I Lost 30 Pounds by Doing Three Things I Never Tried Before

Last year, walking on the beach in Costa Rica, I had an epiphany.  Maybe the reason I was feeling so bad was because I was 40 pounds overweight.  I made (another) commitment to drop the pounds, got on the plane, and got to work.

But this time I did it differently

 

The Problem with Quick Weight Loss Plans

The first thing I decided to change was my level of commitment.  A quick weight loss goal requires no long term commitment to losing weight.  Even if you manage to lose weight, it’ll come back because there’s been no real change in attitude.

I highly, HIGHLY recommend that, instead of committing to lose 10 pounds in a month, commit to losing 1 pound a week for 10 weeks.  That will require something a quick weight loss plan doesn’t require.

A lifestyle change. Continue reading I Lost 30 Pounds by Doing Three Things I Never Tried Before

How I Came to Embrace a Truly Nut-Bag Religion

Some random nobody from nowhere shows up on the Judean countryside, rounds up a group of losers that nobody in their right mind would ever listen to, and turns everything upside down, for generations to come.

He claimed to be the “messiah” that the Old Testament prattles on about. That’s crazy.

He claimed to be God. His followers would later write, “yep, it’s true, He was God.” That’s crazy.

His followers also claimed that this nobody would die and remove the “sins of the world.” All of them – past, present, future, yours mine, etc. Crazy.

Top it off with the whole resurrection thing and Christianity gets really close to the top of the world’s craziest religions list.

Maybe that’s why so many Christian people are crazy.

When I first drank the christian Kool Aide, I was going crazy. My Baptist girlfriend had just dumped me at a local breakfast establishment, my dreams of becoming a military pilot had been dashed to bits, and I was deep in the throes of PTSD from something horrible that had happened years prior. Continue reading How I Came to Embrace a Truly Nut-Bag Religion

I’m Not As Insecure As I Used to Be: 3 Reasons Why

I’m old.

And tired.

I have limited emotional energy reserves with a side of three children – I have to be super careful with my worries, fears, etc.

So, a few years ago I made some pretty massive changes to the way I think about the opinions of others.  I’ll invite/encourage you to do the same.  But a quick disclaimer:

These are simple steps, and I promise that they’ll make perfect sense to you, but they’re not easy. Turns out I had become a bit addicted to the things that kept me chained to my perception of how others thought about me. Little about what follows was a quick, easy, “change of mind” kind of thing.

Insecure About Something That Never Mattered

I’ve been worrying about this for a long time – millions of hours spent sweating over my mistakes and shortcomings – how others might be talking about me, or laughing.

My habit began in middle school. I was a “dork,” surrounded by other kids who loved to poke fun about the way I looked, or something stupid I did. I had no idea how to handle it, so I agreed with them, and accepted their labels.

Like so many in our culture, I entered adulthood believing that I was only good if others thought I was good.  If someone hated me, or laughed at me, that meant I was bad, and it hurt.  The opinions of other people began to matter way more than they should have.

Having lived like that for most of my life, I can now declare with the utmost confidence that the negative opinions of others don’t matter.  Worrying about them doesn’t “work.”  It doesn’t do anything but bad things. Continue reading I’m Not As Insecure As I Used to Be: 3 Reasons Why