The Daily Open Minded Writer

    As of today, I can say I’ve hit two solid weeks of consistently hitting the gym. I wanna say I am proud because this is a huge accomplishment. I haven’t been this consistent in years. However, this should be the bare minimum for anyone, in my opinion. I should be going at least three times a week. Still, considering the starting point, this is quite remarkable progress. If I can maintain it for a solid month, the next goal is to increase it to four days a week. I know it’s time to start incorporating cardio into my routine. Strength training is epic, and I absolutely love it. To get myself not only slimmer but also increase the longevity of my life, I need to decrease the high likelihood of developing diabetes or any of the secondary co-morbidities that happen to run in my family. Speaking of genetics, I can say that I have not won the genetic lottery. I am shorter than desired and bald (losing my hair by the age of 21 kind of sucked until I learned I have a milder form of alopecia, but that didn’t happen until many years later). The point of all this is that, with the newfound personal confidence I have, I hope to at least have a chance of possibly staving off the chronic diseases that run in my genetic bloodline. Unfortunately, I have been on the receiving end of all the bad luck. I can easily gain weight with minimal effort. I have already needed eye surgery because of the horrible astigmatism I’ve had to deal with. I would like to semi-live without having to stick myself with a needle. I don’t want to be limited in my life or what I do because my health sucks and prevents me from doing things. I don’t want to deal with the upkeep or side effects from all of the medications you have to take to keep living. I’ve seen many people who are living, but not actually living life. They are, to some extent, more or less existing. That right there is one of my all-time fears in life: ending up in a nursing home, staring off into space as the days pass, with little hope or joy from anything but the occasional visit, if I am lucky. Since I am not in a relationship and do not have kids of my own, I have very little hope for that. So, putting all that together, it’s a good time now to prevent that hell from ever occurring. I want to say I am already prediabetic, but it’s nothing more than a gut feeling. I have little proof outside of getting my HbA1c checked. Truth be told, getting it checked scares the hell out of me because I don’t want to be told I am either diabetic or prediabetic. I already eat a stupid healthy diet, but I know that when I did the ketogenic diet, I had never felt better. I lost a significant amount of weight relatively quickly, considering the circumstances. But Jesus, it was so hard to stay consistent with it because keeping your diet below 20 grams of carbohydrates per day is just brutal on anyone.
     On a brighter note, I was somewhat proud of myself last night because I took a leap of faith and attended the local super bike meet in the city to try to make friends, even though this was out of my comfort zone. Still, I was trying to take a super big leap of faith and put myself out there a little more to work on my goals for the year and make progress.  I would say they were way nicer to me than I had expected. I guess my fear of rejection and ridicule for not being as good as the other riders there, because some of them have been riding for many, many years, and a few had some super high-end bikes that I could only hope to have one day, let alone be able to ride that much of a powerful motorcycle.  God knows I struggle being able to handle the power from my bike and I cant turn or shift for shit but I am trying and I hope I am learning or at very least I am trying to do better though I am not sure how much better of a rider I really am because I still take corners so slow and I have genuine fear of going super fast but I do have an opportunity to ride with them later tonight but I have some real fear of going riding with them and being the idiot that cant keep up but I also know riding with them will also make me a better rider at the same time and they were all wearing gear including helmets so that made me feel better about going with them, I am thinking of meeting up with them tomorrow night bull shitting some more and getting a semi feel of how they are and then next week going for a ride with them if the weather holds out, worse comes to worse I guess I could always bow out mid ride and head home or something but at the same time I would like to continue to go up and meet other riders and dipping out would kind of self exile my self from the group at the same time ugh I really hate how my head goes down these really bad rabbit holes but it was so cool being able to meet other riders and know I am not alone because for so long I have only seen a few here and there when I was riding given I only ride in the dead of night out of fear of really playing in a lot of traffic and how many close calls I have had with me being the only one on the road is astronomical.  That being said, it might have something to do with the fact that I only really ride when it’s like one to two in the morning, so it might be due to the quality of drivers that are out at that hour.
     On the other hand, it might be because I suck at riding, or it could be a combination of the two, but I am really hoping it has more to do with the quality of late-night drivers than anything. I feel like time will tell which factor is the cause of it all.  I’m not going to lie, though; this guy at the bike meet had an Aprilia bike, and, God, it was so nice. Another had a ZX10R; both are definitely on my list for the next bike I get after I become a better rider. However, I like the fact that I feel like I can semi-control my motorcycle. Many of the one-liter bikes are incredibly wild and hard to control; it blows my mind that so many riders dream of owning one or, in fact, do own one. Still, I can’t really control it to save my life, and being able to feel comfortable and knowing I have absolute control of my bike is really one of my top goals when it comes to riding.  I like this plan now that I’ve talked it out, go to the bike meet, hang out a little more, maybe swap some social media so I can actually talk with them outside the meet, then next week I take the plung and go for a ride with them and hope I can half ass keep up with them worst comes to worse I am just stupid far behind. I will eventually catch up somehow, maybe, if not, I guess I just let push me out because I can’t keep up, or perhaps I can get lucky and they can help me and push me to be a better and more confident rider, but more to come as this new adventure continues.