For Mike, it’s all about finding that perfect balance of fun and work.

Balance can be a tricky thing, just ask Gary Kubiak (if you’re not a Texans fan, that may fly over your head). I’ll be the first to admit that it’s been tough to keep that balance between eating the foods I want to, cutting my portions and exercise. Portion size, weirdly enough for me, has been the easiest to control.

I’ve said throughout this experiment that exercise is my nemesis. And it’s not because I don’t like to break a sweat. I’m extremely competitive when it comes to sports – I played basketball through high school and football in college until my knees couldn’t take anymore – so I know what it means to be active and try to be the best at what I do. It’s finding the time to actually get out and do something that’s the problem.

So I started to really take a look at my life and try to find out what the real, bottom line challenge is. And I discovered that it’s getting past myself. What I mean is, I have all these things that are important in my life – family, work, cooking. But there’s one thing that I really believe is holding me back. And it seems so trivial, but it really is costing me big time. Sleep.

I sleep way too much. Normally I’m asleep before 11 and I get up around 6:45. I shower, get dressed and leave for work around 7:20. I’m at work by 8. I leave around 5:30. I’m home by 6:30. I cook dinner and eat by 7:30. I get the kids ready for bed by 8:30. By that point, I’m winding down and I realize that I haven’t left any room for what is essentially the most important thing in my quest to lose 100 lbs – working out to burn off those calories. (Believe me, I was not happy with these results. I love to sleep. I could go pro in sleeping.)

After much analysis and thinking about what’s important to me, I decided there’s only one area where I can make time to hit the gym. And that’s early in the morning. So my new goal is to get up by 5:45, be at the gym every morning by 6:00, work out for 30-40 minutes, get home by 6:45 and continue with my daily routine from there.

Man, this is going to suck. But it’s what has to be done. Thank goodness I have an awesome Rib Crawl to look forward to on Saturday.