Day 1 - Where are we at?

WARNING - if you find images of overweight men disturbing, stop reading now

When we talk about getting healthy its always about weight....Always. We tell ourselves we need to lose 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 lbs.

Here's the problem with weight...It goes on a lot faster then it comes off. So we get discouraged, we don't see results.

We stop.

Well, I can't stop, because I committed to all of you to do it for 100 days, but how else can we measure besides weight.

Exercise and being healthy is more than a number on a scale. Its how healthy our heart is. How well our bodies can perform different tasks, so I spent Day 1 compiling a few different numbers

Pushups to exhaustion - 18

Pushups are a good measure of muscular endurance, so lets see how that improves over the first 25 days and over the 100 total.

I don't run, not with this gut, so I row. I have a concept2 rowing machine. I used it for a few of the baseline numbers too.

2000m time = 8:46.5  A good measure of cardiovascular fitness.

I also did a 500m rowing sprint and measured my heart rate at various times.
Peak = 190bpm
After 1min = 147
After 2min = 132
After 5min = 110

This gives me an idea of how fast I can recover from exertion

Comparing future results to these will let me see beyond the scale, if the scale doesn't move, but these numbers get better, I'm still making improvements, I don't have to feel discouraged just because one number didn't move,

Now for the ugly part...the body measurements and before pictures

Weight = 255.4lbs
BMI = 34.6 (Obese) - this used to be worse! Used to be Class II obese!
% Body fat = 42.4 %

Waist - 45 in
Hips - 44 in
Chest - 43 in
Thigh - 28 in

                                                                                                                                                                  Every 25 days along this 100 day journey we will revisit these numbers, to see if we can effect more than just the scale

Well that's me right now. Day 1 is drawing to a close.

Tomorrow the real work begins. Rob Foster from Trainersonsite.com has sent me my new workouts, so we'll report back on them

Today's workout

Rowing - 2741 meters
Swimming - 1 hour leisure
Pushups to failure

Calories eaten - 2100
Calories burned - 3500

Check back tomorrow!

The 260lb bounce

For those of you losing weight, do you have a number that gives you trouble?

I do, 260lbs.

I've been over that number for along time now, and every time I approach it I bounce off it like some sort of damned trampoline.

I can't tell you the number of times I've hit it, like some sort of perverse paddle ball I slam into 260, then BOING, 261, 262, 263, refocus, 262, 261, 260, 259.8 (feel the trampoline stretch...) BOING 261 262.

I'm sick of it.

So the question is why? And I hate the answer.

The answer is me.

 I focus for a few weeks, I maintain my discipline, and about the time I get near that milestone, I start to slack off. It happened again over the last couple of weeks. My commitment, particularly to healthy eating, started to slack off a bit and the hard work I had done to get down to 260 goes out the window.

The number actually means nothing. Nada, zilch. It's only in my head because I let that correlation start to convince me that somehow 260lbs is different than 261.

It isn't. It's just a number, one of many I have to work through in order to achieve my goals.

How many of your life's challenges are like that? How often do you say, "oh, that's the one I can't get past"? Are you being honest with yourself? Is it a true milestone? A true obstacle? or just something you let get into your head?

 Is it simply you?

My demonic trampoline isn't 260lbs, its my own inability to maintain the commitment required to punch through it.

I was 261.4 this morning, after being 260.2 earlier last week. When I next write this blog, my goal is to be able to tell you that I maintained my discipline, that I ate healthy, that I exercised, and that I blew a giant hole in that 260lb trampoline, and tossed it in the trash, never to see it again.

Find your obstacle, the one you can't get past, and spend the next couple weeks with me breaking through it. Come back here Feb 6th with your own tale of conquest!

Follow me on twitter @fatfitman

3 Months in..An Overdue Update

So where have I been?

Stalled and stalling.

I did not want to write this blog. See, blogging is easy when you're doing well, it's a chance to motivate others and celebrate your own successes at the same time.

But what if you haven't been succeeding? what if you've been failing...Miserably? What if a diet health blogger yesterday saw they gained 4 pounds over the last month or so and decided to celebrate that misery by having an ice cream cone and a slice of pizza?

How do you put your failures out there right alongside your successes?

Well, something like I just did I suppose.

I mentioned previously that I had suffered a training injury. For those who have been asking, the injury has not healed, in fact it has become worse. this has stopped me from continuing my P90X training, at least for now anyway.

Stopping the workouts is not an excuse for weight gain, anyone serious about a journey to a healthy weight knows that the number one thing that makes an impact is what you eat, not what you burn. But stopping the workouts had an unexpected effect on me. It broke my routine, it sapped my motivation. It made me stop thinking about the penalty of bad choices because I just went back to all my habits before the changes.

This can't continue. I still need to be below 220lbs before Dec 31st (minimum) I made a commitment, to my readers, to my family, and, most importantly, to myself.

So, step one, admit I screwed up. Say it aloud, get it out there. Be accountable for it (thanks JB). Blog about it. the blog and knowing people are reading it is immensely motivating for me. I should have been on here a bunch, I wouldn't have slipped as far.

Step two, make adjustments. Watch the input of food, watch it closely. Find a new exercise routine until my wrist is healthy. Looks like I'll start prepping for the 5K a little earlier than I had planned.

Step three, keep it up. Do it today, then tomorrow. Small good decisions, made consistently, until I'm back in the pattern again.

Back on my feet folks, off the coach and away from the nachos. Hope you'll continue to join me.

Fatfitman