able to still support yourself. Do you want a further discussion?

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tomorrow we go into a temporary custody hearing. The hearing will start around 9 tommorrow.

I ask for the spirit of discernment and heart for the judge to make the right decisions for the children – not myself nor my wife – perhaps even a miracle or two and that NEITHER of us resort to mud slinging or at least minimally so – so that dignity may be preserved on all sides. Send light down on my wife, the judge, and maybe even me.

I am prepared to accept the outcome whatever it may be. Thank you for your prayers.

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I thought this was an awesome most in another forum that I frequent that is very telling with marital relationships and relationships in general.

What ____ does not understand is that the Laws of this world not only returns one’s actions — but also one’s thoughts. Which means that each person is the creator of their own illusion — and once the illusion is manifest, it becomes a Demiurge or creator of their world. Therefore, the vast majority of organic people not only worship a nature-god of their own making — but they attract back to them the fulfillment of their mindset. As an example: Women who suffer from abusive men, attract these men to them. Often, the thoughts of the women bring out the abusive nature of the men — and many of these men are different with other women.

The universe is like a reflective mirror which responds to our own thoughts, desires and actions. The viewpoint and opinions with which we see the world, is of our own making. Our own thoughts, desires and actions create our experiences and interactions with others. This is the power of the illusion of the god of this world which each person must overcome.

When I got my miracle prayer answered when I started this whole spiritual journey – I just recall praying to Father… the Father….

My wife is reportedly reading the Bible now. That was a very specific prayer that I had – that has been answered.

We go to court on Friday to determine which school our daughter goes to.

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Well, had a major upset this last weekend, followed by a major victory. The details are offline in my journal.

I wanted to take a moment and document something I call prayer momentum….. you pray for something… prayer fade kicks in at some point…. whenever you give up and then… prayers may start getting answered after the fact; however and unfortunately often by that time we are too tired to notice that our prayers are being answered – they have just been delayed. I call this prayer momentum… it is a force almost as though the prayers you prayed 2-3 years ago, start to kick in awhile later, but you forgot what you prayed for 2-3 years ago.

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Well, something weird happened the other day. I have a nightly routine of praying with a pastor friend of mine and a couple other folks that I’ve begun ministering to on this walk of mine. Well, for some reason I got it put really strongly on my heart about one person in particular one night. I mean strong… I could feel this person’s pain. I had never met this person.

I prayed for this person in agreement with my brothers for 3 nights in a row. Prayers seem to have some sort of amplification effect when it is two or three people praying with all their emotion. It is a phenomenon I have noted. Emotion is key.

On the evening of the 3rd night – this same person was doing a prayer of her own. She was telling the master that she relents – she is tired of the way she has been living her life. She is in tears. On her knees (sounds like me in regards to prayers for my wife sometimes).

She calls my pastor friend the next day asking to be picked up – she is in some alley and is now ready to turn her life over to Jesus and all. It’s a start and a miracle. This gal has been popping pills for 30 years and just stops. Had her come to Jesus moment. I had mine. I think this time for me is just the period of testing that happens after the come to Jesus meeting.

Yes – I know about the linkage of Christianity to Egypt, Krishna, etc. I know about the law of attraction, new age, how to grow one’s psychic abillities, and all that fun stuff. I still have tons of questions, but what I do know is that people’s lives are being impacted for the better by this stuff in huge ways. Life was so boring before. Yes, this is painful what I am living through now, but it is yet so beautiful when you rise above it all and see the big picture.

“In complete darkness we are all the same. It is only our knowledge and wisdom that separate us. Don’t let your eyes deceive you.”

~Janet Jackson

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I did some exploration last night. Got out of Dodge for a bit. Had to do some more thinking I guess. Anyway, got to thinking about defining what a happy relationship is. I mean, I thought we had one (obviously not), but now I am trying to understand what that means.

A happy relationship? I guess people define it differently. I had defined it as intimacy – being able to share your most intimate of intimates without fear of judgement. Now why is that? I don’t know honestly.

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I had realized a couple things about myself. I am a perfectionist on many levels. A tough act to follow sometimes. Some things I could care less about (e.g., grammar / spelling), but on other levels I want a perfect soul, perfect body, perfect marriage, etc. I have none of these so far, but they are part of my inner most desires. I ask myself – Why?

If I am Sun and she is moon, then no matter how hard I try not to have her live up to my own personal standards – she will be driven to live by those standards and if unable to keep up – will go batty. Yes, she had her issues from the start, but this is one of the things that perhaps unconsciously she was reflecting my light or at least attempting to meet my energy or something.

Do I lower my standards? Not try as hard? Don’t know. This is just a theory at this point.

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I had written awhile back about some of the numerological sequences chasing me around. On clocks, receipts, license plates – freakin everywhere.

Specifically, 11:22. Well it resurfaced the other day for a little while. Perhaps a couple days. Then the same pattern reemerged that has been following me for some time. Now I know that part of our conciousness may seek to discern patterns as some sort of survival instinct whenever we are under duress or stress, but I doubted that was true after hearing and reading about tons of other people experiencing the same phenomenon.

Anyway, decided to get to the bottom of it. I read something that suggests that 11 = Purity, 22 = Stimulation, 44 = Absolute. Whatever.

Annoying numerological sequences always chasing me around. Some say that it is angels trying to get our attention, others say it is from God, some say spiritual guides, others say spiritual aliens from some planet, and other more rational folks say it is just a way of dealing with stress.

Who knows. What I do know is that this pattern became discernable to me independent of researching it and finding out about others experiencing the same thing. While that is subjective and is my point of view, I also don’t think that a universe just popped up out of nowhere with 100 gajillion galaxies as suggested by some in the scientific community.

Here is what i did notice though. It may be a restart of what appears to be some sort of loop in my life. I mean – this chick – my wife and I were dating in high-school. We were “in love”. Talking about marriage – what to name our kids and what not. She flipped out. Then here we are married like 7 years later. Then a few years later she flips out again. Now, don’t get me wrong – it takes two to tango and both of us had our part, but at the end of the day I suspect that we may be caught in some sort of inner loop within this lifetime until one or both of us turns the other cheek like Jesus was always saying to do. This is just a theory though. Sadly, I won’t know until the end of my life probably.

Now I had thought about this and started thinking about the whole idea of history repeating itself. It does right? I see observable phenomenon now repeating themselves in my life with regard to my marriage – and what is weird is they seem to be in sync with this whole 11:22 business. From what I can tell 11:22 is the start of the pattern or cycle. If my theory is correct, then apparently I have reached the start of either the old pattern – hence starting all over again – or am starting a new one. Who knows. I’m just making this up as I’m going along as usual – or am I?

I thought this was interesting though taken from the following url: Reluctant Messenger (111 hits):

According to reincarnation beliefs, history tends to repeat itself until those who have participated in it learn their lessons and change for the better. This means that an individual may face identical situations from one life to the next until they are able to conquer whatever “cause and effect” chain-reaction they have caused from a previous life. As an example, a person who “lives by the sword” in one life and dies without having made amends for his mistakes, will in the next life be faced with identical situations which must be overcome. Ultimately, such a person will have to face themselves and have inflicted upon them everything they have inflicted upon others. Divine justice in many religions shows that those who “live by the sword” will “die by the sword”, if not in their present life, but likely in a future life. Reincarnation theory states that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

It appears that history does indeed repeat itself. Perhaps it is the same cast of characters playing the same roles over and over again. I think William Shakespeare was right all along: All the world is a stage and we are but the players.

Got the idea? Patterns happen. Deal with it. Yeah baby.

Another thing. It seems that random butterflies still show up in my life as of late. It is summer. It is Texas. It is HOT! It is just weird. I’ll be sitting there. Haven’t seen a butterfly in awhile nor am I looking for one and I’ll start thinking – the heck with this – I’m going to go find me another woman. Then a little butterfly will sort of fly up to me and just sort of hang out.

I’m sitting there thinking. Hi. What’s your name? Annoying psychic butterflies always showing up when I start thinking about moving on. Grrr. Okay.

It was a pattern that had been established some time ago – perhaps as allegory in this physical existence for something else that I need to learn, but in any case pretty personal to me. Annoying self-generated belief in butterflies somehow having something to do with my dating life. Truly Chaos Theory (google for it) is at work here, but rather than the flap of butterfly’s wings somehow starting a hurricane – instead – it is keeping me from finding another woman and staying stuck in this prison of hope. You’re lost right? I wrote about this awhile back. Perhaps search for butterfly on the side bar there, but I’ll try to explain.

This was sort of a little thing between me and God that I wasn’t permitted to date. What I wanted to do was to use my concious mind to overide my emotions, and meanwhile still consciously pray for my wife because there were a number of spiritual or relationship forces that I didn’t fully understand. Basically, the way it works is somehow women instinctively know not to try to come back until you are already over them. I don’t know why it works that way, but just know that it does in many cases. Desperate to try anything, i had looked at dating to get a confidence boost. That’s what a lot of the repair your relationship books say anyway. I’ve heard my friends always say the same thing, and plently others. Don’t know why it works that way – who knows. Maybe just how this place is designed, but the point is dating denied due to butterflies. I know that makes no sense to you, but it does to me and that’s all that matters The risk and evil in this is that if you fall in love with someone else well you may not be able to fall out of love and even if you do – you just used someone. Bad plan.

I had read about another thing – and that is just plain old exercise. It does something to your confidence by increasing dopamine levels or something at that then makes us brief case toating wannabe cave men more attractive to women seeking security or something. Goes back to cave man days i think. I also learned that deep down inside, many women desire a man that will proverbially drag them by the hair, yet still hold the door. Some kind of push pull thing. Seems like a game to me, but evidently it is part of the process and some women like that game.

Well anyway, still caught in this karma loop like a bad episode of Star Trek where they get caught up near a disruption in the space time contiuum, but perhaps I need to rethink what I’m doing. If this is a reset of the ol’ Karma loop then what could I do differently? I am still at a huge cross roads and unsure of what to do next. The judge is out of town for two weeks I heard so whatever missiles were going to be fired were delayed. I was very thankful of that, because I really didn’t want to. Perhaps that was God’s way of me trusting him kind of like Abraham with his son? Nah.

Perhaps while I wait I should better understand the nice guy phenomenon that repulses women sometimes. I guess nice guys are just boring or something and it doesn’t work so well when we try to fake it by buying a harley and getting a tattoo of a heart on our arm that says “Mom”.

I could really freak my wife out and get a tattoo of her face on my arm, but I doubt she would ever think about coming back after that and it might limit my chances with another woman should that butterfly pattern cease. In a weird sort of way though – that would be quite funny if you think about it long enough.

Where are my meds? Who said that? Just kidding. Really – kidding or am I?

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Can you see the light?

Me too.

Hard to make out, but it’s there.

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