The Orange Quest

I have spent the last couple of months scouring the earth for apparel to match my CARVE team triathlon kit. The way I see it, I have three choices. I can be boring, colorful or hideous. Of course, I chose hideous. I figured, hey, if I am going to be in pain I might as well add some humor to the situation.

As you can see by the pics, I have found the shoes and the sunglasses. I am having no luck finding and orange hat. Well, I can find an orange hat, but not a dry-fit orange hat that I can race in for 5 hours of running at the Ironman. My wife is going to attempt to dye a white hat. If that doesn't work, I will just go with a white hat and the orange sunglasses. If I can find the orange hat, I will more than likely go with a neutral color for the sunglasses.

Hey, the bright orange can do two useful things for me. I can blind the competition as they pass me and the orange should make it easier for the medics to find me passed out on the side of the road during the run.

I took the first step into my future career this week. I completed a Personal Training certification. It was a very intense and detailed test by ISSA. Being in the Technology field, I have been taking certification test for years. I was a bit surprised, and happy, with the difficulty of the exam. It is nice to know the industry is improving the quality of their professionals.

My wife became a PT a couple of years ago, and she loves it! She now works out six times a day for at least six days a week, sometimes seven. She doesn't really work out that much, but she does workout a lot. I think her arms are more defined and bigger than mine. Several of our friends refer to her as "Pipes" or "Guns". She is part of the reason I looked into being a personal trainer. She really enjoys her clients and what better way to spend a day than at the gym?

I won't be trading in the dress shoes for running shoes just yet, but I hope one day to be able to be involved in fitness full time. We have some great ideas and some big plans, but it will take time. I should be able to start training clients in a couple of weeks. I am actually a bit nervous about it. I spend most of my day dealing with computers. It will be quite a switch to deal with humans. There is a big difference in knowing how to do something and showing someone else how to do it.

I had a great nutritional breakthrough with a friend this week. I was enjoying one of my HMR meals when my boss walks in. He ask about the meal and mentioned that he wanted to lose some weight. He had quit smoking a couple of years ago and put on a few pounds. He knows I am in to fitness and has watched me drop almost 40lbs in the last year.

He is a lot like me, in the way that you can't push me to do something. I have to hear the right words or have something catch my attention to get me motivated. I ended up giving him a few meals and recommending he try one, or even two, for lunch. At 230 calories meal, he could easily eat two and cut his lunch calories in half or even by 75%.

He liked the meals and ordered a stash for himself. He has lost several pounds in the last two weeks. He sat in my office today and started talking about counting calories. He had never counted his daily calories and was shocked by the number of calories he was consuming. He thought he was doing the right thing by eating a salad and soaking it in Ranch. After all, it was a salad, it should be healthy. Little did he know that salad had more calories and fat than a fast food cheeseburger.

He seems to be excited about this new discovery and motivated about losing weight. It made me feel good that I could help someone in a positive and healthy way. Maybe this Personal training will be easier than I thought.