Archives for November 2016

Do I Stand Alone?

November 24, 2016 By franco 1 Comment

I always seem to be my most reflective around the holidays. I miss my family sometimes. Wish we’d all make an effort to see each other more and I just sit back and take a lot in. This has been a tough year. Trying to find a day job for me so I don’t have to depend on the band and actually have a life that isn’t begging my friends to come hang out with me, hasn’t been fruitful and will be the #1 goal of 2017 – it’s never easy… But I sit back and take it all in.

I kissed yesterday goodbye. Goodbye to dreams and promised that leave you looking into the night, leave me restless more then anything. I’ve taken disappointments one by one. You try hard to make disappointments turn to experience but how much can you take?

Do I stand alone? I don’t think I do.

I am blessed and I know it. I have a good family, a great group of friends and people in my life that would do anything for me.

I guess I seem like a praying man lately. It must come with getting older. I know growing up my dad made us go to church and then we kinda didn’t. Now he goes all the time. Basically – I don’t want anyone to hurt. And for some odd reason everyone seems to be hurting in some sort of way. It’s a strange feeling for sure. Anxious. Panic. Fear. Uncertainty.

Band vacation came and went. I got to see some friends but other than a Flyers game really kept it low key and sitting in my chair with the little man keeping my legs warm. He’s there right now as I type this!

So today is Wednesday. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. The band fires back up tonight. I am not going to be drinking. And I am going to do my best to have all my protein accounted for before I even leave for the show. At least tomorrow with the program that I am running it’s a high carb day. But honestly, I know the food will be good but I am not like over the top loosing my mind for Thanksgiving dinner like some people out there. We have a Thanksgiving food all the time, whenever we feel like it. We might not use the fancy plates but who the hell wants to clean them. (I never do 🙂

I am running my program and trying to transform. I am going to try my best to stick to the macros tomorrow. I’ll be pissed come Friday morning on the scale if I don’t.

And I never finished yesterday and it’s Thanksgiving afternoon now… And like a whisper in the morning this will come and go too!

Every day my grandma woke up, opened the door and thanked Jesus for another day. Even on her last day with us, minutes before she joined him she thanked him, I found her breakfast on the kitchen counter unmade. But the front door was open. I know she thanked him and in turn he wanted to have breakfast with her that morning. It must have been some feast. I miss her every day. God how she loved the food on Thanksgiving.

I think that she had it right too. Starting today I am going to try to be much more thankful on a daily basis, and that no matter what I have an extra day to do things over. Happy Thanksgiving! Be good to each other!

I restarted everything on November 7th and in 17 days I’ve lost 14.6 pounds, 3.5 inches off my thighs, 4 inches off my mid section and 2.5 off my hips. I got back into clothes last night that stopped fitting over the summer and I’ll take that non-scale win and keep going.

I have a long road to go but I am back on the road and for a few moments started to watch things and life from the sidelines and I won’t do that anymore. I will not allow it. I am going to prepare to go into 2017 with a fire that will be unmatched. We’ll talk about my goal and bucket list for 2017 in a few weeks but I am making notes, changes and have ideas.

One more thing that I feel like I should share… Garth brooks has a song that is called Unanswered Prayers. Click the link if you’d like to hear it. Well anyway… The song says really talks about how sometimes you think that God isn’t listening but the truth is that unanswered prayers can be what God heard and delivered… So he sings…. “Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers”.

Well anyway, as I was singing last night at my shoe, this woman came up to me and said, hey do you remember me I’m… and a flash cube went off in my head… it was a girl that back in 10th or 11th grade I was so crushing on… she was a dancer in all the plays. I remember writing her a love note kinda hey do you wanna hang out some time. She of course didn’t even have the kindness to pull the friend card… she just decided to go the complete other route and make sure all my friends read the note… passed it around.. made sure I was good an beaten down and that was that. I didn’t realize it then.. I was just hurt and embarrassed. 45 year old Franco would give the 16 year old Franco props for trying… 45 year old Franco also realizes that was an unanswered prayer that probably worked in my favor. She drunkenly danced most of the night to the band… and that was it… I went home to the prayers that God actually did answer and am sitting here writing to you with dogs draped over children, Amber in the kitchen making sure everything is perfect and 45 year old Franco coming to grips with the questions he asks himself…..

Do I stand alone? I don’t think I do!
You don’t either. It will be okay. #into2017

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Be good to each other!

Thank you for reading.

Franco

I Believe…

November 18, 2016 By franco Leave a Comment

I believe.
I believe in Santa Claus.
I believe in miracles.
I believe in the power of love.
I believe in the power of a smile.
I believe in the goodness inside people.
I believe in rock and roll.
I believe in Jerry, Johnny, Elvis and all the greats.
I believe in you.
I believe in myself.

It’s very simple sometimes. The basic thought is you have to believe. This is not some Anthony Robbins higher power, smoke up your ass bullshit, this is basic common principal. To change you have to be open to change and even more importantly you have to believe in yourself. Think about it. If you go into a job interview and if you don’t believe in yourself, how great are your chances of getting the job? I’ve been there before. It is frustrating and gut wrenching.

Believing in yourself is not easy sometimes although you would think the opposite on paper. Too many times we compare ourselves to other people. These transformations on Instagram still have plenty of deception behind them. And I don’t think it’s all of them…. so don’t get all cranky because I’m probably not talking about you. It’s just that a persons world online is generally not the same behind closed doors. But to accomplish great things, to push yourself to places you haven’t been, the foundation is to believe in yourself.

I have tried very hard over the last three years and yes, next month this will all be three years old…. my journey…. blog… all of it…. to be honest and forthcoming…. I told you about the good days and bad… and even I would disappear in a depression when we hit too long of a patch of the bad…. it’s scary…. I don’t care if zero people are reading…. sometimes as I write to you I am making my own affirmations. I can do it. You can do it. Go Franco. I know you love KitKat and Twix bars Franco, but you’d really like these skinny jeans too if you could just put that Mountain Dew down and grab the gallon of water. It’s hard to be honest with others when you have a hard time being his honest with yourself. I try and show you all the positive in my life. Shit happens to me all the time that would shut many people down but I don’t let them. A few days ago I heard someone new at the gym mumble something like “wow, he’s huge.” – Part of me wanted to tell him to go fuck himself sideways, part of me wanted to say, “yeah man I know but you should have seen me 3 years ago” and the biggest part of me just went about my business.

But that’s just it… we never know what people are going through on the other side of the keyboard. Someone dies of an over dose. The first response is, I didn’t know he/she had a problem. Well. Of course you didn’t. No one is parading around a drug addiction. But it’s okay to sit at the bar and feed your alcoholism and chances are at that same bar you can buy plenty of wings to fuel some others. Look I am not trying to preach. What I am really trying to say and I went all the way around the world to say it is don’t believe everything you see on IG and to listen… learn to read between the lines…

Wow Franco what the hell did you drink this morning? Well nothing yet.

I just realized that I have changed over the last year and that I let myself get lazy and then I ran into a friend in the Supermarket and he just talked to me for a few minutes and I was ready to get back at it. MUST BE THE MAGICAL power of a weightlifting bar tender. But with some coaching and fine tuning of my older programs I felt the eye of the tiger seep back into me….. call it what you want….. but I started believing in myself and in the past 11 days, I’ve worked out harder…. I’ve worked out more, and hit my macros for 10 of the 11 days and just believed in myself.

In fact I and so committed to get myself under the 100 pound loss mark again and then crush it by another 25 pounds by summer that I booked a trip to see family a few days before Xmas and without the usual fear. I can and will get to where I was a year ago before I get on that plane on December 18th. Then we will go from there.

In 11 days, I am down 10 pounds. I have worked hard to get here. And trust me, I’ve had a few moments where it really is not easy. It they usually come late at night and I’ve been convincing myself to just go to bed. Guess what? Ive had some of my favorites but I just either made them a little more healthy or I just plain out made them fit my program. I had some carbs and fat to play with lasting so I had a cup of milk and 5 Oreos. And yes, I had 5 Oreos. Yes, this is me we are talking about. I could house a sleeve in seconds with milk and a spoon. But I took my time, enjoyed them and moved on.

Exercise wise I have my Apple Watch and a pretty awesome Under Armour app working for me. I decided that my body needed the sweat I would get from Orange Theory fitness so I rejoined and will be going there twice a week. My new fitness program specially tailored for me, by me is called “Don’t stop moving fantasy!” So OTF 2x a week, boxing 2x a week me the at least a handful of bootcamp and whatever else I can shove in there.

Well we are back on track! Need a little push yourself? Team Franco is back on track and we are hear for each other. Don’t let the holidays be an excuse to stuff you elf like a pig. Eat the slice of pumpkin pie…. by all means…. don’t eat the whole damn pie. I have a strict goal so I’ll be making my holiday foods fit my macros. But it’s turkey…. we can work with it….. give me the carbs 🙂 it will be one biscuit instead of three…. if you best believe I am having that biscuit.

Believe in yourself. It’s the most important thing you can do for yourself in so many aspects of your life.

Countdown to Disney 30 days. Operation 15 down before Santa starts now.

“Wanting can be done sitting on the couch with a bong in your hand and a travel magazine in your lap.

Deciding means jumping in all the way, doing whatever it takes, and going after your dreams with the tenacity of a dateless cheerleader a week before prom night.”

Yup. I’m back.

I’ll be back to say hello before the holidays, love you guys.

Franco

Live Wire

November 10, 2016 By franco 1 Comment

Okay I guess I have to play catch up a little because it has been 9 days since I wrote and I know I promised to check back with everyone last week but life happened. Went to the Flyers game last Wednesday night that was awesome and then the Eagles game and tailgate in NJ that was also great. Woke up Monday and had even gained more weight. F*CK! So….

I had my macros reworked…. decided once and for all that if I was going to be in this for the long haul that I would have to work the IIFYM way of eating and life and decided to try and stick to it. I have tried off and on and never really hit the numbers perfectly and this week I have. I have gotten my gallon of water in every day this week and until today had done doubles at the gym. I have to work tonight so I won’t get to do two and usually only get to 3 or 4 days a week. I am going to get one in tomorrow and Saturday as well.

I have been trying to plan my meals way in advance. I have done the best I can. It takes time and I have a freaking scale out ALL THE TIME! But slowly but surely we are snapping back into it here at the ranch. Even Amber the other night was like… I am off Friday so we’ll bootcamp and clean and then we will go to lunch… and then she was like… hmm.. maybe not lunch…. so it is much easier to do with the house on board. It will be great till Brandon comes home with a mega bag of Chick-Fil-A. But I had the eye of the tiger when I started this almost three years ago and I am starting to feel like that again. So that’s a positive for sure.

So if you are regular reader then you will remember almost a year ago I went to see a doctor about the excessive skin on my legs and wanted to find out more about plastic surgery. I have a lot of the skin beating down on my legs when I am working out and some days it’s just really painful. Well AETNA turned me down and I appealed it two times. Finally the 3rd and final appeal worked and they approved the surgery for one leg. Well I know that seems silly but I am trying to look at the positive of it and just think well I got what I needed for 1/2 off because most insurances will never cover skin removal. So either way I am going to have out of pocket expenses so this will make me work even that much harder to make sure I am the lightest that I can be. I have to make it work for me as best as possible. The flip side and somewhat bad news is that I have to wait a month from today to get into the doctor. That isn’t anything I can control. But I am glad that I didn’t back down from the insurance company.

I am down 6.8lbs this week and I think most of it is water but either way I am going to take it and rally around it. I was glad I fit in the seats at the games this past weekend but they were tight and I was uncomfortable so I will take this small victory.

I will try and kick ass across this weekend because weekends are my downfall! And my official weigh in days are Monday now.

So it’s going to take a little thinking Saturday for sure but I’ll bring all my food with me if I have to!.

Thank you for being in my corner and thank you for reading.

Franco

Information Overload

November 1, 2016 By franco 4 Comments

So there is an argument that goes on in my house and has gone on here since the beginning. We have massive don’t talk to each other for 24 hours, go to bed early, go into the bedroom and ignore the other person for the rest of the day, knock down arguments. And when you step away and think about them, they are absolutely silly. And apparently many fights are about this…. can you guess what it is before getting to you the end of this sentence. I know I am difficult so it could be a mix of many things but overall I think most of the fights around here center around and what’s for dinner. And arguing over food makes me even more angry.

When you extend this battle zone to two people who would like to lose weight and have different thoughts about that it becomes even worse. It’s basic marital principles and I’ll never win. But here lies the root of the problem. I have lost my way.

I haven’t been drinking my water. I haven’t been planning my meals. I have eaten way too late at night and I have just been letting myself have too much junk. This doesn’t have anything to do with anyone else. I am a big boy and in the end I put whatever I am eating in my mouth. No one else.

When I got on the scale on Monday I knew it wasn’t going to be good. My clothes are tight. I feel sluggish. I am sleeping later and later in the morning. (granted with the puppy cuddling it’s easy to just wanna lay there). I looked at the scale, saw 340 and took a deep breath. Somehow, some where, I let 29 pounds creep back up on me on the last 16 months. A year ago today I was 313lbs. So either way… Silly things like your underwear being tight… But this past March I was teethering around 305. So what happened? I can’t keep blaming life.

I don’t know. But I have to do something and I have to take charge now. I stopped blogging, I stopped checking in and I know I still have people out there rooting for me. I don’t want to pay people for meal plans and what not. Are they dietitians? Do they know about my late 90’s weight loss surgery and how it rewired my body and even 16 years later it effects me? I just think that there is a reason why people go to school for that. I would much rather have a gym plan. I much rather have gym dates and work out buddies. But enough of that.

I am trying to get my shit together because in the end no one can do it for me and I went to two workouts on Halloween. Even with a little candy, I hit my macros and got up this morning and went to boxing and will go to the gym tonight too.

I have been sick it seems since August but it’s time to pull it all together and end this year at least even.

Let me try and catch you up a little and I’ll try and write again on Thursday and let you know where I am so far.

The band celebrated our 20th Anniversary on October 15th with over 400 of our closest friends. It was pretty awesome. I hated the photos from it. I just seemed wide again and side view was starting to look decent. But I got to see so many friends past and present that it was truly awesome.

Amber and I got to go to a Flyers game already and we are going with Brett and a friend tomorrow. Best seats I’ve ever been given so I am excited about that and a little nervous about the seats with my new found poundage. Even more scary is that we are going to the Eagles game on Sunday with both boys in NY and that makes me so nervous. What the hell did I do?

Brett wants to go to Florida in December for a few days over school break. I have to get myself under control to even consider. I can’t go to Universal and not be able to ride the Harry Potter stuff. I’ll cry in front over everyone.

Well I have to get a little protein down. It’s a tough week with everything going on but I’ll make it happen for sure. Doesn’t look like I’ll have a choice, life happens, and life will go on without me If I let it and that is my biggest fear.

So I better text Amber and ask her what’s for dinner.

Thanks for reading.

Franco