My Life Long Goals List

The list I wrote out for myself a year and a half ago when I promised myself I'd become an exceptional person and never be a mediocre individual again.

My Life Long Goals List:

☑ 1. New Body - 100% Complete

☑ 2. New Wardrobe - 100% Complete

☐ 3. 2 Extreme Sports - 50% Complete (bungee jumping & .....)

☐ 4. Visit 2 Foreign Countries - 0% Complete (Mexico and Canada don't count!)

☐ 5. Learn Chinese, Spanish, Korean & Japanese (piece of cake right?)

☐ 6. ..... don't be nosey!

☐ 7. .....

☐ 8. .....

☐ 9. .....

☐ 10. Get Doctorate (Not the medical kind) - 15% Complete

1.

2.

3.

Ready for my Close-up Mr. Deville.

After losing the 40 pounds and bulking up a bit due to 90 pound dumbell bicep curls, copious amounts of protein shakes and hitting the gym like a meathead jock while making grunting noises to show everybody I'm beefcake. I finally went ahead and got pictures of myself to show the new and improved me. Since a year and a half ago making that promise to myself and writing that list of changes I promised to make in my life, to see this happen, the video of me bungee jumping in January, having the before and after picture from August of the new body and all of this, its like these are the trophies showing the accomplishments I made, and it makes me proud to be able to look back and see that I truly am a different person, a better person than I was before. From being so fat and not caring about my body, to working hard to transform myself. From dressing like a bum who never cared how he looked, to becoming a fashionista and having this pics to show my style and the fact that I care about how I look to the world. From being scared and afraid most of my life of taking risks, to going bungee jumping and challenging myself to be a stronger more confident person, I feel like I have so much to be proud of this last year and a half, and it's only gonna get better from here. 

Me: I'm ready for my close-up Mr. Photographer. Just get my good side.

Photographer: What good side?

Thanks to Rich Frye for taking such amazing pictures and making this dud look like a stud :-D

www.fryephotography.com

Come sit down on the steps with me and let me dole out some advice for you... wait, why are you falling asleep already.

They told me it was a stairway to heaven, but when I got there and they said, you'll get to watch "Real Housewives" marathons and won't have menstrual cramps, so I figured it was somebody else's heaven, and stopped here instead. I knew I should have noticed the little female symbol on the steps...

 

Me in Harry Potter Land, complete with castle gate and hallway leading to the dungeon...... not the San Francisco kind of dungeons with whips and chains but the PG kind. Jeeze, facebook, get your mind out of the gutter. Love this pic :-D

Visiting the Mayan pyramids for my million dollar photoshoot. Well if you consider 20 year old concrete slabs Mayan Pyramids and 50 cents and a pack of chewing gum a million dollars then yes, I'm what the French call "Le Baller".

I thought if I stood like this I'd grow taller. It's been 2 weeks and still no dunking of basketballs as of yet. When they come out with the surgery to make you 6 feet, let me know.

Day 113 of Tom's Weight Loss Success

This post is taken from my other site: 

http://extremeweightlosschallenge.blogspot.com/

Secret to weight loss success #5: The key to steady weight loss success is willpower or if you're rich there's always liposuction.

Sunday 4/29/2012 Interview With Tom

Toms become a Californian now. Going to school, has his own apartment. It's only a matter of time before he busts out a rainbow flag or gets a valley girl accent. His last day for his apartment lease is July 31st, so plenty of time for the body and mind numbing torture of working out to the point of being a puddle of sweat, shoe funk and sadness and hearing bad 70s music at 24 hour fitness.

16 Weeks Completed: 1/8/2012 - 4/29/2012

Starting Weight: 216.6 lbs

Current Weight: 185.6 lbs

Total Weight Loss: 31 Pounds

Sunday 1/8/2012 Weigh-In: Weight: 216.6 lbs / Body Fat: 37.1% / Muscle: 30.2%

Sunday 4/29/2012 Weigh-In: Weight: 185.6 lbs / Body Fat: 31.8% / Muscle: 33.1%

Toms made it to 31 pounds of weight loss! I think he's ready for the Oakland marathon now. As long as he makes it to the end without passing out or getting stabbed by a gang banger with a rusty butter knife then we'll be able to say mission accomplished. Tom has been a trooper going to the gym regularly, midterms or no midterms, Chinese & Japanese exams or not, he's not letting anything stop him from his goal, and he's so modest about it you'd think he was a Himalayan monk... well without the coolness factor or ability to levitate but anyway. We have a month of school left so after we finish with finals we're going to pick up the pace and start doing 4 hour gym sessions instead of 3 hours on the elliptical. For anyone trying to do this them self, the thing is you have to work up to it and don't push yourself harder than your body will allow. Building endurance for long sessions takes more time for some people than others. It took me twice as long to lose what Tom has lost in 3 1/2 months. Everyone's body is different. 

We do 3 hours with the resistance turned all the way up on the elliptical maybe 3 to 5 times a week now usually netting 600 calories per hour and 1800 each day we workout. 1750 calories is a half pound. So basically he loses 1/2 pound each day he works out. That's a pretty impressive and tangible result but it's hard for most people to get on an elliptical for 3 hours in one day, so change up your workout if that's not something you can do but remember, it's the numbers that count. It's all calorie math, so 1800 calories is 1800 whether you get on a treadmill, an exercise bike, or you're training to be Ms. Anorexia 2012, you need to keep track of the numbers you put into your mouth and work off at the gym. I believe exercise with a slight decrease in calorie intake is the best way but everyone has their own way of doing it, just be safe. Losing weight is not easy and if you're 70 pounds over like Tom was, you can't just go to the gym a half hour a day and expect instant results. If you want instant results though, I heard the peanut butter and crack diet works well but I wouldn't recommend it. At least not without milk. Anyway, I'm very proud of my little brother Tom. He's making strides I couldn't and even though we are still about half way away from his goal, Tom will be showing off the 6-pack before he goes back home to NY July 31st then off to China in August.

Foreign Exchange

Foreign Exchange. You tell me about why your country is so awesome and I'll tell you why you should run from America before they start roasting your organs and using them for meal rations for the impending zombie Apocalypse.

Me and my friend Seung Yeon from Korea hanging out at Fisherman's Wharf. She promised me she'd take me in her suitcase back to Korea with her but with the way the wind is blowing 500 miles an hour, we might just get there without having to do a thing. At least it saves us money on plane tickets :)

Me and my new BFF Marie from France. Only here for a few days but I promised to show her everything San Francisco has to offer, the golden gate bridge, Chinatown, gay ticker tape parades complete with bears wearing leather a$sless chaps, S&M clubs where grown men wear diapers and get spanked.... okay apparently I should stop reading from the San Francisco brochure cause this is getting kind of creepy...

Me hanging out with Yan and her friends chatting about life in America and in China over a hot Starbucks latte. Oh Starbucks, is there no place your addictive overpriced coffee can't penetrate. Starbucks coffee #1 drug sold the world over. Take that meth and heroine!

说中文没容易可是真有意思。:-D My Chinese Class Midterm

So we had my Chinese midterm and of course my teacher gets it on video cause she thinks she might be discovering the next American Idol. I'm ready for my close up :-D The 3 of us in my group, Andy, Chaoting and I had to come up with our own Chinese dialogue and do a little skit in front of class like we're a whacky United Nations Asian, Black improv group. This is the first time I speak Chinese without stuttering like a hooker after 30 blow jobs and looking at it I am very impressed with the way everything went. Now if only Chaoting could remember her lines without the deer in the headlights look or the I just $hit my pants look, it would have been perfect, but she still did better than me X-D lol. either way everyone did a great job especially Andy singing like he was the next Chinese Pop Star. Your grammy is in the mail :-D 真高兴！

Am I offering only the promise of a future?

Am I offering only the promise of a future? I'm in college working on a dream far off in the distance. I work mediocre paying jobs, I'm not rich or really successful. I have big dreams. Not like people say they have big dreams and settle when things get hard but I'm meant to do something important and know I'm going to be extremely wealthy and successful. I will not stop until I am. A future CEO without the Rolex, ulcers and male pattern balding. But right now I have nothing to offer. I changed my body from stunt-doubling for the Pilsbury dough boy to doing ab-roller commercials, I'm not a brooding emotional black hole anymore, like every character in a soap opera or teenage vampire drama. I'm witty, always the class clown, I'm having the best time of my life, I've studied Japanese, Chinese and Korean so hard like a language ninja to become this ideal exceptional person I yearn to be. Yet, even after making the promise to myself that I would not date anyone for the entire last year until I accomplished much of my goals, now that I have become someone I can be proud to have any girl call their boyfriend, why is it that now when I can happily say "look at the new me" I feel like all I'm offering a woman is an IOU?

I'm very picky and will not just date anyone. I have high standards and expectations of my future girlfriend. She doesn't have to be a million dollar princess, she doesn't have to be a supermodel (although please put that at the top of your application if you're applying jk), yet I don't want to give a woman just a blueprint, or an unfinished project. The same way I want to be that ideal man I feel like I want a woman to have the ideal me and giving them anything less is almost cheating them. Like going to a fancy restaurant, ordering the lobster and instead you get a paper on your plate saying, "we'll hit ya back next time! BTW don't forget to tip". To get a 6-pack body, be the most social and funniest guy in the room, make tons of friends and work on my education, I've done all this, I should be proud, yet when it comes to idea of dating again I still feel just as unsure and unconfident as I did a year and a half ago when I started working to change myself. Is the only thing I can offer a woman, the promise of a great man?

Love Has No Boundaries

I had a Chinese friend who wanted to date a Mexican girl but his parents said they wouldn't approve. I asked him if he loved her, and he said yes. So I told him "if you are the kind of man who says you love someone, but place conditions on love because of others meaningless opinions, then you're not a real man worthy of that woman's love. It means you're a coward. If a love is not unconditional and not able to stand firm even in the face of the most strongest storm, then your love isn't a love for loves sake, it's a love based on convenience and isn't worth the 3 empty words spoken of it. A love is only as strong as the person's convictions who's in love. To be a strong man is to love someone for what they mean to you not only if your parents approve." He's married to her today and happy.