The Diet

This year marked the year that I finally set forth to drop some weight. I’ve always been overweight but it never really bothered me in the past and I honestly never thought it affected me. That is until last Spring when I was asked to coach Chase’s soccer team for Lawton United Soccer Club. I was the only coach for the team which consisted of 8 three to four year olds. Needless to say I could not keep up with them. On top of teaching them soccer the club had a goal of keeping the kids healthy. Who was I to teach the kids about being healthy when I was far from it? Besides running a few short laps around the small-sided field for stretching that was about all I had the kids do. I really should have had them do more stretching as other coaches did for their teams, but I was unable to do most of the stretches myself. I would be on the field for 15mins (of an hour practice) and would be so tired and in need of water. I ended up coaching a 2nd season this past Fall and it was the same.

This made it clear that it was finally time to sit down and think about getting healthy and dropping some weight. I honestly hadn’t weighed myself in at least a year or two so I really didn’t know what I was at, but thought I was about 250lbs. Well I was wrong. After weighing myself I found out that I came in just under 300lbs, 294lbs to be exact. Wait, what? 300lbs? How did that happen? Thats right, those ‘4th meal’ trips to Taco Bell at midnight. I started to think did I really want to be 300lbs? Or more? This made it clear that I needed to lose some weight and start eating healthy not just for myself but for my two kids who I want to be/stay healthy as well. After discussing it with Melissa we worked out what I needed to do to drop some weight and the changes we needed to make around the house for our meals. She also plans to drop a few pounds for herself.

We started to make some changes in our eating habits first. We are normally a busy family and as a result we eat out a lot. I don’t mean once or twice a week but sometimes 5 to 6 times a week. On other weeks we would eat out twice in a day. Most places have ‘healthy’ food (or as healthy as they can) but I would always avoid it. My biggest problem? On a normal week I would go to Taco Bell at least 5 times a week. On top of that we are a big Pepsi family. I would drink very little water (on most days, no water) and we would go through a 12 pack a day with 6-7 going to myself. Of course because I am a freelancer and work from home I spend a lot of time sitting at my desk. The rest of my time is spent in front of my Xbox 360. Our first thing to do was to cut out the Pepsi and fast food. We haven’t bought Pepsi in well over a month and I have been drinking nothing but water and tea. We have also cut out about 75% of our fast food in a month and really need to work on cutting out the rest (or at least getting healthy food, like a salad). Next we dropped the white bread for wheat and bought just about everything in ‘reduced fat’. Most of the fat-free items just don’t sit well with me, but we at least went with reduced fat.

The above food changes have been great and we still have some progress to make but we have started and held to it for about 2 months. I don’t really get exercise though. Being in front of my desk doesn’t really do much during the day and the Xbox 360 isn’t great for exercise either. We have gone walking a few times taking the kids to Lucy Park and the water fall but that just isn’t enough. Today we made the next step in my diet and that was getting a membership at Gold’s Gym. Took a tour of it and talked a little with a trainer about a few things and my goal and what I want to get out of it. Overall the gym was great and has a great Child Care area for my daughter. I will be starting on Friday and will talk more with the trainer to get a routine setup. I am new to dieting, going to the gym, and getting healthy so I plan to look for their advice a lot. To start with my plan is to work out about 8am for an hour to an hour and a half Monday through Saturday. Going to the gym in the morning should also help me get a better start to my work day, full of sitting at my desk. I normally get a slow start as I don’t always want to roll out of bed and into my chair, so this should get me awake and a quick shower after should have me ready for work.

Finally time to get to my current stats and my goals. Currently I weigh in at 294lbs. My goal is to get down to 175-200lbs. I really don’t have a timeline to reach this goal as long as I stay with the exercising and healthy foods everything should be good. I’m not a very motivated person but after watching what a fellow designer, Neill Harmer (you may know him and his wife Amanda from The Biggest Loser 5 on NBC), has accomplished I really feel like I can do it and he is great inspiration for it. Overall I want to drop some weight and get healthy to a point where playing outside with my kids isn’t tiring and I hope with be getting healthy it will help us be a healthier family.

I know this is a long post but was something that I wanted to get posted. I have added a new item to the menu, The Diet, which basically will show all posts tagged with the diet. I don’t plan to blog daily about the diet or my progress as that I will leave to PEERtrainer.com, which I have found to be a great way for me to track my progress. However, I will do a bi-weekly or monthly post about my progress and changes I’m making in my life.

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