90 Day Challenge Testimonial

Sometime in 2014, I found myself outside the 24 Hour Fitness location near Denny Way in Seattle. It was 3 a.m.. I felt like I needed to do something about my fitness.

There have been two times where I have lost significant weight. At the end of 1999, I was 330 pounds. When I moved to Seattle in 2001, I was down to 250. In August of 2009, I was at 350. By March of 2010, I was down to 295.

At the beginning of 2015, my weight was up to 360 pounds.

In December 2014, Gold’s Gym was sending out mailers. These mailers had offers for 7 day trials and 4 Personal Trainer Sessions for $30.

These offers were enticing. It seemed like everyday I was in the grocery store underneath the gym. It just kept calling me. During the holidays, I was talking to my brother about the mailers and maybe about joining a gym. He offered to help me out financially if I decided to join one. Mid January I got another mailer.

On my next day off, I stopped by the gym. I was given the tour. I liked what I saw and I was sold on the 90 day challenge. I did the personal training sessions and signed up for more. Whenever I work out now, I can hear the trainer's voice saying, "Straighten your feet."

This year I am turning 40. I want to be in better shape for my birthday this year. And for next year, I want to be in even better shape.

It is a slow process. There are many challenges to overcome. But I feel that every day, even if I only do a little workout, I make progress.

On January 31, 2 weeks into joining the gym, I went out to Spokane for my grand niece’s first birthday. I had a beer at the birthday party and since then I have been accidentally sober. February, March, April. Almost halfway through May, and still no beer or alcohol.

For close to 30 years, I have had trouble with my left knee. I know that exercise helps it but I wanted to do more than just adjust it. I want to retrain it so it stops bothering me as much. 

For the past two years, I have been having problems with my lower back. I felt that working out would help that issue too.

Food Coloring, Not just for Easter

I have been making more food at home lately. I have a bunch of food coloring bottles. I have been putting random food colors in all kinds of things. The colors do not come out well in the photos so I put some descriptive words around the pictures. What is nice about the food coloring is that it really does not change the taste of the food.

Rice yellow food coloring

Cookies red with green M&M’s

Muffins red

Tuna Mac and Cheese aka “Brains” green

Cream Cheese Frosting blue

A Giant Cookie orange

Adding the food colors to random food has made cooking a little more fun. You should try using food colors throughout the year.

2012 Valentine’s Day Love ‘Em or Leave ‘Em

Second time I have run this race. I was tempted not to run this race because I was not feeling very well. Once I got warmed up, I started to feel better. I did not run the whole race. I did run the first 2 miles though. This was not my best time since I started doing 5Ks but still pretty good since I have not been training.

Jason Lee Bowen

bib number: 1641

age: 36

gender: M

location: Seattle, WA

overall place: 2057 out of 2360

division place: 222 out of 236

gender place: 694 out of 754

time: 46:32

pace: 15:01

gun time: 49:28

Ripped Pants

I ripped some pants on Wednesday. I was wearing shorts on Thursday at work. I looked at the work load and thought I should go home early. I asked to go home and was told I could go at  14:00. I thought great. I did have Friday off and could have gone shopping on Friday but I wanted to go on Thursday so I could sleep in on Friday. I left work a little after 14:00 and went to pick up my truck.

I drove up to Northgate Mall so I could go to JC Penney’s. There was a bunch of traffic so it took me a little while to get to the Mall. I then spent a lot of time looking at clothes. I needed pants but I was not sure of how many to buy. I was not sure of the quantity to buy either. Should I buy 2 pairs just to replace the ones I ripped or should I buy 4 pairs so I have some back-ups? I eventually ended up on buying 2 pairs of pants. The pants took me a while to find though. I guess 32 inseams are popular. With the weight I have put on over the last couple of months, I was not sure what size I should buy. I went with a bigger size than the pair I ripped. I figured that buying a size a little bigger might help.

I spent over two hours looking at clothes. I looked at shirts and pants. I found this great shiny gray dress shirt. Unfortunately the shirt was a little too big. Eventually I found a shiny blue shirt. And the size was good. Then I had to find a tie. I got this other shirt too. With a new tie for that shirt too.

The blue sweater that I am currently wearing is pretty nice. Looks good and I like the color are two things that work for me. The warmth is a little much though. This sweater is not good to wear at work. The blue sweater is warmer than the gray fleece sweater that I have been wearing. The last thing that I found were some longer length boxers. Not only are the legs longer than normal boxers, I like the blue pattern ones and the black pattern ones I found. Normally I do not like anything other than a plain pattern but I can live with the patterns I found.

What else did I pick up on this day?

Boxers, shirts, ties, sweater, pants

I guess that covers everything.

One Year Ago

This was intended to be a much longer post but I distracted myself because I could not deal with the thoughts necessary to write this post.
This weekend last year, I met a woman who changed my life. I have more to say on this woman and my life but I still can not bring myself to write.
I am going to go get drunk.
Put some random words into the tags associated with this post and you can figure out the rest.

Questions and Decisions Time

I am on a 23 day vacation from The Seattle Public Library. One goal I had before this vacation started was to get my apartment empty. I was going to put everything into storage. As the time approached to start moving things into storage, that idea just did not seem right. I no longer want any of these things in my life. I should not own more stuff than what will fit in the back of my truck. And I do not mean a full load either. One tote of clothes, one tote of equipment, and one tote of personal items. That should be more than enough stuff in my life.

Tote of Clothes	Tote of Personal Items	Tote of Equipment	Backpack
Suit jacket/pants	Sword	Scanner/printer	computer
white dress shirt, undershirt	Snake-Eyes action figure(s)	Tool case	camera
blue dress shirt, undershirt	Snake-Eyes skateboard	surge protector	computer power cord
polo shirt	Chess Board	extension cord	camera power cord
pair of black pants		PS3	passport
pair of jeans		speakers	cell phone power cord
2 pairs of cargo shorts		phone modem	cell phone
pair of sport shorts		alarm clock	extra camera batteries (AA)
5 pairs of underwear and socks		camera printer dock/recharge station	sunglasses
blanket, pillow			MP3 player and cord
grooming items			extra AAA batteries
			journal
			pens

As this year came into existence, I knew I wanted to spend this time answering some big questions in my life.
1. Do I stay in Seattle?
2. Do I stay at the Library?
3. Where do I go?
4. Why?
5. What am I doing with my life?
One thing I learned in the last year is that my siblings consider me stable. Even my mother agrees with that statement. And I find myself not arguing with  the thought of me being stable. My soul yearns for that label to be wrong. This stability that others see is the act that I put on to hide. I am so worried about going crazy that I do nothing with my life.
As the past year unfolded, a wrinkle entered my life. A ‘wrinkle’ is not an adequate term. Something I had not counted on, entered my life. I fell in love, fell in lust, fell into an old pattern of obsession. Whatever the proper term or expression, this period of time that I requested off last year for reflection on my life has different priorities. Those things that I thought I would take this time off to think about, no longer has the same meaning that it did last year.
One major thing that I did not realize would change is the collection of toys. I am no longer interested in adding to or keeping my GI Joe collection. So I have been trying to sell them on the www.forums.yojoe.com I have been taking a lot of pictures of the collection. I have not opened the old boxes yet. I have been concentrating on the loose items I have bought since moving to Seattle.
http://picasaweb.google.com/jlbowen/GIJoe
Someone put the idea in my head of getting rid of books. Before I could change my mind, I took the books to Half-Price with this person. And I am thinking about getting rid of the rest of my books. I did not make any money on the books but at least the books are gone. The counter person pointed me towards the books that the store could not take. I went towards the box of books, reached towards them to see what was rejected, and said out loud, “No, Jason, RUN!”



  I have been trying to sell off my comic book collection. A couple issues here and there over the last couple of years but no major sales. I have been looking for a big dealer and I thought I had one lined up but that did not work out as hoped. Mostly, I messed up the automatic process of selling the collection. Trying to enter 4,000 comic books from one online program into another online program was not easy. I got maybe 100 books entered before I gave up.
This is where I am right now. I need to find some perspective on my life or something. I have been vaguely planning this vacation for years. Now the time is upon me.

Possible 35th Birthday Tahiti Trip Part II

Summer 2009
July 1 to September 27, 2009
Things were lining up for next years trip. I seemed to be on the path to being out of debt by December.
On July 1st, I went crazy for G.I. Joe toys. There was a spending spree for the The Rise of Cobra movie toys. Hasbro released new products to coincide with the movie release in August. Over July and August I spent a lot of money and time shopping for the toys. I spent over $2,000 on related merchandise. Including a Playstation 3 because of the G.I. Joe video game. This was before the price drop on the PS3. I think the last G.I. Joe thing I bought was some wristbands at Hot Topic. That was on September 27, 2009. Some time soon after that purchase, I realized that I was done with buying G.I. Joe merchandise. The appeal of filling my life with these toys was gone. I no longer want to buy anything. In fact, I started feeling the want to sell everything.

View Full Album

This craziness put a small hiccup on the plans for July 2010. I thought this was nothing too major though.
FALL 2009
Then in October/November I bought some electronics. The screen on my laptop died. My digital camera stopped working at the same time. I bought a new camera ($175) and a netbook ($325) in late November. October, I broke down and bought a Pre-Paid Cell phone. New stereo ($200) for my truck. Which meant a new passenger window ($200) when someone tried to steal it. Finally broke down and paid Toyota ($200) to change the dashboard lights that had been out for a long time.
In September I started wearing pants on a regular basis. This led to all sorts of wardrobe changes. Which meant spending money. I have bought pants, jeans, dress shirts, ties, and a suit.
Started drinking on a daily basis in October. At 23:00 almost every night I would go to Cafe Metropolitan and have 3 beers and a cocktail. I would do some writing. Then go home.
Started walking up the hill towards home after work. Losing weight made me have to replace those pants and jeans I had just bought. Regular walking everyday helped me work on the food side of my life. Fruits and vegetables became a staple of my diet.
END OF 2009 FINANCIAL PICTURE

Spending spree in July and August. Electronics in November. Trip to see family in December. Drinking. All these things put me further behind on getting out of debt.
But all the money problems do not address the main reason I am not going to Tahiti this year.
How to talk about that….See Part III

Clothes Shopping with my Mother

From a walk in April, the shorts that got replaced

Saturday June 5, 2010 I went for a walk around town in the morning. When I got home, I discovered that my woodland camo shorts had worn out. On Monday when my Mom was in town, I asked her to take me clothes shopping. I needed some new cargo shorts for my walks. I was also looking for a new belt buckle to replace the one I broke. I had no luck finding a buckle but I did find some new shorts.

I had on my skinny pants which at this point in time are a size 48. My old shorts were a lot bigger than that. I figured I should go down in size from my skinny pants as well. (a little loose and getting looser)My mom asked if they were going to be loose enough. I said, "Little tight right now but give me a week." I think a week was too optimistic.

I tried on a size 44 and had a little room to spare. Not enough to go down another size. I do need some flexibility while I walk. Crouching was also comfortable. The shorts also came with a nice gray belt. Now I could get rid of the brown belt that I had been using for my walks.

So no luck on that day for a belt buckle but I did get some new cargo shorts.

Weight Bench

First days of owning a weight bench. Apartment was a lot smaller after buying the weight bench.

And now it is time for it to go. I found a buyer so I took it away.

I never did use it as much as I wanted. I was hoping to get muscular but did not put the time in to work out.

Just a Short Post about my Current Weight

Today after lunch I went and weighed myself at Bartell Drugs next to the Central Seattle Public Library location on 4th avenue and Madison.
I had just had a deluxe steak burrito from Blue Water Taco. I saw the scale numbers bouncing around so I took off my jacket and started emptying my pockets. With my camera in hand I was able to get the scale to steady at 300. Now this is the same scale I have been using for years. The one time I compared this scale and the scale at the doctor's office, this one tends to be a little heavier. So I would say this scale is plus or minus 4 pounds. Still the lightest I have been since 2004.
That means that since the end of August 2009, I have lost over fifty pounds. During the week the library was closed, I started to come out of my funk. My older brother Mark had visited. Mark and I rented some bicycles. Mark introduced me to some new food. But the real turning point was meeting this one person near the end of the furlough.
I want to thank this certain person I meet. Without this person, I don't think I would have ever achieved this step. I would probably still be sleeping my way through my life.
Of course, I did have to see this very tempting display on my way to buy a Green Machine made by Odwalla. The last time I had a Twix bar was September 2009.


After weighing myself, I seemed to pick up some energy. Of course, that may be because I did just have lunch. But I felt like knowing I got back down to 300 lifted my spirits a little bit.