About me: I'm a 32 year old married(sorry ladies, and men in certain states) father of two. I've been married over a decade and my kids are 3 and 6. I'm 5'10" and when I graduated from high school in 1999 I was about 175lbs. Four years later in 2003 I was getting married and I was over 250lbs. Between then and 2011 I went as low as 215lbs. In 2011 I was nearing the end of medical school and considered joining to Army National Guard in an attempt to offset some of the crippling loans I was accumulating. I didn't pass the MEPS (a basic physical threshold before joining any branch of the military) because I was too fat. I weighed in at 251lbs when I decided to join and by the time I went to MEPS I was down into the low 230s. I was told that if I could get below 186lbs, I could join if I could also manage to get a waiver for my very poor vision. Since then, the program I intended to join has ended but that was a wake up call that I needed to do something about my weight and my health in general.
These two mug shots are from my first day of residency in July 2012, approximately 235 lbs.
I decided I needed to get active and watch what I was eating. I had run off an on in the past and decided to use this as my primary form of exercise. I also started going to a local gym where I routinely meet with a personal trainer. So for the better part of two years I've been going to the gym and (admittedly off and on) running.
Today I'm 208lbs which is a pretty significant number. If you'll recall, my height is 5'10". That means my BMI is 29.8 and just enough to drop me from the Obese to Overweight category.
So, what is the point of this blog? I'll use this blog to document the final phase of my fitification. I'm sure that's a word, don't bother looking it up. Basically, I think documenting my intentions and updating on my progress will add some additional accountability for me.
I've got some specific goals for myself this year. In 2012 I ran my first half marathon. I'd mostly run 5k and a few 10k races. My wife was training for a full marathon and I took the approach of "whatever she can do, I can do half of that." I ran another one in November of 2013. I've got two half marathons scheduled for early this year and that ties into my first 2014 goal: run, on average, 2 miles per day.
That might or might not seem like a lot of running but I assure you that compared to my previous training, it is significant. During the height of my half marathon training, I was running more than this but that was limited to a few months. This goal is for the entire year. 730 miles.
Additional goals that will be expanded on in future posts: Lose more weight - Next goal 200lbs, achieve maintenance weight, get faster, pick up some heavy stuff, make sure my kids remember me as fit and not fat, continue to use MyFitnessPal as much as possible for tracking calories in and out, and more.
I'm also interested in how other people intend to reach their similar goals. So, feel free to share that in the comments below. If you've got a blog related to fitness or your own weight loss and fitness adventures, I can link to that.
I'll try to get some good NOW photos for comparison later in the year.
Thanks for reading,
Stephen
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