Shops At A Premium

I normally don't talk about much besides my weight loss journey but I thought it would a nice change of pace to talk about the new Charlotte Premium Outlets.  Yesterday I was afforded the time to go check out Charlotte's first new mall in 10 years.

CATS Route 55 Westinghouse actually goes straight from the LYNX light rail station at Sharon Road West to the mall.  To save gas by having to drive all the way from my house in east Charlotte, I just caught the bus after work.  The route takes about 30 minutes from the light rail station.

After arriving at the mall, I walked up the hill to the shops and immediately noticed that the place is one of the nicest outlet malls I've been to.  I've traveled a good bit over the years and usually end up checking out outlet malls in whatever town I'm in.  Most are usually just glorified strip malls, and not much glory to boot.
The Charlotte Premium Outlets, while small at this point, are certainly a cut above most that I've visited.

One of the amenities I noticed is the amount of cover you have for an outdoor mall.  While the Gaffney, SC outlet has covered walkways, it always just feels like a strip mall to me.

The Charlotte outlet feels much more like you're walking the streets of your favorite town and just popping into shops, and you do have places to run to if the bottom falls out and we get one of those Carolina heat-of-the-day thunderstorms.

The main reason I wanted to visit the new mall was for the Under Armour Outlet.  I'm a big fan of Under Armour's products, but not such a fan of their retail prices. The only other UA Outlet I've visited was in Pigeon Forge where I got a new workout shirt for a great price.

I thought the Charlotte UA store had a pretty good selection. The store was having a Labor Day sale which helped, but not quite sure if the prices were quite as good as Pigeon Forge.  With the distance this store is from me, I'll probably just buy from their online outlet in the future.  Still I wasn't disappointed to visit my second UA store.

As I made my way around the mall, I noticed lots of nice courtyards with fountains, places to sit both under cover and out in the open.

The mall only has two restaurants in their food court open so far, but there is a new Bojangles located across the street (you would have to drive) from the mall and a new McDonald's is coming soon across from the Bojangles.

The stores in the outlet didn't really strike me as true outlets.  Kind of in the middle as far as price.  I guess they are at a premium.  A good example is the Old Navy Outlet.

The Old Navy Outlet at Potomac Mills, near D.C. had truly great prices.  I remember buying a t-shirt for $4 there.  The outlet in Charlotte might have had only slightly better prices than a regular Old Navy store.

I had to chuckle a bit as I passed the Crocs store.  Is this store considered the tackiest store in the world?  I personally don't get the hatred for Crocs.  I've got a pair of their flip flops and they have lasted forever and are super comfortable.  I don't own a regular pair of Crocs, but I really don't find them that ugly.  Our society really cares too much about what's on the outside of the body and not what's on the inside of the soul.

In summary, the outlets are very nice, but nothing that I'd say make a special trip far out of your way for unless you just have to visit them.  Pretty much everything that I found at the Charlotte Premium Outlets I can find at Concord Mills and Concord Mills has big box stores like Bass Pro.

One issue, just like when Northlake Mall was built is that the area has nothing around it, but I'm sure that will change in the next decade.  It looked like a strip mall of some sort was being built behind the new Bojangles by the highway entrance to the mall.

Overall, very nice, but small and in need of more stuff to do.  Thanks for reading and until next time, please sit on your sandals!

Just Do It!

I love my time on the bicycle, I always seem to come up with my best ideas pedaling the country roads of Mecklenburg and Union counties.

This morning Nike ad Just Do It, popped into my brain while out on my Sunday morning ride.

First I'll say this is not an ad for Nike, I'm more of an Under Armour guy myself.  But the campaign that Nike launched all those years ago was brilliant in its simplicity.

How could three little words sum up so much. But another famous phrase I Love You is only three words and says so much.  Good things sometimes come in small packages, which should be encouraging to all my vertically-challenged friends out there.

Just Do It popped up in my brain this morning and it got me thinking, how many times should we just say to ourselves, not even out loud Just do it!  Just do it Wes! Just do it when it hurts, just do it when you want to be lazy, just do it when you'd rather sit in the recliner and veg out, just do it!

The strange thing I've found over the past 5 months of F3, is that at some point I don't have to tell myself to just do it.  I want to do it.

What in the world has happened to me of late?

In the past two days I've been called an Iron Man (the athletic version, not the metallic clad billionaire variety) and an athlete. An athlete? Me?  It boggles the mind.  But as I look at the definition above, I realize I am an athlete now and I'm loving every minute.  My friend Jason many times called us athletes at boot camp, but it's really sinking in.

As I sit here writing, my legs are in a state of serious repair.  They are very sore from a hard boot camp, I helped partly lead yesterday, and two days of cycling.  This is all being done by a guy that at the start of 2013 couldn't even run one-quarter of a mile. Which brings me back to my point, and I have one.

I'm frankly tired of hearing my fellow Americans tell me that they can't do this, or they can't do that.  Yes you can!  I'm not anything special, I wasn't born on Krypton.  I'm an American, born in the South: home to fried chicken, sweet tea and Krispy Kreme's!  Mmm...somewhere the hot donut sign just came on.

As I've advanced in my transformation this year, I've heard so many people say "I could never do that!".  Lies!  You can do this stuff!  You can get off the couch and take better care of yourself.

Am I saying that you all need to run out and do a ruck, certainly not.  But you can take better care of yourself, you can eat better, you can stop smoking or whatever your hangup is.  We all have them.
Sometimes they manifest in the strangest ways.

People tend to go to extremes.  They either workout too much, or not at all.  They either eat like a health nut, or they eat fast food until they are bloated, sickly creatures who hate life.  We need to find balance in our country and world.

There are people, by the thousands if not millions that struggle to provide one meal a day for themselves in our world.  Sometimes you may pass them on the street as you drive to Starbucks to buy your $5 mocha latte whatever-they-are-call-it.

I'm not here to guilt trip anyone, and I'm not here to say its wrong to be able to afford Starbucks every day. But I am here to say in my own small way, that you and I need to find balance in our lives.

This doesn't mean just health, but if your health is lacking then eventually you will have to stop life in general just to try and survive.  How many people do you hear of that don't take care of themselves and one day they have a heart attack or stroke?  Many of them could have prevented a lot of pain, suffering and financial woes if they'd only found balance in their lives.

I heard one of the best quotes recently, and sadly I can't recall the source:  When people are young, they spend all their health to make money.  When people are old, they spend all their money to make themselves healthy.  It's so true, and it's so sad.

Our society seems to be on the brink of a major shift.  The gap in the upper, middle and lower classes seems to be broadening in every respect.  It seems many in the middle class do think of others but many are struggling to achieve success in this world and make it to the upper class and therefore they lose focus on others. In many cases some of the most giving people in our country are the poor, the ones that can least afford to give.

I'm not here to bash the 1%, I'm saying we are all the 1%.  I heard in a sermon recently that if you own a refrigerator, you are in the top 5% wealthiest people in the world.  Read it again, in the world.

I am going to point (in a very nice way) a finger though at the rich.  What are you doing!?  I don't care if you have millions, but what are you doing with those millions?

Why do you need a new luxury car every 3 years, or 2, or 1?  That luxury car is a lie.  It tells you that you've succeeded, that you're better than your neighbor, or the guy at the office.

That car will one day rust and rot in some landfill, and your body will rot and decay in a grave.  What did you do with your money that helped anyone else?  I'm not trying to bash the rich.  If you have money and you help others with a portion of it, and give of your time to help others I applaud you.  You are certainly in the minority it seems.  Writing a check is all well and good, but what did you do that got you down in the trenches with the rest of us that are struggling to keep a roof over ourselves?

I come back in conclusion to this really long post to say this, Just Do It.  Whatever your battle is in life, whether its greed, obesity, depression, laziness, drugs, alcohol, apathy, whatever it is, just take today and just do something about it!

Battles are rarely won in an instant, they take planning and many times patience.  I challenge you to get in the battle for your life.  Make your life a better one, then you'll be able to improve someone else's life and when we all start to do that, what a wonderful world this place could be.

Until next time... please sit on your sandals!

Yes You Can!

Hey everyone, back for another post and some more progress reports.

This one is going to be a bit different though, I want to focus on you this time and not really about me.  I will use my own story of course, but if this blog is going to make any difference at all it has to become more about you than me.

Yesterday I did something that I literally thought was crazy just a year ago.  I did a GoRuck custom event!  Turns out it was the biggest custom GoRuck event in history!  How cool is that?  So you're already thinking, what is GoRuck?  Glad you asked!

GoRuck, or rucking is a civilian's best chance without enlisting to find out what a Special Operations' or Special Forces training regiment is like. The event I participated in was called a Light.  Light doesn't mean easy, no way.  Light refers to the fact that you're doing the event during the day.  Many of the other GoRuck events take place mostly at night.

GoRuck: Red Light & Blue took place in Charlotte and supported Charlotte Bridge Home, an amazing organization that supports our troops in the Charlotte area and assists them in so many ways like helping them with their job search after leaving the military.

OK so I have to give a bit of background on myself to give you a picture of where this is going.

December 2013 after many months of frustration in finding a diet (in the best sense of that word) that would help me to lose the weight I'd been carrying around for years I came across the 5:2 Diet, as I've mentioned several times.  To date I'm down 40 lbs.!

In March 2014 I joined F3 and took the fitness part of the puzzle to a new level.  I was working out before, but F3 certainly kicked my rear into another gear.  Hey, that rhymed.

One of my friends at the time joked that I would be doing a ruck event before I knew it.  I laughed because I never really dreamed he would be right.

Yesterday's ruck was an amazing way to celebrate 9 months of weight loss and life transformation, but again this isn't about me, it's about you.

You are facing a battle every day I have no idea what it is.  You may be battling financial hardship, I've been there.  I didn't know where money was going to come from at one point in 2013.  But I got through it by the grace of God, prayer of good friends and determination to not give up.  You can too.

You may be struggling with your weight, I was obviously there too.  At least twice in my life I weighed around 300 lbs., probably over 300.  I can tell you that you CAN do something about your health.

You could be immobile, but you can still do something about your health!  You can eat better, drink water, make food choices that boost your body, soul and mind and not tear them down.  I've seen so much lately that when the body is in balance, the mind, soul and spirit are all lifted.  This all has to start in your spirit and you have to dig down and find that fire in the belly, but once that desire finds its way out to the body, the body can then end up lifting the spirit as well.

You may have major drama in your family that rips apart your soul on a daily basis.  You may turn to food, drugs, alcohol or abuse of your body to deal with the pain.  You MUST understand that you are so precious, YOU are worthy of respect.  Every human being of this planet regardless of their outward appearance or attitude is still worthy of respect and that includes YOU.

For so many years I put myself down.  In my head I was my worst critic.  No matter what I did, it wasn't good enough.  No matter how I looked, it wasn't good enough.  If this is you, STOP.  Stop right there and learn to love yourself, right where you are no matter what mess your life is in.  If you can never love yourself, you will never have any love to share with another in this life.  And if you can't share love, then you are going to have a very lonely existence.

And this brings me back to the ruck.  The ruck events, even the Light (which again isn't easy), but is the easiest of the options to choose from will push you to a point where you have to choose what you are going to do.  Are you going to quit?  Or are you going to dig down inside yourself to the pit of your being and keep going.  This applies not just in doing a fitness challenge like I did, but in life.

Our society at one point celebrates winners, and at the same time tells us it's OK to quit.  No problem at all, everybody quits.  Well you aren't everybody, and I hope when times get tough in life that you won't quit but keep going.  Sometimes you just have to stand still in life when the hurricane rages around you, and just be still.

I hope this post reaches you and you will be encouraged by the humble story of a guy that has gone farther than he could ever imagine and hasn't arrived yet.  I'm still pushing, still have struggles and bad days.  But Lord willing I will continue to grow, get stronger and continue to push myself until I drop dead or the Lord calls His children home.  Wouldn't you rather live that way?  Why just settle?  So many people do and rarely look back on their lives with much joy.

Love to you all, and until next time "Please sit on your sandals!".

Aye!

Oh The Places I've Gone!

Wow has it been a crazy 4 months! 

 

Back in March after much harassment, I mean emotional headlocking from friends in F3, I finally submitted and posted for my first workout at Ascent, one of the many F3 boot camp workouts in the Charlotte area.

 

I had been doing a boot camp Tuesday and Thursday evenings, but I had just been stuck for a very long time in the weight loss arena and even was gaining weight back after getting some off in the past few years.

 

After searching and trying some different F3 sites, I finally settled on Outland in Indian Trail. 

I honestly can say that 4 months ago I would never say that I looked forward to working out this hard, but I honestly look forward to it each week!  As I told my former trainer, F3 is one of the best things to ever happen to me in my life.  You're probably wondering why someone would even bother getting up early on a Saturday morning for a workout.  Well then you don't know F3!

F3 is so much more than a Christian/faith-based/non-faith men's workout group.  It's about fitness, fellowship AND faith.   F3 is open to anyone, whether they are a believer or not.

I didn't even realize the gap in my life I was missing: fellowship and true inspiration from other men who were down in the trenches of life just like me and were working their butts off each and every week to make themselves, their community and their world better.

I've made relationships with my brothers at Outland that I know will last for years to come if not for a lifetime.

Our society has turned its back on true masculinity, and as a result our whole world has suffered.  I'm not talking of bravado or being macho.  I'm talking about a servant with strength of will, body, mind and heart.  Look no further than the divorce rate and the many fatherless children in our own back yard and you'll see we have a crisis of true masculinity.  I'm happy to say that I'm a part of the solution now and not a part of the problem.

In addition to the crazy workouts, and other #CSAUP stuff we do, F3 works in many various ways to promote leadership and reach out to people of every walk of life and make their lives better.

As you can see, F3 is a great thing.  After 4 months in F3, I'm down almost 40 lbs. and hope to hit 60 by Christmas!  I've already run my first 10k last month, and will be doing my first GoRuck Challenge August 9.  I'm still in shock I just ran a 10k train run.  This guy couldn't even run a 1/4 mile at the start of 2013.

I'm as excited about my life as I can remember being since my 20's.  I'm also feeling and looking better than I ever did in my 30's.  It was in my 30's I hit my highest weight, around 300 lbs.  Thankfully I'm a long way down from there, and will never go back again.

At 42, I'm stronger, faster and overall happier and fuller of the joy of life (the Joy of the Lord is our strength after all) than I've been in a very, very long time.

My only regret is that I took so long to join F3.  But the past is past, and I'm gonna keep digging in and seeing how far I can push this old body, mind and heart.  It's been a great first half of the #yearofwes.  Can't wait to see where the rest of the year takes me.

Shout out to all my F3 brothers.  Aye!








 

 

 

 

 

Thank You Doesn't Do It Justice

Somehow I knew this day would come, but it still doesn't make me any happier about it.

You see this crazy guy pictured here is and will always be my trainer, even if not officially any more after next week.

Due to very exciting developments in Jason's life, he will no longer be able to host his boot camp at Mt. Harmony Baptist where I have been one of the dirty dozen (well not quite a dozen most nights) most of its 4 year run.  I took a year to join the fun for some reason.  I thought I could get a better workout in the gym.  Lies.

I have to, even though I know it will bring tears to both of us sit down and say a formal thanks to my brother in Christ.

Jason came into my life when I was going through a lot of junk.  I had lost my job at Bank of America after 17 years and I was working a job I hated, yes I said I hated it! Anyone that can work a job in a call center and enjoy it, my hats are off to you.  It wasn't for me.

Doing sit-down jobs for 20 years had taken its tole and the last few years of my time at Bank of America I had really let myself go.  By 2005 I was topping out well over 300 lbs.  I don't know if I've ever actually made that public, but I might as well.  It's the truth.

After much encouragement from Mitch Duncan, I finally came one night to boot camp at Mt. Harmony.  Now you have to understand I thought I was still pretty strong from the years I used to work out at home.  I wasn't.  The first night I sucked wind like I'd never sucked wind in all my life.  I barely made it home and crawled into the recliner and almost immediately passed out.  I am in no way exaggerating, I was that worn out from just one workout!   I used to joke that boot camp was like P90X on crack, cause some nights it seemed that way.  But I kept coming, and I started to notice small changes in stamina, strength and just feeling better in my every day life.

Flash forward a bit and 2014 rolls around and after much ribbing I finally give in to Jason and a few other friends who had invited me to join F3.

F3 would certainly be the next step in my transformation in more ways than one.  Without a lot of details of F3, it is a participant led, free workout for men that will kick your rear end!  You do your best, that's all they ask.  It's not a competition, but being competitive even a little as I am, I certainly push myself even more now especially during F3.

And finally I sit here and tell you that I'm signing up for my first ruck!  This is getting a bit scary now.

I'm taking on challenges I never in a million years would've even considered 3 years ago when I met Jason and started down this road and now to be doing a new event WITH Jason is just even crazier.  This will also be Jason's first ruck, and I'm honored I get to be there for his first one.

As you can tell from the photo, Jason is in great shape as you would hope a trainer would be, but I've even seen him have to dig in for some workouts at F3.  It's fun realizing your mentors are human sometimes and have to kick their own butts from time to time.

So as I try to bring this around to a close, thank you is so lame to tell a person that has made such a deep impact on your life in just 3 short years, and I know will influence me for years to come.

Jason you never judged me, always encouraged me to dig deeper, watch the nutrition and keep on challenging myself.  Much like the classical hero story line, the hero always has to let go of their mentor at some point and learn to stand on their own.  I guess my time has come.

I know you'll always be around, and just a text away brother but I'm so excited to see what God does in your life and mine in the coming years.  Massive props and love to you, and love and respect to your family and church family.  Keep living with strength brother!  Aye!

The Year Of Wes

In my never ending blathering on about my weight loss and strength- gaining journey I come at you with another post about a few milestones I hit over the weekend.

First up I played a round of disc golf Sunday afternoon and that alone isn't anything to talk about, but the fact that I RAN (cue Flock of Seagulls?)several of of the holes was!

A while back some friends and I had joked about Speed Disc Golf being an option.  Well at that time I could barely even walk the courses without being out of breath and having major back pain.

So yesterday I'm just jogging along and it hit me that I've made some major progress!

I currently do 3 boot camps a week (45 minutes - 1 hour of intense workouts) and then run or bike one day a week.  Still planning to do my first 10k next month.

Then today on a whim I sat down at the store and checked my blood pressure.  It was 123 over 80!  That's as close to normal as its been in YEARS!  My blood pressure has run around 138 over 85 for quite a few years and the doctors always said it should be lower.

Well I guess all this output has finally caught up with the old ticker and my blood pressure is finally down where it should be.

I have a long way to go, in both weight loss and endurance in running, but I've also made huge strides the past few years and I can't imagine ever going back to where I was.  Honestly that guy is dead, and I'm not digging him up again!

Jason Rhymer, my fitness mentor and friend pointed at me during one of his boot camps and said "This is going to be your year!" and I took him at his word.  I keep reminding myself of his words and slowly but surely I keep seeing new sign posts that the old Wes is dead and gone, and the new Wes is here to stay.

Well that's all for now, until next time...

St. Peter Is That You?

I'm back from my second 5k trail run!  Just wanted to share a short report of how it went.

First a little background: last August, on a strangely cool morning I set out running not only first 5k, but my first trail run too.

As one who has never run since high school, and even then not any great distances this was certainly a challenge.

I started off o.k. but then my back started to hurt and we had to stop for a minute and try and stretch it out.  Still I kept going and I finished at around 54:30.  Not terrible I guess for my first time out and considering the back problems.

2014 came along and I had my sights set on doing the 10k option and in the meantime some friends told me about East Side Church's new Queen City Trail Run 5k.

Being my second 5k of course I wanted to finish faster than the last time, I didn't know however that Reedy Creek Park's trails would be even harder than the Charlotte White Water Center's.

I knew the park was hilly as I play disc golf there pretty regularly.

I didn't know that one of those hills would be waiting for me and brother was it a tough one.  Jokingly I posted later that I expected to see St. Peter waiting at the top of that hill.

But I kept going and the hill eventually was in my rear view and down another hill and up some more I made it to the finish line.  As I turned the last corner I saw the clock was just over 48:00 and I all of a sudden found more energy to run than I had all morning.  I picked up the pace and finished strong beating my last time by nearly 6:00!

Now I'm not here to tell you I'm a fast runner, far from it.  But I honestly never thought I'd be able to run 1 mile, much less over 3.

I'm living proof that anyone can do this stuff.  It's not rocket science.  It just takes some hard work, time and effort and you will see results.

Until next time...please sit on your sandals!