Welcome


Thoughts on fitness, health, good nutrition ... and running.


Welcome to Bald Man Running, a blog launched by Frank Murphy on January 1, 2015.

In March, 2013 I was selected as a contestant for the sixth season of Fort Wayne's Smallest Winner. Through this amazing program, I learned about good nutrition, sound exercise and accountability. By October, I would lose over 88 pounds (almost 37% of my original weight)! One of the many things I acquired through FWSW was a love for running. You can retrace my weight loss journey and discover how I became a runner by reading those entries labeled "fwsw" ...

Note: Many of the blog entries on this website predate 1/1/2015. Prior to launching BMR, I had written articles for various projects, and I have imported many of them into this blog (labeled "retro").

Monday, June 17, 2013

Nowaydea!

First, a weigh-in update: lost 5.2 pounds this week, which put me over 20% of my original weight. I'm almost to 50 pounds. That's going to be a really big milestone. Booyah!

Second, I was running with my mentor this morning and we tend to chat a little during our runs. I was telling him a little about a trip I took to Africa in 1988. It was after my freshman year of college that I had a wonderful opportunity to go on a six week trip with New Tribes Mission to Liberia. My team did construction work on a chapel and a school building. It was a life-changing experience for me. When I got back from Africa, I transferred to a Bible college and began to pursue a career in ministry.

My run with Michael reminded me of that trip when he asked how I was doing with the pace we were keeping, and I said, "nowaydea." In the part of Liberia I visited, a traditional greeting was (pardon the misspellings) "jhonotay," which means "how is your body?" (or "how is your health?"). The standard answer is "nowaydea," which means "my body is fine" (or "I am healthy."). In Liberia, I would walk over to single ladies on my team and say, "nowaydea" ... and they would say, "we didn't ask how you were doing." To which I would reply, "well ... my body IS fine." (And yes, I did this on a missions trip.)

That was a long time ago (25 years). I don't know why Michael's question triggered that memory, but I'm glad it did. My team leaders kept telling us write a journal of our experiences so we wouldn't forget things like that. I didn't take them too seriously and barely wrote anything down. When Rick and Tina told us to blog faithfully, I didn't want to repeat the idiocy of not writing meaningful memories down. You may have noticed I've taken this whole blogging thing pretty seriously ... I think it's been a big part of my success.

If you're thinking about jumping on this fitness journey, be sure to write stuff down. Not just your meal plans and such, but your thoughts, fears and triumphs. I'm really looking forward to rediscovering this material when I reread this blog in 2038 ... and because I'm learning how to be healthy for the rest of my life, I fully intend to stick with these changes so I can always say, "nowaydea."

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