MY REVISED RECOVERY PROGRAM

The basic diet will be the Rosedale Diet, with a wee bit of South Beach thrown in if my weight comes off easily. There will be good weeks and not so good weeks, but my focus is on eating rationally and efficiently. I am experimenting with the Rosedale plan, and am fine tuning it...cutting back on fats, adding more vegetables, and limiting protein. I plan on working out 3xweek and walking 3xweek. I know that the weight will come off if I do this, and there is no concrete plan to follow apart from my own discipline and common sense guidelines backed up by prayer and balance in my life. No matter what happens at Safeway, no matter what challenges and stresses come my way in life,I will do my best to stick with the plan and make it not only a diet but a lifestyle and lifelong discipline. My three areas of recovery are still important, and I want to submit to common sense accountability from God and from others. Among my long range goals, I want to attempt to bicycle again and enter the 2010 Elephant Rock Century, with no specific distance goal in mind. Depending on how I feel and how my body responds to the changes, my goals may change. These weight goals are only rough guidelines. I want to get under 220, and as far under as I can while still remaining healthy and strong. My overall goal as of this writing is to find my best weight for my health and to keep my diabetes under control, reducing and reversing the nerve damage, strengthening my heart, and preparing for a cycling comeback in the year 2010. J.Craig Lloyd Weigh-In: 250 H.R. Range: 119-145
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DATE: ......... -2 LB(Max)......... -1 LB(Goal)........ ACTUAL..... EXERCISE
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07/25/09 ............248................... 249 ..........249-->247 H.Cx3, Walkx3.
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08/01/09............ 246................... 248.............248...H.C.x3,Walkx2
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08/08/09 ............244 ...................247...........245-->242...H.C.x2,Walkx2
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08/15/09 242 246
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08/22/09 240 245
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08/29/09 238 244
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09/05/09 236 243
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09/12/09 234 242
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09/19/09 232 241
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09/26/09 230 240
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10/03/09 228 239
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10/10/09 226 238
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10/17/09 224 237
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10/24/09 222 236
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10/31/09 220 235
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11/07/09 218 234
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11/14/09 216 233
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11/21/09 214 232
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11/28/09 212 231
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12/05/09 210 230
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12/12/09 208 229
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12/19/09 206 228
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12/26/09 204 227
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Year End Summary and revision of plan for 2010 season will be done at this point.


June 1st: 2010 Goal: Elephant Rock Bike Ride at 50 years old!

Today, I watched 37 year old Lance Armstrong find the limits of his fitness as he bowed to the 27 year old Alberto Contador. If Lance is having problems at 37, think of me at 50! The comeback will not be easy, and there have been times that I have thought such a thing impossible. My main goal, however, is not the comeback itself, but in following my diet and fitness plan. By so doing, I will strengthen my muscles and cardiovascular system and will weigh nearly 40 pounds less than I did at age 31, my peak shape year. Additionally, I am fine tuning my diet and exercise to fit me and me alone. I will utilize all of what I have learned and for the first time actually complete a chart!!!


“Never give up and never stop believing in the power of change!”
“Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish”

Lottery Madness

I may not have mentioned the fact that I once was a compulsive gambler. It all started back around the year 1999 or so when Mom took me up to the casino. (Yeah, I'll blame her for my addiction!) Over the years, I have been addicted to varied degrees with gambling and in one year alone, I spent $10,130.00, which equates to $27.00 a day or $194.27 a week. if I had all of the money that I have spent gambling since the scratch games came to Colorado (roughly 1980)I would probably have close to a quarter of a million dollars.
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So whats the moral? How did I allow myself to become double minded? How could I claim to love God and represent Jesus Christ on the one hand, all the while allowing my addictive personality to rear its ugly head and take over? I have been in Celebrate Recovery for four years, and am only now beginning to scratch the surface as to how and why I became addicted and why the possibility of relapse still exists and how to spot the signs.

I don't feel like a loser, although I certainly could have done a better job in my life managing my money!

Promises made...Promises broken

(Rom 7:15) I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. NIV

Lately, I engage in an endless series of debates with people whom I respect yet whom I do not agree with--concerning Christianity and Spirituality. When I was first saved in January of 1993, I was in a charismatic church and was taught the basics of Protestant Charismatic Christianity 101. I was taught not to engage in fruitless debates with those who did not share my beliefs, and to only associate with like-minded people. It took almost 15 years before i felt comfortable with questioning my own beliefs..(not doubting, mind you) and I am no longer afraid to question the answers that I have been taught. I am certain that God does not disapprove of me using my mind as long as the intentions of my heart line up.

Some of the more recent and ongoing questions that I have brought up and examine introspectively in my own beliefs are:

1) Does God use non-believers? Are believers any more special than non-believers?
2) Is everyone potentially saved? If not, does God foreknow who will eventually be damned? Is this fair?
3) Are all of our prayers simply "Thy Will Be Done?" Does God already know exactly what His plan will be? Can we influence Him through our prayers? If so, is prayer for our benefit or for Gods?

24 Hour Fitness Log

24 HOUR FITNESS LOG
6/22/09-9/19/09
“Never give up and never stop believing in the power of change!”
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22-Jun-09--Yes, I did nothing for 7 months! I am back, however, and today was my first workout.
I was on the cycle 15 minutes, 90-112 H.R. Level 5 Weight: 245 Average Watts 47
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04-Jul-09--health club bike 20 min, Watts 53, average H.R. 124 (still informally getting used to routine.) I have now been for four visits again.
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07-Jul-09--last nite, I cycled 20 minutes, average H.R. of 133 (max of 139), 55-64 watts. I am starting to enjoy working out. I actually feel optimistic that change is possible! May this feeling continue.
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08-Jul-09 I was at the club for roughly 40 minutes, pushing my machine reps close to the max on tricep,bicep,chest pull, and lat pulldown. I rode the cycle 21 minutes, 64 watts, 131 average H.R.(Max of 141) Levels 6-7.
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10-Jul-09 I again was at the club and again rode the bike at level 7,down to level 6. My stats: 20 minutes/65 watts/130 H.R. Max 144. My calorie goal is 1859 a day and my B.M.I. will be ideal at 200-220.
Personal Note: I only now am beginning to realize how messed up my health was before the June 22nd start of the current diet. I am now on a lo carb regime, but am noticing that I actually began to gain weight. I went from under 240 to 245, where I remain to this day. I am experiencing nerve damage soreness in my legs and feet and am guessing that what I was previously doing was simply pissing out all of the excess sugar before. My plan is to continue to diet and fine tune my nutrition over the next 3 weeks until I get another blood test at the end of July.
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20-Jul-09-I was at the club tonite. roughly 1 hour, 63 watts, 20 min cycle, 126 average H.R. plus machines.
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22-Jul-09--At the club early in the morning (2am) 1 hour, 63 watts, 20 min cycle,135 H.R. plus 3 rep/machines
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24-Jul-09--Early 1230 am workout. 128 HR, 45 minutes, 64 watts, 20 min cycle(My HR Range is 119-144)
I have been exercising and dieting for a little over a month, but my weight is still 245.(more muscle/fat ratio)
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26-Jul-09--Sunday--1 A.M. workout. 123 HR, 25 minutes cycling at 69 watts plus I hit the weight machines.

Still Addicted After All These Years......

I attend Celebrate Recovery for gambling addiction. Despite having been in this program off and on for nearly five years, I have yet to achieve total sobriety over all of my addictions and compulsive behaviors. (My most recent effort was 50 days of sobriety) I recently read an article on the stages of change that an addict goes through as they step out of denial and face their recovery.

The idea behind the Stages Of Change Model is that behavior change does not happen in one step. Rather, people tend to progress through different stages on their way to successful change. Also, each of us progresses through the stages at our own rate.

So expecting behavior change by simply telling someone, for example, who is still in the "pre-contemplation" stage that he or she must go to a certain number of AA meetings in a certain time period is rather naive (and perhaps counterproductive) because they are not ready to change.

Each person must decide for himself or herself when a stage is completed and when it is time to move on to the next stage. Moreover, this decision must come from the inside you (see developing an internal locus of control) -- stable, long term change cannot be externally imposed.

The Stages of Change

• Precontemplation (Not yet acknowledging that there is a problem behavior that needs to be changed)

• Contemplation (Acknowledging that there is a problem but not yet ready or sure of wanting to make a change)

• Preparation/Determination (Getting ready to change)

• Action/Willpower (Changing behavior)

• Maintenance (Maintaining the behavior change) and

• Relapse (Returning to older behaviors and abandoning the new changes)
  
  
  What was amazing for me to learn was the idea that relapse, at least in the early rounds, was a normal part of the process. This is not to say that everyone must relapse, but it is an encouragement for those who do. The important thing is that if and when you do relapse, you don't fall all the way back to the precontemplative or the contemplative stages, (as is common) but rather you pick up at the preparation/determination stage or at the action stage where you jump right back on that horse that bucked you!
  

My Two Cents For The Information Age

Please Allow me to introduce myself. I live in Denver, Colorado. My primary interest is Theological Apologetics.

I did not come from what you would call a religious family, although we did go to church. We attended a United Methodist Church. I recall the place as being quite large...almost as large as a school. They had Sunday School and they had a regular Worship Service and I recall attending youth Sunday school classes and watching some nice old lady tell us stories about Jesus. She had a little felt board, and she had a felt Jesus, a felt Mary and Joseph, and felt Angels which she stuck on the board as she told us stories from the Bible.

She was a kind old lady...never married. She had two other sisters, and they were daughters of the founder of that church back in 1919.

As a kid, I seem to recall never thinking that much about God or about Jesus or about anything spiritual...except when I watched Miss. Lydia and her felt dramas. She made the stories of the Bible come alive, and I and the other kids would watch as the young boy David fought the giant Goliath, or the baby lay in the manger wrapped in swaddling clothes while people journeyed from afar just to see him.

The church was a giant social club for my parents, and they seemed to like dressing me up in those too tight shoes and that stuffy little suit and parading me in front of their friends as if I were some little trophy!
Of course, one can never have veto power at age eight!

I once asked my Dad why we had to go to church. He replied that "It just makes you feel good." I never recall my Father talking about God. The only time he seemed religious to me was on those cold winter nights when he would sit in the living room and listen to Tennessee Ernie Ford sing How Great Thou Art or one of his other gospel songs.

I had an earthshaking event occur in my life when my Father died prematurely at age 60. I was 18 years old. I had started partying (drinking and smoking pot) with my friends when I was 18, shortly after Dad died. I guess in retrospect I wanted to kill the pain, but I believe I would have experimented with the social habits of my generation even if Dad had been alive.

I had a lot of unresolved feelings between me and my Father, although in retrospect I didn't grow up with any more emotional baggage than anyone else I know. I was unable to handle my feelings at that time, so I began to do drugs and hang out with a group of younger friends (class of 79..I was class of 77). We were quite an eclectic bunch! We would hang out at the park and talk philosophically and discuss God and Aliens and use mind expanding drugs and enjoy the wonder of feeling independent and free to think how we wanted to think. We smoked a lot of pot, experimented with acid and mushrooms, and tried cocaine..(I eventually spent $30,000.00 of my inheritance on that darn drug!)

I was an outsider to this group initially, as they had all grown up together, but I was smarter than them and knew how to make them laugh and they soon adopted me as one of their own. At this point of my life, religion was not that important, as it was just a philosophical conversation between inebriated friends. We were more interested in Pyramid Power than in God.

I was approached by a young woman who invited me to a Bible Study, and I ended up being exposed to a cult: The Way . I was not really interested in their teaching, though, and often went high on drugs to their meetings. They tried to force a series of taped lessons by the founder,Victor Paul Wierwille .

I soon quit hanging out with them and continued my philosophical druggy life, hanging out with friends and watching the world spin. I still had a layman's interest in religion, though. I read a lot of end times books that were everywhere on sale, and soon began to believe that the world would probably end by the year 2000 or shortly after.

At age 30, I began to get in shape. I rode my bicycle for an average of 25 miles a day for almost two years. I joined 3 bike tours that traveled 400+ miles through the Colorado Rocky Mountains.

One day, this girl that I knew invited me to church. I was relatively content to stay home and get stoned instead, but I went with her a few times and became fascinated with the emotional vibe of the place. I never planned on becoming religious in any way, although I was a bit tired of getting stoned all the time...still, it felt good (just expensive) I was enthralled with life, yet I felt unfulfilled at best.

It was a day in January of 1993, and I shall never forget it to this very day. I went up to pray and never expected anything unique to happen since I had prayed hundreds of times before in my life...BUT....this time, I felt a shock of electrical energy run through me and I don't know how to describe it except that I was transformed. I was different.

The next morning, upon awakening, I felt the change even greater than I had the night before. People have since suggested to me that there is no such thing as becoming Born Again and that everyone is saved, which I would believe except for the personal experience that happened to me.

I know that I was a different person...I was wired different...I was keenly aware that God was real.

The church that I was at, Disciple Fellowship, went through several transformations...(kinda like a conman changing aliases ) They changed their name twice...first from "Disciple Fellowship" to "Covenant Kingdom" after a highly publicized
news incident in which the Pastor told everyone to throw their medications away and a young boy died as an indirect result of it.

I began to question the infallibility which I had previously assumed the leaders of the church had.

I was not ready to question what I had been taught, only because so many other churches that I had attended taught basically the same stuff. (Assembly Of God, Charismatic Non-Denominational, etc)

I stopped going to church as much, mainly because I refused to blindly listen to their discipline and admonitions for me to "grow up" and quit hanging out with the teenagers and acting like I was 18.

(Thats a whole nother story in itself! )

Soon, I left that church and stopped trying so hard to earn respect and brownie points by being religious. I still believed basically everything I had been taught, coupled with the indisputable facts surrounding my initial conversion, but I also began to question God and my role in being obedient.

Around this time, I began to frequent the EvC Forum and have posting dialogues with a whole new antagonistic class of people, none of whom believed as I did.