For a few months now I have pursued a personal goal to lose weight, before I go into specific detail let me give you a little bit of a background story if I may.
Right from a young age I was always a very slim, some might say skinny and small kid, as in I was and still am not that tall. I would say right up until the age of 18 I was very slight, no real muscle definition to speak of just a rather skinny frame. Around the time I started working for a living at 18 (I was in college up until this point) I started to fill out a little. It was very gradual probably taking more than 8 years but eventually I ended up very overweight. I would say by the time I was in my late twenty’s I was what they would call morbidly obese with a Body Mass Index in excess of 40.
I think at my biggest I was around 210 pounds which converts to 15 stone for us Brits. While that may not sound terrible, for a guy of 5 foot and 7 Inches who didn’t really have much muscle definition to speak of it was pretty bad, with most of that weight being carried around the waist. I stayed like that for a long time I would say well into late thirties. While I hated it and everything that it did to how I felt about myself, I just didn’t seem to be able to do anything about it.
I joined countless gyms and never went there, I started this routine or that routine, various diets including a brief spell with Atkins, I bought treadmills and all manner of machines that would sit unused or utilised as clothes hangers.
The extra weight and how I felt about it was killing my self-esteem, it made me very self-conscious, it made me even more shy and introverted than I already was and made me feel very inferior to those around me, and yet I carried it around for years and years without really doing that much to try and lose it.
In 2010 a lot changed in my life, I mean a lot, probably way more that I would want to get into here, but let’s just say my whole personal life was turned upside down. I don’t mean in a bad way, although there were some real challenges that came along with all the good changes. A side effect of everything that changed was a started to lose a few pounds and it felt good, people commented and complemented and that felt even better.
Around six weeks ago I decided to seize this change and take it to a new level, I had passed 40 years old and realised it was time to really start looking after myself. I couldn’t keep carrying around this extra weight forever and not expect to have some consequences. So I set myself a few goals that I’ve listed below:
- Get down to 168 pounds (12 Stone)
- Excercise at least every other day
- Eat healthier and within my calorie limit every day
- Drastically reduce my alcohol consumption to special occasions only
At the time of writing this I am now 182 pounds and the reason I decided to start journaling my progress is the fact that I cannot seem to lose that last 14 pounds. So I am hoping that by sharing my progress on this blog I can find the incentive to push myself that bit further and get off the plateau that I now seem to be stuck on.
I am planning to post one progress update a week highlighting the week I have had in terms of diet, exercise etc and include a weight / measurements progress update. I hope you will find this series of posts interesting and maybe inspiring and of course I welcome any and all feedback and advice.
Here’s to healthy, happy living.
