Welcome to the official website for Today I Can. I’m the founder of the organization, Ford Baker, and I’d like to share my story with you. Hopefully, I can inspire you the same way I was inspired to get my life back on track, one day at a time.

Getting Started Physically

There is a lot of information on this site about bicycling, a lot of pictures and adventures and accomplishments I have had on a bicycle, but this is not a bicycle site, it's a getting started and staying motivated site.

If you look at any of the before / after pictures, over half of that work was done before I ever got on a bike. That's the physical work and the mental work. There are a lot of reasons why I think bicycling is a good long term solution, but if you are anything like I was, you may not be ready to get on a bike.

There are lots of stories on the site built around getting started, but the core element in that boils back to a simple premise, go for a walk and make good decisions. Don't diet, don't sign up for a spin class or join a gym, just go for a walk and start making good decisions, today.

You can do that, today. Let tomorrow take care of itself, just worry about today.

I did, I walked my dog 15 minutes then turned around and came back. The next day I walked a little longer. After a while, I walked a little faster. After a couple of months I had built up to walking 2 miles in 30 minutes before I turned around, that's an hour invested and it cost me nothing. With that as my only exercise, I lost more weight than I ever have before, faster than I ever have before and guess what, it hasn't come back. I've bounced around where I am at now, but those pounds have stayed off, I am also not done. I am pretty sure this isn't all the answers, I have a lot more to learn and when I do, I will share it here and if you decide to join me on this journey, I look forward to hearing what you learned. That's why we are here.

It really is that simple. 

Getting Started Mentally

The mental aspect of this is every bit as important as the physical, it is actually more important because getting started mentally is the basis for making good decisions.

What are good decisions? Chances are you know what you are doing to yourself with your food consumption, so you can probably identify a bad decision pretty easily, it's making those good decisions that is hard.

A diet seeks to change the action, but not the relationship. How many times have you watched a celebrity go up and down with their weight? At some point in their skinny faze they talk about what they did and they describe that diet as if they had just discovered the cure for cancer: "and guess what??? It tastes great!" 

The message they want to convey to you is that they learned that the primary purpose for food is to make you happy because it tastes great. That you can lose weight and still keep the same relationship with food and that's simply not true, especially for folks who spent 20 years in the morbidly obese category like I did.

I love cheeseburgers and in the world of cheeseburgers, as far as I am concerned, Burger King has the worst cheeseburger, the Big Mac is pretty bad as well but for me, the bottom of the barrel is the Whopper. If you gave me the best thing on the menu from one of those diets like Nutrisystem or Weight Watchers, I am really confident it wouldn't taste as good as a Whopper, so if I am making decisions based on taste ... well you probably know where that ends up.

This message could not be further from the truth and sometimes you just have to pull the band aid off, to shout "the Emperor has no clothes!" Losing weight is not a temporary or short term program and when that solution is promoted, it is a lie, based on something someone is promoting trying to make a dollar off your situation. Do you know what else they know? That if you don't pick their solution, that's okay, they can get you next time because they know what you are afraid of, that you will be back.

That's another pretty neat thing here, we don't charge you a penny for our program. I had a friend that helped me at every turn, how I exercised, how I ate, when I ate, what I ate and he never charged me a penny, so I am paying that back the best way I know how, give it away again. Why would I spend money out of my own pocket to develop a website, to tweet and promote, to give away bikes? There has to be a catch and this is it, being fit is absolutely the most amazing thing you can imagine. If I did this and only one guy benefitted from it and got the same enjoyment I do, that is good enough for me, but truthfully, I'd like every person who thinks they aren't worthy because of the way they look, that they are wrong, that someone cares and wants them to get out of that situation.

But that really caring message comes with the truth, you can't hope for long term success without changing what you think about food. I would encourage you to have a "DTR" with food. 

What's a DTR? I learned that from my son when he was in high school, it's what a guy and a girl did when they started dating, they had a conversation to "define the relationship." Where is this going? Are we dating? Are we ready to be Facebook official? Things have changed a lot since I was in high school. But that's what we want you to do with food, not be Facebook official, but to define what the primary purpose of food is in your life.

Here is the secret answer, and there is only one good one ... food is fuel. That is it's only real purpose, it can taste good, but that's a byproduct. Without fuel you would run down and die, without good fuel, you end up with a lot of residual issues that come with costly repairs.

How do you have a DTR with food? In this case, I think it is important to start to establish that quickly, you are ending that relationship, today. There is a lot more on the site about how I did that as well. I had a quick clean breakup, we weren't going to keep being friends, food's role in my life was changing.

Let me sum it up

One thing that isn't in the above paragraphs and isn't part of how I did it, is this, I am not saying you can't ever have another cheeseburger, I am not saying you have to spend the rest of your life eating raw kale. I am just saying today, don't have a cheeseburger and substitute that with a healthy option (not necessarily raw kale).

Better yet, try this: wake up and ask God to help you make good decisions about what you eat and drink, to keep you safe and to give you the strength to walk the dog and then don't eat a cheeseburger and walk the dog. Anyone can do it for one day and if that works out, you can try it again tomorrow. 

TODAY YOU CAN!

Do you have any questions or comments? Maybe you would like to share your Today I Can story with me. If so, then send me an email and I will get back to you, I would love to hear from you.