The 'B' Word

Well, now that I feel like I’m on tracks to get myself more organized and healthier physically, I’ve decided to take on another category in which my life needs some bringing together.  This is an area of struggle that impacts so many areas of my life.  It is also related to the two other areas that I’ve already begun to work on.  It is my finances.  My finances, just like my physical environment, are often lacking in terms of organization and direction.  As with food, my inability to deny myself results in over-spending.  These three areas of my life are inextricably linked.  I knew at the beginning that I needed to work on all three areas, but I also know, from past experience, that it’s easier for me to get one plate spinning at a time, rather than going for all of them at once.

That brings us to the dreaded ‘B’ word…budget.  I have never successfully lived on a budget, but I’ve had lots of experience living very unsuccessfully off of one.  As embarrassing as this is, my first step was actually to Google how to even make a budget.  I understand that basic concept, of course, but if it was really that simple, we’d all be financial marvels, wouldn’t we?

Good Budget App Icon

Having My Fitness Pal on my phone has been a tremendous asset in me getting myself together in terms of diet and exercise.  After looking at a few options, I decided, for now, to utilize the Good Budget app for my phone.  It also has a full website so that I can access it from my laptop as well.  This allows me to allocate funds, as they come in, to budget categories and then spend from those categories from wherever I am.  The easy part has been accomplished.  A budget has been created.  The difficult part will come in a few days when I receive my next paycheck and have to help from having a budget to living one.  Time will tell, but this is a significant step for me.

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey.  Hopefully, this blog will encourage you to tackle some obstacles in your own life, and I certainly appreciate you being here to keep me accountable in reaching my own goals.  I’m sure that there will be set backs along the way, but I’m committed to getting there.  Again, thank you for continuing to back.  Feel free to comment or send me an e-mail.  Let’s support each other on our journeys.

- Culbs

joshua.culbertson@gmail.com

© Joshua Culbertson 2014

Cedar Point

Headed to Cedar Point for the day with a couple of friends.  In addition to all of the obvious reasons to love Cedar Point, one new reason that I've come to appreciate is that I know that every Cedar Point day is at least at 14K step day for me.  There's a nice little workout disguised in all that fun.  I've already looked to make sure that some of the possible lunch options are included in the database on My Fitness Pal.  I'm sure that whatever I eat will be laden with calories, but those steps will earn me a few extra calories today :)

- Culbs

joshua.culbertson@gmail.com

Weight from the scale this morning - 257.8 lbs

Schedule Disrupted

Let me tell you about my day yesterday.  It’s going to sound like I’m complaining, but, in reality, I’m very happy with what the day produced.  Yesterday was my day off.  I’ve been making a conscious effort to keep a calendar and have a plan going into each day, but I’ve also been challenged by my therapist to keep pockets of time open that are completely unplanned.  That is difficult for me.  Even when I’m not actually writing my agenda down, I unconsciously plan out my time.  For yesterday, I had two things on my calendar.  I planned to go to the gym in the morning and I planned on going to Equality Ohio for volunteer night in the evening.  Everything else was wide open.

As I was just getting up and getting dressed to go to the gym, I heard the doorbell ring.  Unless I’ve ordered a pizza, and I wouldn’t put it past me to do that in my sleep, that never happens.  Naturally, I was a little startled, but I went down the stairs and opened the door.  I was met with an unfamiliar face on the other side.  The man told me that his name was Rick and that he was the new maintenance man for my apartment complex.  My first thought was, “Oh.  This is nice.  I appreciate him coming around to introduce himself.  This way I’ll know who he is if I see him around.”  

This is where even my sparsely planned day went off the rails.  Rick informed me that my downstairs neighbor had a leak in her bathroom ceiling, and he wondered if he could come in to check my pipes.  Well, I had been the victim of a leaking room at one of my previous apartments.  I know what a nightmare this can be.  Of course, I welcomed him in to check things out.  

To cut straight to the chase, my hot water heater had a small leak and had apparently been leaking for months.  Rick asked told me that he needed to go pick up a new hot water hearted and asked me if I was going to be around.  I told him that I had a commitment that I needed to be downtown for at 6:00, but, other than that, I could be around all day.

Now, I’ve talked about my level of organization.  I’m one of those people who would say, “I’m not a dirty person.  I’m a clutter person.”  I think that makes people like us feel better somehow.  Given that, what do you suppose the odds are that my apartment was in the condition I’d like it to be when a random man shows up at the door?  You’d think that I would have begun cleaning as soon as he was back out and on his way, but my initial reaction is just to acknowledge that I wish it would have been clean and then to categorize it as too large of a task to deal with right now.

Well, immediately after Rick left, I decided to sit down and have breakfast and do some reading.  Reading positive things, especially in an area of my life where I’m trying to do some work on myself is good for me.  Yesterday, as I was eating my granola bar and yogurt, I got his with this from the Joyce Meyer book I mentioned that I’ve been reading. 

“Procrastination is a thief.  It steals our time, our potential, our self-esteem, our peace of mind…Procrastination is very deceptive, and we can only conquer it by becoming what I call a ‘now’ person.  Be aggressive when you know you need to do something.  Don’t put it off and keep putting it off…just do it!” 

- Joyce Meyer, Making Good Habits, Breaking Bad Habits

Well, I got my yogurt container and the granola bar wrapper in the trash and the spoon in the dishwasher.  No need to allow them to add to the clutter, and I got busy cleaning as much as I could until I heard a car door shut, and I looked down to see Rick had returned with the new hot water heater in the bed of his truck.  When he came up up, things weren’t spotless, but they were much better than they were before.  As he started working again, I engaged in a bit of small talk until that felt awkward.  Then, I went to hide in my bedroom.  I watched a bit of an episode of The West Wing on my i-pad (I know it’s old, but I love that show.).  Then I decided that I might as well be productive while I was back there, and I began working on a pile of clutter in one of the corners of my bedroom.  After I finished, I stood back and stared at the now empty corner marveling at how much simpler that task had been in reality that it had seemed in my mind.  

My next thought was, “I didn’t get to go to the gym.  Is there anything that I can do to move forward with that goal while I’m here?”  I subscribe to the website Daily Burn, and I knew that I could pull up and do one of their exercise, but I would have felt awkward doing that with Rick there.  Plus, I needed to know that I was going to be able to get a shower later, and, at that moment, that wasn’t a guarantee.  

The Exercise piece has always been easy for me to understand.  I feel so much better when I’m exercise, and it helps me to release stress from work and other areas of my life.  The piece that I struggle with is managing my diet.  I know that this piece has to come into play also because, even working out regularly, I am just maintaining my current weight.  I’ve been using a pedometer app on my phone called Pacer that has been helping me make sure that I get enough physical activity during the day.  I have tracked my food intake in the past, using online trackers and also doing it in a notebook, but I know that the first time I don’t have a computer or a notebook with me to record what I’m eating, that will be my excuse to stop doing it altogether.  I knew that I needed a phone app if I was going to do it consistently.

I began browsing through apps while sitting on my bed, and I came across one that I had apparently downloaded and then deleted form my phone previously.  It was called My Fitness Pal.  This is only my second day so far, but I was able to put in my current weight of 260 lbs and my weight goal of 190 lbs.  When I first moved to Columbus a little less than three years ago, I only weighed 195, and I felt so much better about myself and had a lot more energy.  I want that me back, or at least to be much closer than I am now.  Anyway, this app allows me to track both my caloric intake as well as any physical activity that I do throughout the day.  I am motivated to exercise because I can get additional calories to eat that day if I do, and did I mention that I like food?   It does another things for me that I like.  It takes all of the food that I eat and breaks down whether those calories come from carbs, proteins, or fat.  I like this because my doctor has challenged to to get more protein into my diet and to reduce the number of carbs that I eat.  Using this app shows me that I am not where I need to be, but, at least, I now have measure of where I am and I can make adjustments to get myself where I need to be.

Rick would end up leaving my apartment again to get more parts that he needed.  When he did, I went on another quick cleaning binge.  I’m sure that I burnt more than a few calories yesterday just from cleaning.  By the time he got back that time, I actually felt like my apartment looked like  a place that I wouldn’t be embarrassed to have friends come to.

When Rick was finally finished, he told me that I needed to wait 45 minutes before getting at shower.  At that point it was about 4:30.  Since I had to just wait, I decided that I could squeeze in a workout off of Daily Burn.  That took me about 30 minutes.  Then, I threw some clothes together over the next 10 minutes and jumped in the shower.  I was about 15 minute late to Equality Ohio.  There was a traffic bottle neck on 71 S near the fair grounds since the Ohio State Fair is now in full swing.  I should have thought of that before I left home, but it ended up working out anyway.

So, at the end of the day, my apartment felt much cleaner and a little more organized, I still managed to get a workout in, and I still managed to do some good in the world by getting some volunteering in.  Overall, I felt pretty good about the day.

Also, I’m going to begin including my current weight with each post to this blog.  It’s a way of keeping myself accountable and motivated.  My weight from the scale this morning was 259.6 lbs.

- Culbs

joshua.culbertson@gmail.com

© Joshua Culbertson 2014

"I've always believed fitness is an entry point to help you build that happier, healthier life. When your health is strong, you're capable of taking risks. You'll feel more confident to ask for the promotion. You'll have more energy to be a better mom. You'll feel more deserving of love."

Jillian Michaels

Building New Habits

I'm currently reading Joyce Meyer's 'Making Good Habits, Breaking Bad Habits.' I needed this quote today. 

"Be patient with yourself.  It takes time to create habits, and you may not succeed every day.  If you realize you have failed, don't waste time being discouraged; just pick up where you left off and begin again.  Be kind to yourself, because beating yourself up for every mistake is another bad habit that needs to be broken."  - Joyce Meyer

My plan for this morning was to hit the gym before work, but I needed to be at work early this morning.  I needed to get up earlier than normal this morning in order to be able to do the gym.  Well, that didn't happen.  I was frustrated with myself for about a minute, and, then, I decided that I wasn't going to let myself off the hook. I'll just go tonight after work.  Tomorrow is my day off.  I can sleep in a little later, and, then, maybe actually get some cardio time in outdoors for a change.

This was the quote in my planner this morning:

"Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity." - John F. Kennedy

Routine

“Time management is an oxymoron.  Time is beyond our control, and the clock keeps ticking regardless of how we lead our lives.  Priority management is the answer to maximizing the time  we have.”  - John C. Maxwell

I feel as though things are beginning to come together somewhat.  I’m finding a groove.  The John Maxwell quote above is simple.  Most of the things that I read in John’s books and so many others are just that.  Simple.  And, yet, so few of us behave in ways that show that we recognize the truth of such simple statements.  Most of us know the “right thing” to do when it comes to making a decision about our finances or our diet, and, still, we often find ourselves doing something other than that right thing.

I am currently attending grad school at a United Methodist Seminary just north of Columbus in pursuit of a masters in counseling.  My calling, my drive to pursue this path, originally came from my desire to help others who, like me, have found themselves conflicted in the arenas of sexuality and spirituality.  Another unexpected way in which I am finding myself compelled to serve is in the field of addictions and recovery.  Both the course work and recovery community themselves have taught me tremendous lessons.  

When I went to my first few AA meetings, I thought of myself as just an observer.  Not being an addict, I wanted to respectfully experience and know what that experience is like for those clients that I will be encouraging to attend such meetings.  The experience changed once I began to realize and open myself up to the fact that, addict or not, all of us can gain something from being in that circle of community and vulnerability.  

One of the things that I have learned from the recovery community is the power and importance of routine.  Routine can be your worst enemy or your greatest source of strength.  If you're wanting to stop drinking, you should probably stop walking or driving home the same route that takes you past your favorite liquor store.  As human beings, we are creatures of habit.  I came across a Joyce Meyer quote earlier today that says, “First we form habits and then they form us.”  There is so much truth in that.  If we want to change something about ourselves, we must first change our habits.

Regina Leeds, the zen-organizing guru that I have mentioned in previous posts has me, through her books, working on some basic foundational habits to getting me to be more organized.  Again, the best stuff is almost always the simple stuff.  I’m making my bed every morning.  When dishes are done in the dishwasher, they immediately come out and go into the cupboards, allowing dirty dishes to go into the dishwasher instead of languishing in the sink.  The same with clothes.  When they are finished in the dryer, the get folded or put on hangers and put away.  Believe me.  I’m still a mess, but these first steps give me hope.  

Another habit that I’m trying to get into my routine is going to the gym regularly.  One of the perks of my apartment is that my lease includes a free gym membership.  I don’t even have the cost to use as an excuse.  I’m more of a night owl, and I work second shift hours.  In the past, I’m gone to the gym at night after work.  In the interest of rearranging my priorities and bringing a little more balance into my life, I’m trying to stop feeding myself the excuse of “I’m just not a morning person.”  Now, even though I don’t go to work until the afternoon, my alarm goes off at 8:00 AM, and I’m at the gym by 9:00.  Then, I head home to do a little cleaning, reading, and get ready for work.  When I walk into work now, I can do so already feeling like I’ve accomplished something for the day, and, even though I still have a long way to go, I’ve taken steps forward towards meeting some of my goals.  When I get home from work, I don’t feel guilty about watching an hour of television and doing some writing.  I’m still very early in these new habits, and, like anyone new to recovery knows, relapse could be a very short step away, but I guess I will handle it the same way they would, one day at a time.

- Culbs

joshua.culbertson@gmail.com

© Joshua Culbertson 2014

A Moment of Honesty

Okay.  It’s time for a moment of honesty.  This isn’t a blog that I want to write.  My other blog, Authentic Culbs.  That one I can get excited about.  Ever since I made the first post on this one, I’ve felt the motivation to right at all leave me.  You know who does want me to write this blog?  My therapist.  That should tell you a lot right there.  As much as I don’t want to write this blog, I know that this is the blog that I need to write.  This is the blog that has the potential to alter how I approach my finances, my health, my relationships, and how I engage in and with the world around me, but it can only do those things if I approach it with the same level of openness and authenticity that I bring to my other blog.

It is interesting to me, as I reflect on where I was 5 or 6 years ago.  I had a blog back then as well.  This was during the time that I was asking myself really difficult questions about my sexuality and my identity as a Christian and whether or not those two different pieces of me could be at peace with one another.  Those were the questions and changes that I was really wrestling with, but it was easier for me to write about how my life was changing in terms of fitness and managing my finances.  Now, I find myself in a position, having worked through those questions of identity, where it is easier to write about my journey of self-acceptance, as some who is both a gay man and a person of faith, than it is to write openly and honestly about my health, my finances, and other areas of my life.  I am still hiding the area of my life where the hardest work needs to be done behind a facade.

To be honest, I am realizing that I concealed my struggle with my sexual and spiritual identities before because I did not have the knowledge or tools to work through those questions.  Now, I am realizing the inverse is true.  I feel secure in who I am, but I realize that somehow I’ve failed to pick up the skills necessary to effectively manage critical areas of my life.  Could I blame others for this?  Absolutely.  I’ve already begun working through the roots of how I got to be who I am today.  Blaming others doesn’t help me move forward though.  Just as with my struggles with my sexuality, people are often amazed, upon hearing my story, that I am not bitter or angry at those who supported my belief that I was broken in some way and needed to be fixed.  How can I be angry with people who, out of their love and desire to help someone in need, helped me attempt to do exactly what I asked them to do.  Do I now see the world through a different lens than they do?  Yes, but I can’t bring myself to feel anger or malice towards them.  I just can’t.  In their own way, they were expressing love towards me.  My health, my finances, my ability or organize and prioritize my life are all things that only I can own, and there have been many points along the way that I have known that better choices needed to be made and have gone in a different direction.  Now comes the difficult work of educating myself and making better choices in the future.

As far as how I am defining better, I will consider myself moving in the right direction when a choice brings me closer to being healthier and more sustainable in terms of my health or finances.  I am also looking to improve my ability to organize myself both interns of the spaces that I occupy and with how I manage the most valuable resource we all have, my time.  I am also seeking to being myself more into line with other ideals that are important to me such as seeking justice and fair treatment for my other human inhabitants of this small planet as well as moving to a place of better relationship with the environment and the world around me.

One small step that I made just today was locating a recycling station just down the road from where I live.  Since I moved this past November, I now live several miles from where I used to take my recyclables, and I have never bothered to find a place to take things near my new home.  It’s not that it never crossed my mind.  I just kept putting it off.  I was embarrassed today when I discovered that the closest recycling station to me is less than a mile from where I live and on my way to work.  It was as simple as going to http://swaco.org.  They list numerous sites around the Columbus area where recyclables can be dropped off.  It’s a small step, but it’s a step in the right direction.  If I keep making small steps like that every day, hopefully, I will indeed become a better Culbs, a better me.

- Culbs

joshua.culbertson@gmail.com

© Joshua Culbertson 2014