Putting my past behind me

One thing that is going to change when the baby comes along is that I'm going to lose my study (really just a computer on a desk), as it's the only other 'bedroom' in the house that has an air conditioner and considering that whole week we had temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius, I wouldn't want to have my child getting too hot next summer.  We do have another bedroom, but with the double bed in there for guests, there's no room to fit a desk.

On top of this, it made me realise that I'm also not going to have any time to play computer games much any more with a bouncing baby in the house.  I do know of a couple of fathers who still play computer games but, to be perfectly honest about it, I notice that their down time comes at the expense of time with their children or friends.  One guy I know even goes so far as to say to his stay at home wife that he's "had a long hard day at work and deserves some personal time".

I don't know all the background to their situation, perhaps he's helping out at home every other night of the week, but I don't ever want my wife to feel like I'm home and not available to be involved.

That was when I realised that my whole life is going to change for the next 20 to 25 years at least.  When I take stock of all of my old computer games and gaming systems I realise that, for the most part, the next time I might really be able to sit down and play any of them I'll be approaching 50!

Ignoring the distinct possibility that some or all of the equipment might cease to work without some kind of overhaul after that time, I'm not sure I want to be playing Mario Kart when I'm pushing 50.

That's why I've made a rather big decision, one that I never thought I'd ever make (especially without any sort of ultimatum from my wife), I'm going to put all of my games and gaming systems for sale on eBay.

It just occurred to me that my children aren't going to be interested in playing such old games when their friends will probably all be playing the X-Box 5 or the PlayStation 10 by then and for me to hang onto them on the off chance that I may get around to playing them again some time is just stupid.

This isn't a criticism of guys who've still got all their old games from when they were 10 years old, it's just that I see these games and honestly think that my time and attention will be better spent on getting high scores in real life, by leveling up in real life and not by being the best in a digital world where only people over 30 who happen to have played those specific games (and can remember them!) can appreciate what that meant.

There are so many things that I need to do in order to improve myself for my career and my home that I can't be sitting down and chilling out playing old games for hours on end.  The common feeling I get with playing these old games is that it's great to begin with, but then the feeling that I've already accomplished those things creeps back in and I lose interest about 90% of the way through.

I'm thinking that the money I raise from the sale of my games can go towards the baby, but having looked at the cost of most of my games online (anywhere between $5 and $100), I don't think I'll be fully paying for my child's University degree, but it may pay for his or her first bed, desk or computer.

The added bonuses of all of this is that it'll clear out some space in my house (which will make my wife happy) and I'll have less distractions around the house, not that I play the games much anyway.

It'll be a bit of a long process to catalog the games (photograph, work out condition, etc), but I believe that it's the right step forward.

My wife will be unaware of what is going on because I know that she's always maintained that I should keep personal things, but I just feel that it's time for me to let go and do so in a way which will help us financially at the same time.

I'll may follow that up by selling my comic book collection, although I'm a little less inclined to do that because my son or daughter may be interested to read them.  I know I was interested in reading all of my father's old MAD magazines, but perhaps that's just wishful thinking...

Mixed news on several front, but an opportunity for a new start

Well, I weighed in this morning and was happy and sad.  I was sad because I had actually put on 0.1kg over the last two weeks (weighed in at 111.7 kg).  I was happy because I've been extremely stressed out at work with everything going on and the uncertainty in my company and was overeating and didn't have any time to do my usual exercise, so I was actually expecting to have put on more.

Well, since this is two weeks of time I've actually lost, but I've also managed to go backwards.

Based on my original goal of getting my weight down to 80kg by the time my first child is born, I'm going to have to increase my average weekly weight loss to 1.4 kg per week (up from 1.3 kg per week).

It's not massive, but it has highlighted to me how losing only two weeks in this marathon means I'm going to have to get more focused and work harder than before.

I have to put these past two stressful weeks behind me, focus on what I need to do to achieve my goals and to keep moving forward.

Today is Sunday February 23rd, 2014 and my current weight is 111.7 kg (1.5 kg lost, 31.7 kg to go).

A quick update with some bad news...

I failed to weigh in last Sunday due to being interstate.  I considered weighing myself mid-week, but I'll either get my hopes up or get disappointed in the lead up to next weekend's weigh-in.  For now I'll have to assume that all the food I ate whilst away was somehow countered by all the walking I did.

Just a quick note for anyone thinking of going to Sydney, Australia.  If you can help it, DO NOT catch taxis, especially from the airport.  My flight was delayed by an hour, so I got in after 11pm and was too tired to argue with the taxi driver when he tacked on an extra $10 onto the taxi fare.  $48 to drive me 15 minutes to the centre of the CBD at 11pm on a Wednesday night with virtually no traffic around?  Yeah right!

The taxi industry lost out on one customer because all weekend I went everywhere either by bus or walking.  Even the times when I had to walk more than nine blocks to get to a bus stop!  I even caught the train from the city back out to the airport when the time came.  Even a local tourist information person told us to avoid them like the plague, and she apparently has friends who drive taxis there!

Otherwise I had a good weekend, albeit a slightly damp one with all of the rain which poured down.  Ironically, living in Melbourne which is supposedly the home of changeable weather, the first ray of sunshine I saw in four days was in Melbourne the afternoon I got back.

Anyway, work has been a very stressful time with announcements coming about the possible future of the company.  It wouldn't be quite so stressful, except the management seem to feel that too much communication is better than not enough, even if that communication has absolutely no new information.

It's been hard not to be tempted by bad food, especially since we've been having so many staff farewells for people who are clearly jumping ship because of the uncertainty.

I wonder, if/when I leave will it be before so many people have left that the company simply stops putting any kind of effort into farewells?  That happened at my last company.  When I started at my last company we'd all get taken out to lunch if someone who'd worked there longer than 12 months left.  By the time I left (after eight years!) all I got was an exit interview and I had to email around to see who wanted to join me at the pub.  Admittedly, upon realising that there weren't that many people who were going to miss me made leaving easier to take.

I've always been a person who gets stuck in my comfort zone and the thought of moving companies makes my skin crawl with the uncertainty.  I bumped into some people who were left from my old company and they told me I left at the right time.  Hopefully I know when the right time with my current company is, although I hardly want to leave my current uncertain environment for and even more uncertain one.

I guess only time will tell where my current journey will take me, although hopefully I'll be able to remain focused on my current goals and lose my extra weight in time for the birth of my first born child!

The first weigh-in: so far, so good...

Well, the first week has come and gone and my first weigh-in has happened.  I felt like a person on the Biggest Loser heading towards the dreaded scales.

My official weight at the end of the first week: 111.6 kg, which is a first week loss of 1.6 kg!

So, after only one week, with a few minor changes to my lifestyle, I've managed to lose my target average weight.  I can't say that I didn't feel just a little disappointed because I was hoping to lose more in the first few weeks than the average given that each kilogram is harder to lose than the last one.

I can admit to myself that I slipped up more than once, made a few questionable meal and snack choices on a couple of days, which wouldn't have helped my cause, but there's always room for improvement.

For now, however, I can sit back and consider it a job well done for the first week and it's now for me to plan my weekly meals so that I'm not tempted to stray into easy (junk) food territory again.

Today is Sunday February 9th, 2014 and my current weight is 111.6 kg (1.6 kg lost, 31.6 kg to go).

He falters, yet gets back up...

Well this week has really been a mixed bag.

For the whole week I've been going for several walks, even in the 30+ degrees we've been having, which makes me sweaty enough just standing around, let alone purposely walking in it!

I was doing so well with my plan to not eat desserts at all until this morning.  My company (who shall remain nameless) gathered everyone in the office into a central place to give everyone the not-so-good financial results of 2013.  It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good either.

Not going into any more detail than that, I fell off the wagon and bought a piece of slice.  After I'd eaten it I felt really bad about compromising the progress I'd made all week.  Resolving to try something else the next time I'm feeling bad about my job, I chalked this up to experience and moved on.

I was so tempted, given that I'd just broken my resolve once, to just write the whole day off, but I didn't.  I made one mistake and I need to move on.  The last thing I should do to myself is 'punish' myself by giving in to more cravings and setting myself back.

It's only three more days before my first weigh in and I'm sure I've made at least a little progress.

I've purposely avoided trying on any of my shirts that don't quite fit me (picture a tight shirt on someone with the body of Zach Galifianakis) and I feel that if I try them on too soon and they're still too tight I might get disheartened.  I know I shouldn't expect big results in my first week, but in my experience in any diet or change in lifestyle, the most weight is lost in the first few weeks.  If the changes I've made don't result in much weight loss at all, then I can hardly expect for it to get better later on.

I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it and, for now, I'll have to continue to brave the hot weather we're expecting here in Melbourne over the next week with an average of 35 degree Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit for those people so inclined) to keep up my walking!

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

Doing some simple calculations I've worked out that in order for me to achieve my desired weight loss (33.2 kg or over 29% of my current body weight) in the time frame given, I’m going to have to lose 1.3 kg per week on average.  The reality of the situation is, however, that this weight will most likely be easier to lose at the beginning and much harder the closer I get to my goal weight.  To account for this I’m aiming for at least 2 kg of weight loss per week for the first few months, which should make up for the later months when the weight loss plateaus and I have to do more to keep the weight loss going.

As a kind of a mid-way goal I've set for myself, I’m aiming to get my weight down to 95 kg by the Easter weekend (starting Friday April 18^th) as I usually go somewhere with my family for a day where there’s a heated pool and, whilst I know I’d still be classified as overweight at 95 kg, I’d at least like to be able to show off my progress.  I’ll still probably be one of the biggest people there, but at least I know my weight will be tracking in the right direction.

My weigh-ins, rather than being a daily affair (which I’m told can fluctuate quite wildly, which can de-motivate), will be done on Sunday mornings, with the results being uploaded to this blog when I get a chance.

I've decided that, as far as diet goes, I’m not going to do anything drastic but rather cut out things I know I shouldn't have and cut back other foods as time progresses and if I see a plateau forming.  So far I've cut out soft drink, my morning piece of slice and my afternoon ice cream.  I don’t always have those things and I don’t drink much soft drink, but my weights been slowly creeping up and little things like these have all done their bit to make me the overweight man I am today.

I also went on three walks today, each lasting about half an hour.  Given our weather of late I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep that level of exercise consistent every day, but I’m feeling good because I’m off to a good start.  How good this start is will ultimately be reflected in my Sunday morning weigh-in weight…

The dawn of a New Time

Let me start my first blog post by welcoming anyone who has bothered to check this out.

This blog has been started as a kind of log in my personal weight loss challenge which has been fought over the years, some years successful, other years not so successful.

My tipping points came this weekend for a number of reasons, which I'll get to as time goes on, but this first post will be about a couple of events which have caused me to realise that enough is enough.

I weighed in this morning at 113.2 kg, which is the most I have ever weighed.  On top of that, my BMI (based on my height of 182 cm) is 34.  According to the BMI calculator I used I'm classified as obese and my healthy weight range should be between 61 - 82 kg.  Now I have very wide shoulders, so I don't seriously think getting my weight down to 61 kg is safe, but at the absolute least I'm at least 31.2 kg overweight.

I've also been struggling to find clothing that fits me in my cupboard.  I've always had a system going in my cupboard of sorting clothing based on size.  As my weight goes up I gravitate towards the few shirts that still fit me and as it goes down I stop wearing the larger ones because they become too baggy.
Lately I've been finding my options more and more limited due to this being my heaviest weigh in ever and, not only don't I want to go out and buy more comfortable shirts and pants, I don't want to admit to my wife that that's why I want new clothes.
I've always hated clothing shopping, but never more so than when the reason is because I'm too big for my current clothes.

Another thing that has me fired up is that for the third time in my life I broke a bed frame.  I just sat on the bed as I usually do and the timber supporting the planks of wood just gave way.  This wasn't helped by the fact that two metal screws had to snap to make this happen.
The other two times I'd broken bed frames were within a few weeks of each other and occurred when I was travelling internationally in a country where the average weight is a lot less than Australia.  At the time I wrote it off, but I still took notice.
Upon returning to Australia I took it upon myself to lose a lot of weight (I got down to 86 kg) and was at my lowest weight just in time for my Debutantes ball.  After that I slowly put weight back on and would oscillate between 95 and 110 kg over the years, with my weight going down in time for certain milestones (being involved in others weddings) and would slowly rise if no new events for which to look good arose.

My last big effort was for my wedding day.  I undertook a very strict diet and exercise regime which saw me lose about 14 kg in about 12 weeks.  I swore this time I'd keep losing the weight, even though the unrealistic diet was not maintained, or at the very least keep my weight down.  I let myself go starting on the honeymoon which was a few months long.

My biggest reason I actually haven't yet mentioned:  fast forward several years to now and my wife and I are looking forward to the birth of our first child and I don't want to be "big fat daddy" or even "big daddy".  I want to be the best father I can be for my unborn child and to me that means being fit.  I want to be able to keep up with him or her when she gets older and starts running around.  More importantly, I still want to be around for all of the major events in their life, like when he or she turns 18, gets married and has children of their own (hopefully not necessarily doing all three in the same year!).

I don't want to keep being the guy that always thinks that there'll be time to lose weight later and going on a crazy diet to achieve results, but being unhealthy and unsustainable.  I know that the baby won't be doing much running around for the first year of his or her life, but I'm done with putting it off.  If I can't find the time to get myself into shape before the baby arrives, what chance will I have to lose it when I'm either out at work or home changing nappies!

My plan over the next 6 months is to get my weight down by 33.2 kg to 80 kg, so that I'm in the 'healthy weight range' as listed on the BMI website linked above.  I'll be posting updates on this blog of how I'm going and what I'm doing.  I don't really have a firm plan for what I want to do, but I know what I need to do and I know that I need to start now.

If you're still reading, thank you for reading all of the above, I look forward to hearing from you and I wish you all well with your own personal self improvement goals!

Today is Sunday February 2nd, 2014 and my current weight is 113.2 kg (0 kg lost, 33.2 kg to go).