The Friday before the party July 24th 2009

Tomorrow is my little (6'4") brother's bachelor party. I'm going to have a good time, but I also want to keep him safe. Tomorrow night's post will most likely be through a text message. If I can get up early enough tomorrow, I'll try to swim and then I have a 10am mtn biking date. Today, I swam a mile (33 laps) in 45.2 minutes. It was after lunch and I just couldn't get my groove on. I really want to break 40.

Yesterday started out as a 4 on the food scale, but ended up a 3. I weighed 337.4 this morning. Again, either I'm retaining water from the nuts I ate yesterday or it's new muscle weight. My wife keeps telling me that my body is rapidly changing shape and I am losing inches from my waist, but I'm not losing as much weight as I wanted. I was hoping to lose 20 pounds this month, but I'll probably only lose 15. Of course, that's okay especially if I lose 10 to 15 pounds a month until I reach my goal weight. Once, before children, I was at my "ideal" weight (somewhere around 180), but I felt horrible. I tend to be pretty muscular, so I prefer 200 pounds. The most important thing to remember is a diet should be a change in thinking; a change in life style. I have to remember to look at my weight loss over the long run. I am determined to remain vegan for the rest of my life. Hopefully, it will be longer life than my life expectancy as a fat man.

I've done some research on vegetarians and vegans. Who said, "Nothing will benefit health or increase chances of survival on earth as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."? Answer: Albert Einstein. So was Abe Lincoln, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Doctor Benjamin Spock. Their are literally hundreds of famous vegetarians. However, vegans take it one step further and abstain from dairy products as well. Many stars and athletes are vegans. Just to name a few...Paul McCartney, Carl Lewis, Carrie Anne Moss (Matrix chick), Ellen Degeneres, Grace Slick, James Cromwell, Joaquin Phoenix, Moby (musician), Vanessa Williams, Pamela Anderson, Lenny Kravitz, Bryan Adams, and Weird Al Yankovic are all vegans. Side note: I actually met Weird Al in a vegan restaurant in Buffalo, New York. One of the "cheerleaders for the vegan diet is Kansas City Chief Tony Gonzales.