What One Great Thing?

What One Great Thing?

It is a question that Bryan Tracy asks on his audio program, "The Psychology of Success."  Here is the complete question:  "What one great thing would you accomplish if you knew you could not fail?  It's not an easy question and requires thought, for someone like I am.  Maybe others, even many, have a quick and ready answer but I wanted to think mine out.  I began working from goals many years ago, in 1987 in fact.  I had set some goals before, and accomplished a number of them.

For example, when I was seventeen and in love and had a terribly crashed romance with my girlfriend, after I struggled with so many things, I quit school and enlisted in the United States Navy.  I was barely seventeen having my birthday in February and enlisting in March.  I went through Boot Camp in San Diego, then Radar "A" School in San Francisco and then boarded my ship, the USS Point Defiance (LSD-31) in December of 1961.  After I left the navy, I had a goal of finishing high school, which I did, in 1967, five years after my graduating class of 1962.  I was married, had a new son and a low paying, hard working job as a truck driver and cylinder gas delivery person.  Then I got a job with Phillips Petroleum Company (after my diploma) and I worked there for 33 1/2 years.  I started college when I was 29 and working for Phillips and as I went along in my career, I acquired college hours, got a better job, more hours, better job, etc.  So I had goals but I never grasped the power of goals until I began to study under Zig Ziglar.  What were my goals?  Well, too many to list here but let me highlight a few.  I set a goal to personally meet Zig, and did.  In fact, I am listed in his book, "Over theTop" on page 106, as Stephen Payne from Bartlesville, Oklahoma.  I set a goal to meet Stephen Covey, author of "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" and met him.  Then it was to meet Tom Hopkins; did: Meet Bryan Tracy; did.  I set a goal to learn Spanish.  I later became a Spanish interpreter and translator, worked in two jobs as an interpreter, taught Spanish, then I learned French, Italian, German, Russian, Mandarin Chinese and now I am busily learning Polish and I can speak, read and write Polish.  So, you can see why I had to think, "What one great thing?"

Years ago, I wrote out my personal mission statement, which is long, but the nutshell version is this: My mission is to learn, teach and give.  I do that.  I love learning and I've even been called The Learning Machine; I can't help teaching as it's in my nature and I give.  I give books.  I have given over 200 copies of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, around one hundred copies of Joyce Hifler's book, "The Cherokee Feast of Days," a number of "The Magic of Thinking Big" and many other books.  Then I began to give the Marine's Bible to marines I could meet and find.  I began to give the Soldier's Bible, and as of this week, we have given 640 of the Holman Military Bibles.

Could I reach 1,000?  Yes, of course, as we are not so far from that.  We will reach 700 Bibles by the end of 2013 and then next year, more, so 1,000 is hardly a challenge then.  What one great thing?  I decided to set my goal as 10,000 Bibles to give and then some of the things Bryan said came back to me.  What one great thing would you accomplish if you KNEW you could not fail?  

My goal is to give 100,000 Holman Christian Standard Bibles to the men and women of our armed services.  That has now become my one great thing.  As some athletes have said, you miss all of the shots you don't take; as Jelly Bean Jones said, "The girl you don't ask out ain't going with you anyway."  So, I set a high goal, one so high I can not yet see it, but it's there now, carved in ink, and I'm on my way to it.

The photograph I chose?  Yes, that is I, in the tandem jump from 10,000 feet with Andy Beck, my jump master and I had a wonderful time.  I am 69 years of age now and made my first jump.  I did it to deal with my fear of height and it has worked pretty well so far.  It's part of my processes, to learn, to teach, and to give.  

We did a free fall for 38 seconds and it didn't feel like we were moving.  We hung in the air as we talked and I looked all around me, down, sideways, up, and I loved the feeling of sailing through the air, even downward.  Once the parachute opened, Andy taught me how to drive and let me go left, right, even spin us, and then we were down, landing softly, and I feel different today, a week and days since I went out of the airplane.  Jumping was a goal but not my one great thing.  But I know now what my one great thing is, to give 100,000 Bibles, and I cannot fail.

Stephen Joe "Red Boots" Payne

The New Challenge

The New Challenge

The Last Ten Pounds

I have done well this year, since I began my program back in January and I weighed 204.0 lbs, then actually had a weight gain to 207.0 lbs. as I progressed, but not discouraged by the gain.  I then began a progressive and steady decrease in my weight with a goal of losing at least two ounces each day.  I achieved an average weight loss of over four ounces per day and I continued that through May.  June has been a more difficult month for me as I have been steady between 162 and 165 lbs.  My tracking program in Microsoft Excel has a conditional setting that if I exceed 164.8 lbs, the entry turns red and in bold print so that I notice it and can't deny it.  That is what I call my red flag weight and it means I have failed and it's time for new, desperate means.  That means going right back to work on a low carbohydrate diet and other desperate measures.

The main thing then is to watch my addiction to carbohydrates and make serious corrections in my program. First thing is, I weigh every day.  I have a good scale that I bought last year and then I quit weighing.  I believe that I did not need to weigh, as long as I stayed on my program but then, the truth was that I was getting off of my program.  I probably started by eating ice cream and I've always told myself that it was high in fat but low in carbohydrates so I could allow myself some.  Some turned into too much and then I was not weighing daily so I drifted into bad patterns.

I have a friend who told me that he had fallen off of the wagon, meaning he had erred and eaten too many carbohydrate heavy meals and had gained weight.  He is in the early and critical stages, meaning that he has not allowed enough time to enter ketogenic status.  My comment (to myself as much as to anyone) is that we don't fall off of the wagon; we sort of slowly and gently step down.  A fall will wake us up and scare us, stepping down softly and gently allows us to go into a half stupor.  Weighing every day so that we know our patterns is critical.  Something can't be critical without being important by definition so, yes, weighing daily is important.  My pattern is that Saturdays are always my lowest weight of the week and then I'll go up slightly by Monday.  The remainder of the week is a slow decrease until I get back into my average weight decrease again.  The graphic that I have loaded for June shows how my weight rose, then fell and rose again.  The high of 165 lbs. happened the morning after we had journeyed to eastern Oklahoma on business and having missed lunch, we stopped in a store and got water, coffee and a snack.  I got pig skins, which have zero grams of carbohydrates.  Why did my weight jump the next morning?  I have to conclude that it was likely the higher content of sodium, sitting most of the day in a car, and perhaps something else that I just don't understand.  For the time being,, I'm watching eating pig skins just in case they somehow contributed.  And, I'm still watching carbohydrate intake and keeping them low.

Once in a while, I have a yearning for yogurt and I'll add some nuts to it, cashews, Macadamia nuts, pecans, because I like the addition of a crunch to the yogurt.  I've had a couple of these yogurt treats during June.  I'm at a stable weight now and I can probably maintain that with ease; but I still want to reach my goal of 155 lbs. and I have not yet given up. I will reach it.  In fact, when I write out my goals and affirmations, I write "I weigh 155 lbs. as my permanent, healthy weight."  I was writing that when I weighed 204 lbs.  Notice that it is personal, using "I", positive (as in fait accompli), present tense.  I have reduced each of my measurements of chest, waist, hips, thigh and calf and I am now wearing a 30" waist jean with 29" length.

It has cost me a lot because I have had to replace all of my jeans and other trousers and I've given away those larger sizes that I took off.  People ask why I didn't put them in the closet.  Several reasons: I don't want to make it easy to gain weight, I don't need them, someone else does, and last and most important, it's a mind set.  My removal of all of them means I am committed to my program to weigh 155 lbs. or less in a healthy fashion; in a determined, healthy fashion.

I expect to weigh 160 lbs. by the end of July and to reach 155 lbs. by the anniversary of the date of the death of my son, September 6.  My son died ten years ago, at age 36 on that day.  He was a victim of juvenile diabetes which slowly took his life.  It is an important date to me and so I chose that date to reach my ideal weight.  

One thing I did recently, June 30, was to jump from an airplane at an altitude of 10,000 feet.  It was my first jump and I enjoyed it immensely.  I would not have jumped at a heavier weight so it was part of my reward system I set up within me for reaching one of my weight goals.

Stephen Joe Payne

Body by Payne

Reaching my Goal for May

Reaching my goal for May, 2013

The graph represents my data for the month of May showing my overall change, and also the bumps that I had now and then as my weight did its usual jump at one or two places. I can not always account for it either.  And then there is a self photograph made with a small camera into a mirror.  Not a before photograph but I am getting close to my goal weight and perhaps will reach it within 60 days.

At the end of the previous month, I set a goal to reach 165 lbs. by the end of May.  I began the month of May weighing 170.2 lbs and completed the month weighing 163.2 lbs., a net change in weight reduction of 7.0 lbs.  For me, as I think in ounces instead of pounds, that is 112 ounces for an average of 3.6 oz./day, which is something I can manage and believe in.  Also, I exceeded my stated goal of 165 by 1.8 lbs.

The main thing in my program, once again, is process.  A process, planned and executed well, gives results.  Also, a process that is not planned gives results.  Eating indiscriminately or the wrong foods is as much a process as planned eating of the right foods.  What are right foods?  They are not what I once believed and even was taught.

After I read the book, "Protein Power," by the Doctors Eades, I began to follow their program and I lost weight.  I do lose weight each and every time that I follow their program and practice what I learned from them.  But it took more attempts and failures to understand how my body and system respond to carbohydrates.  I fall off of the wagon now and then.  Carbohydrates are addictive, and in my case, they are destructive.  Excessive carbohydrate consumption for me creates depression, so it's not an idle and small issue for me; it's life threatening.

After the Eades, I also read Dr. Atkins book and learned that he was teaching almost the same thing.  Then Gary Taubes book, "Good Calories, Bad Calories" was published and I read it, more than one time.  Since then, Gary has published "Why We Get Fat and What to do about it."

I try to keep my carbohydrate consumption below ten grams per day.  Carbohydrates are sneaky and creep into many things.  I had a friend who was losing weight and she told me that she was on a low carbohydrate regimen.  She was eating yogurts and smoothies so I asked her how many she consumed and she replied that it was several a day, sometimes four.  I asked her to look at the label and see how many grams of carbohydrates she was consuming.  Some of her yogurt dishes had more than 40 grams in the container; and she was drinking smoothies, also around 40 grams.  She threw all of them out then and restarted with a different perspective.  Carbohydrates are sneaky and often are hidden in what we eat; that is why I try for ten and may actually be consuming twenty; but in general, I consume much fewer than I did and fewer than many other people do.

My goal for the month of June is to reduce my weight by 4.4 lbs. to reach a weight of 158.8 lbs.  That is 70.4 oz. and requires an average of only 2.4 oz. per day, again, something I can manage and believe in.  I have now arrived at that last ten pounds, the difficult part we often say.  But I don't think it will be difficult, as long as I continue with the process of eating low carbohydrate and continuing a vigorous exercise program.  The 2.4 oz. is .15 lbs. per day, barely noticeable on a standard bathroom scale but in a month's time, it should present itself as a visible weight loss.

Stevie Joe Payne
Body by Payne

May Goal of 165 lbs.

May Goal of 165 lbs.

My goal for the month of May is to weigh 165 lbs. or less by June 1, 2013 and to remain on my process for the entire month of May to achieve that goal.

I had assumed that my weight loss would slow to about 2 ounces per day but I have been surprised to find it still averaging just over 4 ounces per day, about 1 and 1/4 lbs. per week.  I began my program around the 20th of January when I weighed 204 lbs. and I actually had a small weight gain to 207 lbs.  My weight loss then, from January 26, until May 2, is a net 34.4 lbs, or 550.4 oz.  I use oz. as a measure because it is more realistic for me to think in smaller units, that is to lose 4 oz. day, but, as I said, that normally slows down as we get closer to a lower number in weight.  I have been on my process for 96 days which results in an average weight loss of 5.73 oz. day, meaning that some days and weeks, I have had a greater loss and then some days and weeks, not much at all.  And, every once in a while, I will have an upward spike; I can not account for it either.  I can try to attribute it to muscle mass gain but that may be a falsehood, just something that I want desperately to believe.  I would rather just go with the numbers.  My average weight loss in lbs. is   0.36 lbs./day.

I began April weighing 179 lbs. and finished at 170.8 lbs. for a net change downward of 8.2 lbs. or 131.2 ounces, averaging 4.37 oz./day for the month.  On the graphic my actual weight is in blue while my estimated goal weight is in an bit of an orange (I think) so my achieved weight was slightly below my goal weight.  I consider this good and consistent progress and I'm pleased with it.  Yes, I'm greedy and impatient and I would like to achieve more and faster but I'm also experience and educated enough to understand the reality of losing weight, especially at my age.  

Again, it's process, how and what I eat from my education and consistency and process properly planned and executed must, and I emphasize must, produce a result.  Overeating and eating the wrong foods is also a process and the assured result is weight gain and illness.

Stephen Joe "Red Boots" Payne

Body by Payne

Before and After

Before and After

Do you realize that most available log books want you to make a before and after photograph?  Let's think about that.  You weigh 250 lbs. and are defined as clinically obese and you want to make a photograph of that.  Why?  Do you want to remember what you looked like then so that you can cleverly find ways to return to that old weight?  That's what a before photograph is inviting you to do.  Today I weigh 169.4 lbs (2710.4 ounces) and I took a photograph which I thought I might post.  I look much better than I did when my birthday arrived on February 12 of this year when I was weighing 204, but still, I have the places on my side above my hips and I don't like those so, why photograph them?  If I believed that this is the best I'll be, then I would, but my ultimate goal is 155-157 lbs. with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 24.6 (or less).  I can and I will reach that goal.  Then I will make a photograph and post it; and it will be the one that I'll want to keep in front of me, to remind me how I want to appear, to me and to others. And, ultimately, I hope what I have done and posted will help someone else.

Books (information) to help:

Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes.  It has a lot of information and may be technical for some, i.e. hard to read

Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It by Gary Taubes, the less technical and more easy to read version of Good Calories, Bad Calories

The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living: An Expert Guide to Making the Life-Saving Benefits of Carbohydrate Restriction Sustainable and Enjoyable by Stephen Phinney and Jeff Volek.  Did you see the words "Life-Saving" in that long title?  I read this book after all of the others and I found it to be an excellent guide on how to do it.  I've added 2 cubes a day of beef broth since I read it.

Dr. Berstein's Diabetes Solution: The Complete Guide to Achieving Normal Blood Sugars by Richard K. Bernstein.  On this one, my only child, Stephen William Payne was a type I (juvenile) diabetic and died at age 36 from the complications of the disease.  I have to believe that this book and his execution of the matter in it would have allowed him to have lived much longer with much greater health.  It's a great book, and a great story.

The Inflammation Syndrome: Your Nutrition Plan for Great Health, Weight Loss, and Pain Free Living by Jack Challem.  I was looking for books on inflammation and Google helped me find this title.  It added to my knowledge of my illness.  I develop inflammation quickly from carbohydrate excess and it is painful and limiting.  I can raise my arms over my head now and use both arms and hands well.  I could not do that before I began to realize the inflammation syndrome in my life.

Protein Power: The High-Protein/Low-Carbohydrate Way to Lose Weight, Feel Fit, and Boost Your Health-in Just Weeks! by Michael and Mary Dan Eades.  The Eades' program was my first exposure to health through this diet and I still go back to it often.

The New Atkins for a New Your: The Ultimate Diet for Shedding Weight and Feeling Great by Dr. Eric Westman, Dr. Stephen Phinney and Jeff S. Volek.  After I had followed the Eades for a while, I went to the original Dr. Atkins and this book is updated with anything that happened since he wrote it.

No before photographs but once I am at goal weight and health, then I will make a photograph which will be the new before and then the old and new after.

Stephen Joe "Red Boots" Payne
Body by Payne

March 2013 and Goals

March 2013 and Goals

 I set the major goal for March, 2013 to lose six pounds between March 1 and March 31.  The six pounds was based upon my program of losing four ounces per day for the month, or 124 ounces for the month, which computes to 7.25 lbs.  But I did not think I could lose that much so I set a realistic goal of 6 lbs. for the month of March.  I began March with a weight of 188.2 lbs. and completed March with a weight of 180.4 lbs. which resulted in a 7.8 lbs. loss of weight; that is 124.8 ounces, so I did better than I thought I would.  I have projected, based upon a loss of 2 oz. per day, reaching my goal of 160 lbs. in 163 days, or October 1, 2013.  The 160 goal is a first target and my true goal is 155-157 lbs. because that will result in Body Mass Index (BMI) of less than 25.  This is the number that I am told by physicians that I should reach to be healthy.

I am following a low carbohydrate diet, and let's not be afraid of the word "diet" because whatever we do with food is a diet.  There is the old fashion and famous "See Food Diet" which prescribes "whatever I see, I eat."  A golfer began that one but I forget which golfer now.  If we eat unrestricted food, that's a diet; just not a very healthy one.  When I was a youngster, in high school, and the navy, and then later, I could eat what I wanted to without gaining weight.  My wife could too.  It's a given that for a great number of us humans, as we age, we lose some ability to eat everything and anything without gaining weight.  I see it in many friends and in myself.  From the Doctors Eades, Dr. Atkins, Drs. Phinney and Volek, and Gary Taubes, I have learned much about carbohydrates, insulin, glucose, glycogen, and other tools of our energy provision.

I've had to conclude that I have two issues; (1) carbohydrate sensitivity, and (2) carbohydrate addiction.  Carbohydrate sensitivity means that we respond to carbohydrates easily and produce insulin in over abundance and store fat from that insulin stimulation.  Insulin does several things but it's main function is to store fat in our cells.  Another hormone releases fat for energy.  

Carbohydrate addition is a need to consume carbohydrates, whether it is a real need within our bodies or an imagined need created by emotion, need for comfort, fun--such as popcorn and a Coke with it--or just a habit left over from our childhood.  It can be any number of things.  For example, from my early movie going experiences as a child and then teen, movies meant a Coke, popcorn, often a candy bar, in the proper venue, a hot dog, perhaps (later on) nachos with cheese and jalapeno peppers.  When I was in navy radar school in San Francisco, we could pay extra for a loge seat and smoke (cigarettes only; no pipes or cigars).

It was, for me, a near Pavlovian response; go to a movie, must have Coke and popcorn.  I now go to a movie and have only water, if I have that, in the gloriously overpriced plastic bottles ($3.50 for a bottle last time out).  It took me a lot to get past my staple of popcorn and a soft drink but I managed to do it when I began this program.

One of the things I did, as soon as I was able, was to buy some new jeans.  I wear Lee brand jeans.  I bought eight pair in size 34 waist with a 29 inseam and then, against my wife's wishes, or even her knowledge, I took 30 pair of jeans and slacks to the west side of town and gave all of them to a mission to help others there.  My wife suggested that I keep them "in case I gain weight again."  No; I chose not to because thinking that way sets me up to gain weight.  I refuse now to do so; that is, clearly "Failure is not an option."  Here is why; carbohydrates are more than just addictive to me.  They result in inflammation and in my case, as I am sure in other people, they cause depression.  It took me a while to understand that but I do now.

From Brian Tracy's program, "The Psychology of Achievement" I am learning, once again, to program myself with visual tools, goals and affirmations.

Stephen Joe "Red Boots" Payne
Body by Payne, April 22, 2013

Goal Setting

Goal Setting

March 7, 2013    Thursday

Weight: 186.6 lbs. BMI=29.66

Weight in ounces: 2985.6

March 8, 2013    Friday
Weight 185.4 lbs. BMI=29.47
Weight in ounces: 2966.4

March 9, 2013    Saturday
Weight: 185.2 lbs. BMI=29.44
Weight in ounces: 2963.2

March 10, 2013 Sunday
Weight: 184.6 lbs. BMI=29.35
Weight in ounces: 2953.6

March 14, 2013 Thursday
Weight: 183.2 lbs. BMI=29.12
Weight in ounces: 2931.2

Here is one of those plateaus.  I have weighed in at 186.6 lbs. for the last three days.  I have been running three miles each day, staying with my process of diet and exercise and it is knowing that I am following a process that prevents me from having emotional issues about not losing more now.  Early on, at a higher weight, my weight loss was quicker but I knew it would slow, and change.  As I reach a lower weight, with the exercise, some of the weight is the change from fat to muscles mass, and that will change again once I stabilize.

I am listening to Brian Tracy's audio program, "The Psychology of Achievement" which is a six CD program with advice.  I first listened to it in 1987, actually when it was on cassette audio.  The technology has changed, and he has updated the program, but the basic program is unchanged.  The essence of his program is success and it is a achieved by setting goals.  I've used the techniques I learned from Brian before, but like many of the things in life for us, I get away from it.  I get busy studying languages and get away from my daily program.

In setting a goal, it must be personal, positive, specific.  President John F. Kennedy said, "It is our goal to place a man on the moon and return him safely to earth by the end of this decade."  There it was, clear, visible, specific.  He did not say someday but before 1970, by the end of the decade of the 1960's.

When I began to lose wait for my program, I used what I knew about medical science, weight for a male my age, and I determined my weight should be 160 lbs.  I then subtracted that weight from my existing weight, multiplied that weight in lbs. by 16 for ounces per pound, and then divided that weight in ounces by 4 for my intended weight loss of 4 ounces each day and projected that information in time and allowed myself a reasonable time for errors.  So, I could then state my goal as:

My goal is to weigh less than 160 lbs. by October 1, 2013 by healthy choices and actions.

Brian Tracy says that we should have a present tense statement such as "I weigh 160 lbs." no matter what the weight is at the moment.  These are actually affirmations.

I weigh 160 lbs.
I earn $350,000 per year
I drive a new Subaru Outback

Affirmations are powerful tools.


I did not finish writing this at the time and I wanted to finish the goal statement before I moved on and began new entries.

Stephen J. "Red Boots" Payne
Body by Payne