Hello!

I always start this stuff with this but i’m going to say it–“I’m not much of a writer”. I work in the technology industry, must assuredly have ADD, and favor short conversations over writing tomes. I prefer essays over books.

That being said, I intend to write a little bit about what it is that i’m doing here, when i do it,in more of a quick journal type manner.

Thank you djp for taking the time to hit me up that fateful day last year. It was timely. I think the “i gotta do something, and actually do it” came after talking to my cousin at Thanksgiving. We were catching up and he was relating to me the story of his father. I grew up with his father, a large man, intimidating even. He related the story of how he had gotten diabetes. Very badly. I don’t know the full nature of the disease, but he had gotten to the point where he lost feeling in one of his extremities and had to have it amputated. As i took the story in, i couldn’t help but think about my children. I did *not* want my children to have to be telling the same story about their father.

I know better. over a decade ago, after never being one who took care of himself, I started going to the gym. And eating right. I hit the gym *hard*. Two times a day, every other day lifting/cardio, and in between days strictly cardio. During my about year and a half “experiment”, i had lost 90lbs (starting at 310), and double digit body fat. I felt, and looked better than I ever had.

You’ve heard the story of what happens next–meet a girl, kinda get lax, get married, have kids, eat wings, have more kids, eat wings, travel, eat wings. Nearly unconsciously, i had gained it back. I mean, before i knew it, i went from being able to see the muscles in my shoulders (they call ‘em “striations”) to just straight up soft.

I took my cousin’s story, along with some pains i had subsequently over the next few weeks, as a wake up call–i *have* to wake up. I have to be deliberate. I have to think about what it is i’m doing.

I bought a scale. This scale had a 350lbs max; i thought “i hadn’t been over 310 in my life, this’ll work”. I was too heavy for the scale.  Determined, i was gonna lose before returning that scale.  Thankfully a week later, I was able to measure myself on the scale, barely. 349lbs.

Fast forward to doit d-day (2/14/2009) Since December, I’ve been eating deliberately, and haven’t hit the gym just yet, but am deliberate about recognizing when i’m being lazy, trying to do something about it. My chart sits to the right of the site. I’ve lost a bit since then. It was deliberate. :) I wanted to make sure i was serious about this, before the d-day, then step it up.

We got a wii balance board, along with the Wii Fit, as a birthday gift for my son, but you know how those purchases are. All of us are weighed in, and I’ve reached my goal of being able to step on the dang thing (it’s max weight is 330).

I’m a geek. I love gadgets. Thanks to generous in-laws, I used money that i’d usually spend for film development at Costco, and bought a heart rate monitor instead, that allows me to transfer data to the computer. This should be fun. I get to write software as well, while i’m doing this! I figure that’ll be good motivation for me.

OK that’s about it for now; 600 words is far too many for me to be writing.

February 14th is the day…i’m ready to do it!