Hello Interwebz!
Well you either got horribly lost or may be somewhat interested in my subject of choice. Whatever the reason welcome to my blog page!
Lets dive right in shall we? I am a 23 year old IT professional who currently resides on the Gold Coast. I know what you must be thinking "nothing screams excitement like a 23 year overweight techno freak!" so I'll reassure you now that I won't be touching on much techno stuff (except maybe an uncontrollable rant at Crapple sheepPad's and sheepPhones, probably depending on my day at work :p).
My uncontrollable hate for all things "i" aside, this blog is designed to track my weight loss progress and help give me some form motivation to not skip a workout session or have an unsanctioned binge, mainly in the form of social embarrassment.
For those of you who haven't worked out what my goal is from my various comments and the title of this page (apart from respectfully requesting that you never procreate) my primary goal is to lose weight and increase my level of fitness.
I'll start by giving you all a little information on my background:
I've struggled with weight for most of my young life, from the age of about 10 or so (when I got my first console) I started to pack on weight, up until around 15/16 I was overweight, I had a hard time at school (like any fat kid really). Around the age of 15 I started playing more and more sport (lunch and recess breaks at school, some gym time for school sport along with various physical training in the Australian Airforce Cadets), at the age of 16 I also took up Rugby, which further boosted the weight loss process. On the day of my 17th birthday I obtained my license and signed up to the local gym with my mate Kurt.
The culmination of all this physical activity meant that at the age of 18 I was ~191cm tall, 105kg and in the best shape of my life. This came to a screeching halt when I landed my first IT job, I was living on the Central Coast of NSW at the time and working in Homebush, this meant my daily travel time was in excess of four hours. My days consisted of getting up around 0430am and getting home some time around 1930pm. I was normally in bed around 9pm, this all meant my life consisted of work through the week and booze through the weekend. Junk food and alcohol began to dominate my diet and the constant sitting down involved in my profession led to rapid weight gain.
My second IT job afforded me much more time, however by this stage I had replaced all physical past times with online ones and those who know me best can vouch I would spend far too much time lost in these virtual worlds. In fact for almost two years I survived on an average of 5 hours sleep a night through the working week. Obviously this meant I was tired all the time, to get through the work days I survived on coffee and energy drinks. On the weekends I would attempt to catch up on sleep, not by curbing my gaming habits but rather by sleeping through most of the day. I also regularly combined my gaming habits with alcohol and would regularly wake up nurse a weekend hangover.
As you can imagine all this takes a rather large toll on the body and mind. I lacked motivation and I had ignored my real world friends far too much. I eventually broke this cycle by following my friends overseas and spending time living in Canada. When I went overseas I weighed 135kg. I spent close to four months overseas and lost 10kg.
I returned home to Australia in January 2010, in February 2010 I moved to the Gold Coast in QLD. I spent many months jobless and finally landed a job in June with my current employer. My weight stayed constant through this period at around 123kg (my alcohol consumption increased) and I had fallen back into old habits.
It is now April 2011 and I weigh ~126kg and I wish to change this situation and I will be using my time off over Easter to kick start this process. I will be attempting to document this process online here so anyone who feels the desire to can follow my progress. Maybe I can inspire others to do the same....
So what is my absolute goal? Well I have a number of them, unlike most I'm terribly concerned about the size of my muscles or the sculpting of my abs. What I am looking to achieve is a high level of endurance, strength and physical fitness. So how do I quantify this? Well at this stage I am still finalising my goals. So far my list looks like this:
- Achieve a body fat percentage of 10% or less
- Be able to do in excess of 100 sit ups in one set
- Be able to do in excess of 60 push ups in one set
- Be able to do in excess of 20 chin ups in one set
- Be able to run 2.4kms in under 10 minutes
- Achieve in excess of 12 on the shuttle run
I am still currently trying to work out an achievable endurance goal (something like travel 15kms in under 2.5 hours), however I need to establish if this is realistic or if it is too easy. I'm also considering adding in a swimming component, however again I need establish I realistic but strenuous goal.
The observant amongst you will note I haven't set a target weight, this is because of well toned muscle weighs more than fat, this means that trying to achieve a certain weight could well lead to disappointment or would require me to not build muscle. For obvious reasons this is counter intuitive to what I want to achieve.
So for anyone who takes the time to read this I would love for you to join me in my journey to a healthier and happier me. Watch this space for my next post on planning and preparation.
Last of all thank you for reading and please feel free to comment, criticise and give any advice.
