About Me

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Atlanta, GA, United States
When I suffered a lip injury that ended my career as a classical trombonist, I thought my life as a musician was finished, but I fell in love with music all over again when Santa gave me a guitar for Christmas in 2003. Even as I was struggling with my first chords, I was planning a new performance career. As a trombonist, I performed with the Heritage of America Band at Langley Air Force Base, the Ohio Light Opera, and in pick-up bands for touring acts that included Rosemary Clooney, George Burns, and the Manhattan Transfer. Reborn as a jazz guitarist, I sing and play my own solo arrangements of jazz classics, am half of the Godfrey and Guy duo, and hold the guitar chair in the Sentimental Journey Orchestra. I have been a freelance music copyist since 1995, served as Director of Music at Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation from 2011 to 2017, and currently serve as Contemporary Band Director at the same congregation.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Balancing Act

Last month I blogged about relapsing back to my old dietary ways, snuggling up at night with some chips and my two best friends, Ben and Jerry. After some recent struggle, I feel like I'm getting my weight under control again.

These last couple months have been about regaining balance. This past summer, I was exercising a lot, and I mean a lot! Pedaling the stationary bike for up to two hours some days, and walking 10-12 miles, I had it in my head that I would try ultra-marathoning at some point. (Frankly, this still sounds like a cool idea.) The problem was that when I took a church music director job, I didn't have time for this amount of exercise when you also factor in music engraving, practicing, and hustling up gigs.

Suddenly, I felt like I didn't have time to exercise at all. The music director job is only a 10 hour per week commitment, but that's about how much time I was exercising each week. In many respects, I'm an all or nothing kind of guy. Sometimes that plays to my advantage, but this time it got me in trouble. I just stopped exercising, thinking somewhere in my all or nothing brain that if I couldn't exercise for hours at a time, I couldn't exercise at all.

This was wrong, of course, and I've finally found my balance. I may not have time to plop on the stationary bike and pedal for two hours, but I have 30-40 minutes. If I have time to mess around on Facebook or write a blog, I have time to exercise. I can't eat as much as I did when I was working out 90-120 minutes at a time, which is a crying shame, so I've had to regain my balance there, too. It was hard to give up the Ben and Jerry's (again!), but I feel a lot better now that all the sugar is out of my system.

At this point, my newest "skinny clothes" are too tight, but give me a couple months and I'll be wearing them in style again!

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