On April 1st, 2002 I weighed myself and was horrified to see the scale hit 278 lbs. I had decided the week before that I was scared about my weight and fitness level. Here I was, 37 years old and walking up a flight of stairs made my heart feel like it was going to explode in my chest. I train in Aikido, a Japanese martial art, and going to class was painful-by the end of class I felt absolutely horrible. Also, I really missed hiking-I love the mountains and being outside, and I was feeling like I needed to reconnect with that part of me. So on April 1, I began my journey to a smaller me. I did a bunch of research and figured that a goal weight of 180 seemed reasonable. That would give me a BMI of 27.4, which is still technically in the "overweight" category, but when I weighed 180 earlier in my life, I thought it looked about right, and it seemed attainable. I began watching what I ate and how much, and walked at least 4, usually 5 days a week on my lunch hour-usually about 55 minutes of walking time. Over the course of the next 4 months, I lost 35 lbs. On August 20th, I was laid off, at which time I started my own graphic design business. The rest of that year, I managed to continue walking at lunch time, but the stress of losing my job and starting a new one caused a change in my eating habits and I ended up gaining 17 lbs back.
On the first Monday in January, 2003, I joined weight watchers as an online only member, and had enormous success. That Monday, I weighed 261 lbs. In the next 8 months, I brought that down to 204. I was walking every morning with my new dog-a yellow lab mix. I was going to Aikido 3-4 times a week, and I was hiking at least twice a month. Then, in Sept., we found out my wife was pregnant. Psychologically, this had a rather profound affect on me-the stress increased, especially since we were trying to remodel the kitchen and a room built on the back of the house to turn into the office so we could use the current office for the baby's room. I began to slip-exercising less and less, especially when I would get busy with client work. I stopped journaling my food, and the weight crept back on. On April 15, 2004, our baby daughter was born, and after that it became almost impossible to exercise and the demands on our time were such that meal planning and cooking were let go, and it was impossible to find time to exercise. I stopped going to Aikido in August-money was incredibly tight and it became a hassle to leave the house except for necessary business reasons. My wife had some pretty deep emotional issues after the birth of the baby that had a great impact on our relationship and added stress to the situation, causing further food issues for me, and my eating choices continued to decline. I began trying to get back on the WW program, but was sporadic at best. I'd count points for a couple weeks, exercise for a couple weeks, then would get busy with work and make excuses for myself to slide.
So here I am. It's Jan. 3, 2005 and I'm determined to recommit. I just turned 39 and will be 40 on Dec. 31, 2005, and my goal is to be at my goal weight of 180 lbs on my 40th birthday (hence the title of the blog-I want to be 180 lbs in 360 days).
I'll be using this blog to track my progress-not in the sense of exactly what I eat every day-I'll be using the WW online tools for that-but overall progress. I'll post point totals each week, photos, my weekly weigh-in results, thoughts and problems that arise, and just general "stuff" that seems relevant. I'm hoping that this blog will help me stay on track.
As of 7:00am today, my weight is 242.5 lbs. only 62.5 .bs to goal.
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