Good Start, Good Bird

First full week of this the 10th month of 2011. October is always a month of tectonic demand for our time, patience and sense of humor. Our family has six birthdays to celebrate, our kids make up half of them. Hunting season resumes so we have deer & turkey to harvest. The kids have school events to attend. Hockey season resumes so we have a Hockey game to go to. Tectonic I tell you!

In honest reflection of my mission here, it was this time last year my progress slowed to a point of inconsistent ups and downs beginning a string of months of clumsy maintenance. Was is the increased external demands of the final months of the year which contributed to that result? Certainly it did influence it, but, the result was something I allowed. Had I stayed sharp mentally and kept my mission prioritized properly the result would have been better.

That learned experience is a tool I now have to use my quest to emerge from the final months of this year healthier, happier and handsome. No tool is useful if not used, and proper prioritization of my own mission with all else October brings is the only way this quest will succeed.

Thanks to the challenges I've joined (Go The Distance and Fall 31 Day) I am off to a good start this month. Each of the first two days saw me get in a couple of miles of combined walk/jog activity. Yesterday I also put in an hour in the gym working on upper body pulling exercises.

Exercise is good, very good. But we all know sustained weight loss or maintenance is a combination of exercise & diet. So on the diet front I'm off to a good start too. I won't bore you (or myself) with a list of everything I have eaten. But I will share a dish I had fun with. We need to remind ourselves that when food is fun we use food more successfully. Oh, to be clear, having fun with food does not mean 'food-fight' fun, but rather using fun creatively and outside of the norms that most dull diets prescribe.

Saturday's dinner was Bacon & Apple Roasted Pheasant:

Raw pheasant ready for some loving attention...

Spices, soy sauce & water will become marinade in no time...

Two pheasants marinade the day away...

Each marinaded pheasant gets stuffed w/ apple & hit w/ apple wood seasoning...

Trussed, draped in bacon (I was told I needed to use more bacon), these are ready for bagging...

Oven roaster bags work on pheasants & birds of all kinds...

Ninety minutes later we have Apple/Bacon Roasted Pheasant...

And the final photo is the one way up at the top of the post, my dinner plate; Breast of Pheasant w/ Salsa Dressed Romaine Salad. A mighty tasty and healthy meal it was.

Are you off to a good start this October ?

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

A Challenge, No, Two Challenges

Wow, did September move fast or what? It sure did in my eyes. A down right blurry flash of light is what I saw most September days.

Being blurry & busy is great, I prefer busy to not-busy. Actually, a quick sidebar; I am not looking forward to those retirement years because I just cannot wrap my head around being not busy. Oh I am sure when those years arrive, I'll adjust and find things to busy myself with. But for now, retirement is just not something I long for.

Back from the future to what is at hand now. October is now. I am now, you are now; our lives & livelihoods are now. The greatest hurdle to my livelihood continues to be my weight because I've allowed it to be. If you could see me typing right now, you'd see me shaking my head east-west in my own direction.

Enter October, enter opportunity to right that which I find wrong within. To make this right I need tools, many tools. Accountability is one tool which I need to leverage with greater consistency. Accountability will come from many avenues. From family, myself, bloggers, myself, our cats... well maybe not the cats.

To foster Accountability I considered organizing a challenge. But no sooner had that thought arrived when I was presented a number of challenges from fellow bloggers. I participated in a few challenges in 2010 and had good success with them; nope, I have no idea why I stepped away from them when the calendar turned to 2011. Therefore I've decided to enter a pair of challenges for October to amp up Accountability and get this mission rolling again.

One challenge is the always popular Go The Distance challenge (logo up top) organized by FatGirlVsWorld. This challenge leverages a tracking tool, promotes the importance of reward, and has an air of competitiveness within it that can be quite inspiring.

The second challenge is the Fall 31 Day challenge (logo below). This is a challenge that Clyde and his friend Jessica have partnered up on and they've been so kind to invite others to join them. The essence of this challenge; do something, anything, daily for 31 days to achieve a desired goal.

Why two challenges? Simple, I have great respect for the organizers of them, and I figure my chance of success increases when I put myself in their company. It's that simple. I know I can't do this solely on my own volition, otherwise I'd be where I desire to be by now.

If you need the benefits of a challenge, check them out and sign up. Otherwise, at least follow along with us and do us the favor of lending a hand with Accountability.



Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!