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I feel like shit isn’t happening the way I envisioned it sometimes. Since being in the military I see different opportunities and once again I’m trying to decide which way I want to go? I’m currently just starting my Vehicle Technician QL 3 course. I want to get this training under me. I think it is a very good education to have.

But I’m really worried I will not pass this course. I look at how hard I have to study to pass, and it is incredibly hard. Lots of people have failed off the other courses. Now I know I have the smarts to pass, and nobody has ever called me lazy before. So I know that if I buckle down, I can pass this course.

But what direction do I really want to take? Do I really want to be a vehicle technician? I look at the lifestyle I have now, I sometimes feel like I’ve gone backwards in life.

Now I have made improvements, and I’m slowly getting back to my old self. I quit smoking, so I’m not doing that anymore. I don’t mind drinking, but I have slowed down so I’m not wasting money on it so much, and so I can think better. I still get drunk occasionally. Of course on my holidays I plan to get pretty smashed with my boys on Christmas holidays.

But really, I have improved there. But I’m overweight again. I used to be in good shape. I used to run all the time, lift weights, and watch my food. What has caused me to go back to my original 270 lbs? Well basically I just run and eat lots. I still run, when the military takes us for runs. I still keep the cardio in, but it’s not enough. I need to lift the weights, I need to watch out how much I eat.

Now right now with the amount of time I have for myself, I am only going to be able to watch what I eat. I need to get a handle on this part. Because I don’t know what they are feeding me in there every day, I can’t really set up a schedule to eat only certain food every day.

What I do know is they have an abundant supply of raw vegetables and fruits. I know they have a meat every meal, though sometimes quite greasy. I know they have water, and milk. I also know they have whole wheat breads. Multi grain. Rye. They have good bread.

So what should I stick to? What should I eat from what I mentioned? Well I should grab the most fat free meat they have at each meal, or another animal by product if the food is really fatty. So for breakfast I shouldn’t eat the bacon or sausage. I should grab hard boiled eggs and eat only the egg whites.

I should then only grab water for my drinks. If I’m working out with weights then milk is good, but if all I’m doing is running and eating well, then I should avoid drinking lots of milk. Water is better. I should grab fresh fruits during breakfast to get the energy into me. And a whole grain bread source.

During lunch and supper I should grab the raw vegetables instead. During lunch some bread is good as well if I want to mix it with the veggies to make a sandwich.

All my food should fit on one plate nicely. Not stacked up, but nicely. This is another thing. I eat one plate of food at every meal, but it’s usually heaping, and full of fried foods. Now I need to also get it through my head it’s a lifestyle I’m doing here. If I always eat healthy, the fat on my body will slowly disappear and eventually I’ll be back to my old weight of 230 lbs or so.

Once I get the time, I need to also hit the weights. Now what I need to figure out next is what do I want to do for academics? I know the course I’m taking is extremely tough, and it’s long. Do I really want to be a mechanic? Where do my true passions lye?

I love writing, I love reading. I want to get back into body building. If I got back into working out, and getting shape, I could once again start working on my personal training course. Though I need to get in shape first.

This is where I look at what would be the best trade. If all I want to do is get into great shape, maybe infantry is the way to go. But I also don’t feel like spending days and days in the field. I know I will already spend lots in the field as a vehicle tech. But infantry spend almost all their time in the field. It is only when they are not working and on their own time they aren’t in the field.

Any combat trade would get me into amazing shape, but most of their time is spent in the field. I think vehicle tech is a good trade. The truth is as well that these 6 months of hard studying and training is probably the hardest part of becoming a vehicle tech. Once I get to my unit then I just work and learn in the shop, and eventually I’ll be qualified and working normal hours, and getting my time off in the evening.

The reading is just crazy hard on this course. They expect us to read chapters of technical jumble and then remember it for an exam the next day. It is insane. The fail rate for this course is ridiculous. I just need to buckle down and get it done.

What I need to focus on is eating more healthy food, and not so much. Moderation. Keep up the running, and study hard.

My passions may be writing, but the army is what brings me in the pay checks right at the moment.

Most people have grown up learning how to type in the style called QWERTY. If you look at any typical keyboard today, it is QWERTY layout. Usually nobody ever questions why we write in QWERTY. It has always just been that way.

I’ll give you a quick history lesson. Back in the 1800′s when typewriters first started coming out, the big question was how should we type. Typing, back in the day, was hard work. To get a good print on the sheet, a typist had to hit the keys pretty hard. It was found that after repeated typing, a typist usually had to stop, as their wrists would become sore. And it was a condition that lasted a long time, often causing a typist his job.

Doctor Dvorak developed a typing style where typing a word usually involved both hands, that way a majority of words would not be typed with one hand. This took much stress of the wrists, and many typists noticed a great improvement in the health of their wrists. The only problem with this typing style, however, was that many letters were close together, and being hit right after the other. This caused keys to jam up in the typewriter.

For efficiency reasons, the typewriter was universally set to QWERTY. This style allowed the minimum amount of key jamming. However, this did not help the typist’s wrists.

In today’s typing world though, QWERTY is not needed. We do not having key jamming problems any more. Dvorak is much easier on the wrists, minimizing the chance of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. When I first started writing, I noticed pain starting to increase in my wrists.

Soon it became a constant problem, and I had to start wearing wrists bands. Working on the farm, having sore wrists could not be tolerated. I started looking for solutions. I read an article on Holly Lisle’s site about the Dvorak style of typing. She said it helped her out with her wrists. I tried it, and after a couple of months, I learned the typing style, and now my wrists are fine. I also type much faster then I did in QWERTY as typing is much more natural with Dvorak.

If you are interested in typing in Dvorak, all it takes is a simple setting change on your computer. You can even go as far as buying special Dvorak keyboards. Though I really don’t think it is necessary, as long as your a typist that doesn’t look at the keyboard.

To switch your settings in windows, click on your “Start” button in the bottom left hand corner of your screen. In Vista or 7 that will be the little blue round windows sign. Then click on “Control Panel” in the menu that shows up.

Make sure your in “Control Panel Home” and not “Classic View”. Then click on “Clock, Language, and Region”. Then click on “Language and Regional Options”. Then select the “Keyboard and Languages Tab” at the top, then select “Change Keyboards”

Select the “Add” button and then select “English-United States”, then “Keyboard”, then “United States- Dvorak”. Press “Ok”.

In the “Default Input Language” section, click on the pull down menu and select “United States- Dvorak” Press “Ok”. Now exit out. You are done. You computer is in Dvorak. Try typing in a word document. You’ll see the keys are all different.

You will want to print out a Dvorak chart so you can memorize the keys. It will probably take you a couple months to get really good at it, but the benefits are well worth it.

Back around 2006 I was a big guy. I weighed in at 288 lbs. I never felt that healthy, and I had a low self esteem. I went to the doctors and they told me that if I didn’t lose weight, I could become very sick.

I fell in love with body building in high school during sports performance class. I still wasn’t losing weight, but I was putting on some muscle. My bench started at 155 lbs and I increased it to 245lbs. I had the best improvement record in the whole class.

I started working out at home. I read up on getting in shape. I learned that it was a balance between cardio, weight lifting, and my nutrition. I worked out for 2 years. I dropped my weight from 288lbs to 220 lbs.

I stopped working out for a bit when I was working on the dairy farm. The farm work, mixed in with the body building was making me sick. I was working my body to hard. I kept my nutrition in check however, and this coupled with the farm work, kept my weight down between 210lbs and 220 lbs. However when I moved to the city I started working out again. But my lifestyle of drinking and partying all the time, mixed in with lots of fast food made my workout sessions almost useless. I went up to about 240 lbs in this period in the city.

As you can see here I went from a strict plan that had the three parts. The nutrition, the cardio, and the weight lifting, and I went to just working out with weights and running. My nutrition went down the drain.

I think the biggest, most important part, is the nutrition. As soon as the nutrition, the eating healthy part, of the plan left, nothing else really mattered much. The nutrition is the lifeblood of a workout plan. You can workout all you want, but if your not eating the proper food to fuel your muscles, your body, and your just throwing junk down range, then your workout will mean nothing.

Since I joined the army, I have sky rocketed in weight. I joined weighing in at 250lbs. I can run with the other troops, all be it, not as well as them, but I can run the distance, without stopping. I can play the sports. I am fit enough to do my part. I kick ass at ruck marches. That is my strong point. The army exercises us almost every day. I am getting in the exercise I need. But my nutrition was horrible.

The mess- that is where we eat- basically is a buffet. You go in, take what you want, and eat it. You can go back for seconds. Now I will say this: I very rarely ever go back for seconds. But the food I eat is usually deep fried. Most of the food up at the counter is deep fried. Then the salad bar consists of lots of high in fat mayonnaise salads like potato salad, macaroni salads, etc… I fell victim. This was all great, and I figured I was working out, I could eat whatever I want.

That turns out it isn’t the case. I am now back up to 270lbs. I also think I have developed a mild version of a condition called hyperglycemia. Basically that means if my blood sugar falls to low, I start to get very anxious, I vibrate, I become confused and zone out. Things can start to become black. This has happened to me, and I got scared.

I know that it is a very popular condition in my family. Lots of my aunts and uncles and cousins have it. So it didn’t surprise me that my symptoms all pointed to it. It can develop when a person eats to many simple sugars, and bad food, or to much food. People who are overweight can develop it easier. Though even fit people can develop it as some of my cousins have.

I decided to start eating healthier. Instead of drinking chocolate milk with every meal, or coke, I now drink water. I only grab a protein source from the hot counter line. I don’t go after the potatoes or other cooked vegetables which usually have lots of grease in them.

I go to the fresh vegetables in the salad bar line and load up on those. And I grab the fresh fruit. And for bread I’ll grab the whole wheat bread. See the military does offer the healthy food, they just have so much of the unhealthy food that I get tempted to eat that instead.

But ever since I started eating the healthy food, I have had no problems with my low blood sugar. Well unless I skip a meal, then I start to feel the symptoms come back, but not as bad. I think it’s because of the complex carbohydrates I’m eating. Complex carbohydrates slowly release sugar into the blood. I can keep my blood sugar up for longer periods of time because of the slow releasing action of the complex carbohydrates.

When you eat simple sugars, the sugars give you a rush for a bit, then are gone faster, leaving me with low blood sugar if I miss a meal. That is when I get the scary symptoms where I start blacking out. But with the longer lasting complex sugars, if I miss a meal, I won’t get the bad symptoms. I just get a little anxious and vibrate a bit.

I’m also hoping that with the healthier food I’m eating, I will be able to start losing weight again, and get my old body back. I damaged it with the bad food I was eating. I need to get the nutrition part back under control, and I think I am getting the beginnings started for a healthy eating plan.

I’m hoping with the healthy eating, and the working out, I will also be able to reverse the affects of hypoglycemia. I heard this has happened before with many people before. They start working out, become healthy, and basically the condition is reversed.

I guess I’ll see what the future holds.

I think the first time I ever had a puff on a tobacco product was on my Basic Training. My buddies where out in the smoke pit, and I was visiting with them. I never had tried tobacco and figured it would be a good thing to know what it does to a person. I asked a buddy if I could have a puff and he said sure. It didn’t do much to me, as I didn’t know how to inhale, or knew you had to.

After that, if somebody offered me a puff I would take it. I remember the first time I actually inhaled the smoke was when a buddy I hadn’t seen in a very long time visited. My buddy Josh Remfernt came to visit with his mother. I hadn’t seen him since I was twelve or thirteen, when I stayed at his house for a couple weeks.

He went with me, and a couple buddies of mine, out to Pigeon Lake. In the truck my buddy Greg offered me a puff. I did, and he asked if I inhaled. I said I didn’t know I was supposed to. So he said to try swallowing the smoke like I was swallowing water. I did, and almost choked on it. But after practice it went down, and I got an amazing rush off it.

I remember a couple times when I was drinking, I didn’t feel to drunk, but then I had a puff of a cigar and I couldn’t even stand. I started doing it more and more, and pretty soon I was smoking packs of cigars. Soon it became expensive and I switched to Cigarettes which where cheaper

Two years went by before I finally quite. I became a pack a day smoker. I had tried quitting on numerous occasions. The most I could go was 2 weeks before I finally caved and had a puff and started back up again. What made it hard was having people around me who smoked.

Every girlfriend I had smoked. It became ritual to have a cigarette in bed after sex. So when I would try quitting it would feel like we were missing something. A couple times I tried chewing instead of smoking. This, again, would last only so long, and I would chew and smoke. Eventually ditching the chewing for just smoking. And my girlfriend didn’t like it.

If I was out in the field living in the trenches, I would chew, because of light discipline, which meant we weren’t allowed to let light show or the enemy could see us. Of course I would sneak a cigarette in the day where it didn’t seem to make much sense to me that I had to hide light in plain daylight.

The circumstances of how I quite were not much different then any other time. In fact I think they were much more difficult. When I rejoined the army March 30, 2009, I entered a world where almost eighty percent of soldiers smoke. Most of my buddies are smokers. When we go on a break, its to the smoke pit, where we converse and socialize with a cigarette in our hand, sometimes a coffee in the other.

Quitting in this circumstance seemed like an impossible and daunting task. I’m not sure how I managed it really. One day I had no more money, I was on the last pack of smokes, and I got a new room mate name Phillpot who asked me why I smoke. I told him it just kinda happened gradually starting with experimenting.

He asked me why I don’t quit. I said it’s very difficult and I’ve tried many many times. I’m not quite sure what Philly said to me that made sense, or if he made sense at all. I just remember after talking to him, I decided I would quit. It was more a circumstance that I didn’t have money to buy any more smokes and my next pay check was a week away, and that I really thought well, I might as well quit.

It’s funny cause I didn’t really even try that hard. I didn’t have this great motivating conscious saying, “your going to quit. You better quit. Come on you can do it.” No I more or less just decided I should quit. For some reason it worked. I went a week. Then one day I had a cigarette my buddy offered me. Afterward I didn’t feel bad, I just decided that I shouldn’t have any more. I almost had another cigarette a week later, but decided against it with the help of some buddies encouraging me not to make the last week of no cigarettes worth nothing.

It’s been two months since that last cigarette, and I will say, I have had two cigars. One with my buddy Stephan. I felt I needed a piece of home, so me and him went out, bought a cigar each, parked in the parking lot, turned on Bob Marley, and just smoked and talked.

Remembrance Day we had a large cigar which we dedicated to the soldiers who fell before us, and the veterans who are still alive today.

Other then that, I have not had a cigarette or cigar for two months. I have no urges any more for either, and in fact the smell of a cigarette smells gross. I will still have an occasional cigar in the future. But when I mean occasional, I mean like I am talking maybe 5 in a whole year. When there is a reason to celebrate, I’ll have a cigar. I like the smell of cigars.

I think the hardest part about quitting smoking is not the craving for the nicotine. It’s the habit. When I got out of my car, I reached for my pack. When I finished eating and walked outside, I reached in my pockets. Once I had reformed the habit of not smoking, the process became easier.

When I was with my friends on break, I would see them all smoking. Wanting to be part of the social circle again drove me to crave a cigarette. I had to reform in my mind the thought that to be part of this social circle, I don’t need to smoke. What really helped me was when my friends would comment on how strong they thought I was for standing out in the smoke pit and not smoking when I was trying to quit. They would say they could never do it, and asked me how I did it.

I really couldn’t tell them anything. I just said I resisted. I’m not even sure how to explain how I quit. It just kinda happened. The random events that happened just kinda fell into place, and this time I made it.

One example is that one night I really needed a cigarette. I went out into the hallway, and I was going to find somebody with smokes and basically do whatever I had to, to get a cigarette off them. Fortunately for me I couldn’t find anybody, and the next day I felt good that I didn’t smoke.

One of the other great benefits that I received by quitting smoking is the money I save. I used to smoke about $300 a month in cigarettes. Now that is free to go and help pay off my debt.

If I can give anybody a tip, I think the biggest tip to quitting smoking is you have to realize in your mind that smoking is a mind game. Your body tricks your mind into thinking you need the cigarette. Realize that its not the nicotine so much, as it is the habit of smoking itself. Like I said I can’t really tell you how I quit smoking. I’m not even sure myself. I used the same quit cold turkey approach I always used to try and quit smoking. This time it worked.

I hope who ever is reading this can learn something from it and can achieve their dream to quit smoking as I have.

A buddy of mine and myself went and played Raquette Ball last night. It was my first time at the sport, but I found it to be extremely fun, and the best part, very active.

I worked up a good sweat. And by the time I was done I really thought I had accomplished something good. Usually on the weekends I just get drunk, and rot away in my shacks. Nothing much else to do right? Wrong! I think I need to start looking at the other opportunities the military offers me other then the alcohol that is so easily found on military bases Canada wide.

We have a free gym, bowling lanes, ice arenas, running and biking paths, auto clubs, carpentry clubs, gun clubs. We have all sorts of services here on the base.

But I need to really start looking at my health better. I go for runs 3 times a week with the guys on PAT Platoon. We play sports and do spin classes, and circuit training. I can’t say the military isn’t doing it’s best to keep me in shape.

But I’m not in the shape I was when I used to work out on my own back in the civy world. I need to work out on my own, hit the weights, go for runs on my own time. I find when you workout on your own or with a buddy because of your own choice, you workouts will be much better. You mind is ready for them, prepared for them. It’s not like on PAT where you just can’t wait to finish the run.

Yesterday we played Raquette Ball and afterward we felt great. Now my bud and me are going again to night to play some more.

I am feeling things are coming together and it might not be much longer, I’ll have the motivation to start hitting the weights.

My biggest fear right now is my Vehicle Technician QL 3 Course starting December 2nd. Once that course comes it’ll be nothing but none stop studying for hours on end. It’s one of the toughest courses in the military at the moment for the density of information pushed into our brains in the short amount of time of 6 months.

A 3 year college civy course pushed at us in 6 months. INSANE! The course has a 50% fail rate, if not higher. So I’m getting this motivation, this drive to write, to work out, to get my life back on track where I want it.

But in the end I have to realize I’m a soldier, and my life is on the track the government puts it. I’ll be doing my best however to let a little bit of myself escape.

I’m working on piece currently about how I quit smoking. I hope it will help others out there do the same. Stay tuned for it.