The Alpha Post - My rhyme, reasons, and Project: Briles 200,

Hi Kids!

Welcome to my blog! This is my first post. I know I'm a little behind the times here, as I just learned the other night that the word "blog" was the most looked up word on Miriam-Webster's Online Dictionary all the way back in 2004 (gotta love a good trivia night). I should probably be doing a vlog to be more recently out of date... I actually wanted to be an early adopter and do an hlog (holograph log), like Princess Leia, but apparently, that technology isn't easily accessible to everyone yet... which is probably for the best for both of us, because I have a hard enough time getting what I really want to say from my brain through my finger tips while typing, never mind from my brain and through my mouth when speaking out loud... so for now, I write!

So why am I doing this blog and why is it called "Briles Is Losing It"?

1. I really used to like to write. Stories, movie scenes, possible Onion articles... I really enjoyed it, and I think I was okay at it. I just had no discipline and I ended up following some paths that just eventually led me away from it. I haven't really written in a long time, so when I hit 32 this past February, I realized that I was getting dumber and having trouble putting strings of words together in a particular order to form what your kind call 'sentences'. Sooooo I thought, no matter who reads this, it would be a great way to keep more brain cells on life support for a while. So there's that...

2. As I get older, I'm having trouble deciding whether what I'm reading, watching, hearing, and seeing is getting crazier or if it's just me. I want you to help me decide. I'll throw up crazy stuff from time to time, just because I think it's worth sharing.

C. My Photography Virginity. I'm about to lose it. I'm about to start getting paid as a wedding photography assistant. I'm truly excited, but at the same time EXTREMELY nervous. I'm going to be working with an AMAZING photographer, who I am going to learn a lot from. What direction this is going to take me in, I'm not sure, but I hope to share some of my pictures with you, get your comments and critiques... maaaayyyyybe even sell a few prints once I get myself totally organized... It won't be the focus of this blog, but I'll put links to my pics up from time to time. I also tend to go on some adventures here and there... adventures that somehow put me into crazy stories and cool places, so I'll be sharing pics and stories from those as well.

4. Money. I think we're all losing it... so let's talk about ways we can save money, make some extra cash, etc. Mostly, I'm going to be pimping other blogs from people like Kimmy Gatewood and Amy McCoy, whose blogs have a lot of easy helpful information that will be relevant to what I write about. Check them out at

http://cheapskatewood.wordpress.com/

http://poorgirlgourmet.blogspot.com/

5. The Main Reason: (Initiate booming echo-y voice) PROJECT: Briles 200!!!!

Starting today, I have initiated PROJECT: Briles 200. What is PROJECT: Briles 200, you ask? ... And I'm glad you did ask, because I was rudely going to have to tell you whether you asked or not.... For those of you who know me, I think we can all agree that I've been 'bigger', or as my ma would say, "Husky" (as in, "Excuse me, miss. Where is your jeans section for husky boys?...) for most of my life. I actually can't remember the last time I weighed below 200lbs. The closest I think I came since about 4th or 5th grade was when I had to shed some lbs to make skydiving weight after 9/11 happened in 2001. I hit about 218 for that. 2lbs under the maximum 220lb limit.... and that was my first date with the ex.

How embarrassing would that have been to hear upon trying to sign up for the jump on an adventurous first date with the date standing there... "Sorry, Sir, you're too heavy for the chute to hold you up in the air safely. Your weight would just cause the chute to collapse and you would rocket like a meteor into the earth's crust, creating a giant crater that... actually... now that I think of it... we could then sell tickets too as a side attraction.... Let's get you in a jumpsuit!!!"

Now, I know I'm not BIGGEST LOSER big, but there was a time when I came close. My heaviest was between 275 and 285... I don't know for sure becuse I would always hop off the scale with a Homer Simpson-esque yelp before the needle stopped pinging in between those points. Either way, I got BIG. That was after I got married and found out I was going to have to choose between me, personally, living happily in Hermosa Beach, CA, but living with a wife who was miserable living there or moving to her hometown in S. Jeresey where she would be happy (theoretically) and I would have to see what I thought. I got pretty depressed early on in that process and started packing on pounds... becoming less active... By the time Jersey was done with me and Boston took me in, I had been living around 275 lbs consistently.

Getting out of my tough situation in Jeresey helped, but after making a couple quick lifestyle changes (including having less stress), I dropped 35lbs pretty quickly. I've been holding around 235 for about a year and a half now. I've definitely had some fluctuations, but I've been pretty good. Now it's time to climb down from that plateau to an even healthier spot! I want to get to 200lbs!

Should I accomplish this feat, it would be the first time since my childhood that I was at that weight. Now here's the thing. I'm not just in this to lose weight. I'm in this to live healthier for the rest of my life. The idea here isn't for me to go nuts and drop weight fast. I like a lot about the way I live. I don't want to just start eating salads all the time, quit drinking, go exercise for 2 hours a day for a few months, drop 35-40lbs and say "I won!!" I've done that kind of weight loss before (see 'losing weight for skydiving') only to balloon back up to a higher weight when I reintroduce the way I REALLY like to live back into the picture.

The idea is to navigate my way through the next year figuring out what steps I can take to drop weight gradually, create habits that I enjoy, and still live my life the way I want to without becoming one of those people who ONLY lives to be healthy. I'm going to document this project on here, not only as a journal for myself, but hopefully so I can get you involved and we can all share tips, stories, and laughs together about the whole process. I'll get into my game plan and the reward I'm planning for myself later. FYI - I'm going to add a picture of myself from wherever I am when I write an entry to this blog, then we can all see how the weight loss is going... if all goes right, I should have a gigantic head in no time! Yup... that's a pic of me at the laundromat today... sorry, I'm so unkempt... It's laundry day!!

I'm hoping I can be disciplined enough to get a post up here every few days, but we'll see. My schedule is hectic and my mind is very ADHD, so I'll do what I can. Again, I'm not about killing myself for this blog or for PROJECT: Briles 200. This is supposed to be a fun exercise, so, again, we'll see what happens....

That's it for now! I'm gonna go for a short jog. PROJECT: Briles - Today is Day 1!