Introduction

Hello Everyone, I have been lurking for a few days and thought that I better introduce myself. I am a father of 4, been married for over 13 years and finally woke up and realized I better fix myself as no one else is going to. My story will be familiar to many people here. I have 4 kids and I want to see them grow up, get married and have kids of their own. That wasn't going to happen the way I was going. I need to be there for them when they have things they can't figure out on their own. My mom lost her father to a heart attack when she was young and I don't want that to happen to my kids.

It was Christmas morning and the kids were clamoring to open their presents from Santa. So I drug myself out of bed and mumbled and complained the whole way how tired I was. I never got up before 7:45 when I had to take the kids to school.

I looked in the mirror that morning while brushing my teeth and doing all those things you must do to prepare yourself for the day when I was disgusted with what I had become, how I looked and more important how I felt. I pulled the Devil (scale) out of the closet and climbed on it, been there since the last diet I tried and failed at. I was 250 pounds on the dot, that was enough for me to decide it was time to make a change and not just try the easy fixes that I had attempted in the past.

My mother had given me a punch card for the local gym about a week before so that I could give it to my oldest daughter who is a nut when it comes to working out. I asked her if she wanted to go with me to the gym the next day December 26. She was excited that I wanted to go with her and we got out of bed that morning at 6:00am (1st day of my 3 week vacation, had plans to stay up late and sleep in everyday until that moment). I have been to the gym every day that it has been open by 6:30am and will continue to do that for the rest of my life. After 3 weeks of solid trips to the gym daily I have finally decided to allowed myself to take one day a week off to recover but at this point I am so into things that even I don't want to miss a day. I have even started thinking about going in the evenings when I could be sitting on the couch watching television, who is this person in my body, just to walk a couple miles to get in even better shape.

My first week 2 weeks at the gym were very good to my weight loss goal and I have been pumped each and every morning. I can't wait to go to bed at night so that I can get up and go work out. I have never been excited about exercise other then when I was in high school and playing sports, even then it was meh. On the 7th of January I made the plunge and signed a 1 year contract and handed the remainder of my punch card to my oldest daughter and said join me whenever you want but I am going every morning :)

With my official membership I was given an assessment to find out where I was and what I really needed to do to kick this up to the next level. On the 7th I stepped on the gyms scale and got all those Greek sounding numbers and the person that helped me explained what they all meant. I was 235 pounds with 31% body fat, he couldn't believe it, he thought I was much lighter than that, I carry most of it in my stomach and hide it well. I had already lost 15 pounds on my own since Christmas and felling pretty darn good about myself and how I was doing just winging it with just some determination. I now have my weigh-ins every Wednesday mornings and this past Wednesday I was down to 232.6 and 30% body fat. The trainer was pretty impressed that my water weight had stayed the same and that I had made such a nice loss in my first official week without losing it in water which he said normally happens.

Then I found this wonderful site that gave me a better way to track my calories and add one more step in the process, an accurate way to keep track of everything in one place instead of a notepad. I am a stats guy and can't say enough about all the wonderful tools here. Then I started reading the forums and that is where I found all the wonderful people that are trying to change their lives just like I am.

Enough rambling as this is much longer then I had planned for it to be.

Here is to a great 2009 and all of us meeting and exceeding our goals. It won't be easy but I know we are all up to the challenge.

Age - 36

Sex - Male

H - 5'11"

SW - 250

CW - 231.6

GW - 180

Goal Date - 9-1-09

Great story! Good luck reaching your goals and staying there!!