October 12, 2025

This week, I want to talk about three main things:

1. How my diet is going
2. The new gear I got
3. The website I built

1. The Diet: Progress and Grace

It’s been two weeks since I started this health journey, and honestly—I’m already slipping a little bit. And that’s okay. No one’s perfect at this.

At the start, everything’s exciting—new foods, new routines, a sense of purpose. But slowly, those old habits start creeping back in. That’s where I’m at right now. I haven’t completely relapsed, but I’ve definitely loosened up a bit.

My wife (who’s a health psychologist, by the way) suggested I try the 80/20 rule. Basically, if I stick to my diet and exercise routine 80% of the time, it’s okay to relax for the other 20%. That means one cheat meal per week—not a whole day of indulgence, just one meal.

I’ve been following that… mostly. But this past weekend, life happened. Saturday’s usually our family eat-out day, and then on Sunday, we went to a pumpkin festival. We stayed out late, got hungry, and—of course—festival food isn’t exactly “diet-friendly.”

At first, I felt bad about it. But now I realize—it’s fine. Life doesn’t stop for a diet. What matters is that I’m still trending in the right direction. I’m down to 205 pounds, the lightest I’ve been in years. That’s progress.

The main thing I’m learning is to give myself grace. Some days I can’t eat perfectly or fit in a workout—and that’s okay. I’d rather pace myself than burn out.

2. The New Gear

This week, I treated myself to a couple of things to help keep me motivated.

First up—the Samsung Galaxy Fit 3. Apparently, it’s either discontinued or just not sold in the U.S. anymore, but I managed to find one imported on Amazon. Since I already use a Samsung phone, it just made sense to go with the same ecosystem.

This thing has been a game changer. It tracks my steps, heart rate, sleep, and calories burned. My daily goal is 10,000 steps and about 90 minutes of total activity. Between chasing the kids, walking, and exercising, I usually hit that pretty easily. It’s also set to help me burn at least 500 active calories a day, which syncs perfectly with my phone for tracking progress.

I also picked up a new pair of shoes. I’d been eyeing On Cloud shoes for a while—they just look cool—but after researching, I found they make versions for cross-training. I grabbed a pair I can wear for both workouts and everyday walking.

My old shoes were comfortable but too broken in—the soles were worn out, and I was starting to feel it in my feet, especially the right one. The new pair fixed that right away. The only downside? My feet are still adjusting, so the inside edges of my soles get sore sometimes. But overall, no more pain in the pressure points. Worth it.

3. The Website

Now for something I’m really proud of—my personal website.

It’s funny because this blog is technically about me building the website that this blog is hosted on. Kind of a full-circle moment.

The idea behind the site is simple: I wanted one space for all my creative outlets—music, art, graphic design, YouTube, and now writing. It’s basically my digital home base, a place that says:

“Hey, this is me. This is my brand. Here’s everything I create.”

If you’re into reading about a dad figuring life out—balancing health, family, and career—there are blogs for that. If you like gaming, I’ve got gameplay videos (right now mostly Monster Hunter Wilds). And if you’re into music, especially classic rap—the 50 Cent, Ludacris, or old-school Jay-Z era—I make that kind of music too.

In short, it’s a creative space for an artist to just be creative. Hopefully, over time it becomes a small community where other people can share, learn, and create too.

Building the Site

I built it using WordPress—and let me tell you, it’s not as simple as they make it sound. Once you understand how the WonderBlocks system works, it is pretty easy (mostly drag and drop). But there’s no real tutorial, which makes the learning curve steep if you’re new to it.

Thankfully, I’m the type who’ll sit and tinker with something until I figure it out. After about two days of trial and error, it finally clicked.

One thing I learned: if you’re using a theme, be careful with how you add blocks. Some themes interact weirdly with WonderBlocks—like you’ll drop in a paragraph or a video, and it’ll mess up the formatting.

My advice? If you’re starting from scratch, build without a theme or choose a simple one. In my case, I picked a theme that matched my black and yellow logo. It looked great, but once I started adding blocks, things got messy fast. I ended up stripping most of them out and formatting the paragraphs manually.

Now, I just use a few blocks—the blog section, the music section—and everything else I write by hand. It’s clean, simple, and it works.

Overall, the Bluehost setup was smooth. The hardest part was just figuring out WordPress itself. But I’m happy with how it turned out—it feels like me.

Wrapping Up

Two weeks in, I’m learning a lot about balance—between health, family, and creativity. Some days are messy, some are motivating, but that’s life.

The important thing is that I’m showing up for myself, whether it’s through exercise, writing, or just staying curious and creative.