So here's what I'm thinking

Here's the story of me and my fatness. First of all, I am a big guy. I'm 6'3", and I actually am big boned (apologies to Cartman). The downside was that I always ate. Lots. That's been my problem, and I figured if I'm going to actually stick with some sort of weight loss plan, making it public (or at least as public as the inevitable 2 or 3 people that will read this) was the best thing to do. My goal is to daily post what I ate and drank, and what physical activities I engaged in. I intend to formally start on Monday, 3/27, and see what kind of progress I make by my 35th birthday, on 4/12.

I was in pretty good shape in college. I ate, drank, and smoked whatever I wanted. Being young certainly helped, but I lived several miles off campus at UC Santa Barbara. Every day would turn into a 5 mile jungle warfare mountain bike adventure to get to class. Me and a buddy would show up for class bleeding, muddy, and with ripped clothes. Life was good. Being that far off campus and having a rather spread out campus to work from, I rarely went home between classes. I'd walk or ride around campus and Isla Vista (the most drunken, most densely packed 1/2 square mile west of the Mississippi River). The part time job I held was doing sales for a window tint company. I'd drive to my territory, park the car, and walk around for several hours. Finally, the condo we lived in was situated adjacent to a several square mile open space area between our development and the ocean. It was a great place to ride mountain bikes or run. Most mornings I'd get out for a mile or two, and if the weather was warm enough, I'd run a couple of miles out to the beach, and then dive into the ocean for some body surfing. After that, I'd walk back up to the top of the bluff (if you've seen the Ugly Kid Joe video for "I Hate Everything About You", that was filmed less than a mile south/east of my bluff, so you have an idea of what it looks like), and run home.

Graduating and getting an office job wasn't the best thing. I mean it was from a financial perspective, but sitting at a desk for 8-plus hours a day didn't help keep the metabolism moving. That and the inevitable office potlucks conspired to add to my midsection. I did what I could, but it was becoming a battle. Moving to Newport Beach/Costa Mesa helped. It was a 10 minute bike ride downhill from my apartment to 36th Street beach in Newport (just up the beach from Dennis Rodman's house). In those days, I'd wake up around 4:30 and walk across the street to 24 Hour Fitness. I'd work out on cardio and abs for around an hour, and then get ready for work. After work, I'd haul ass home, change into my swim suit, and hop on the bike to ride to the beach. I'd get in and body surf until the green flash at sunset hit. If you've never been in the Pacific when the sun drops below the horizon, you've missed out. It's really a Zen moment, you are one with the world. Anyway, I'd hop back on the bike, ride back up the hill, shower off, change clothes, and go back to the gym to lift weights for an hour.

Getting a commuter job started off looking as though it would be bad, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. As before, I'd wake up early, but the 24 Hour Fitness in Aliso Viejo kind of sucked. As such, I'd run for a mile or two, shower and get dressed, and then drive the hour-plus into Los Angeles. At first, I wasn't working out in the evening at all. After an hour and a half of slogging thru LA rush hour, the last thing I wanted to do was go back out after getting home. So I found a really nice 24 Hour Fitness about 15 minutes away from the office and started working out there after work. I'd go for about an hour to an hour and a half with cardio and weights, and get home not much later than I would have at rush hour.

Moving to San Diego and moving in with the gf has proven to be the biggest obstacle (my ever increasing age notwithstanding) to keeping the weight off. Well, she can't take all the blame. I still eat bad food and much more of it than I should. But my workout schedule has been seriously compromised. We've now got a dog. I used to run in the morning, but if I go out in the morning without taking the dog, she gets upset and poops in the living room. Fine, I'll take her out for a run. Unfortunately, she's kind of ADD and will chase rabbits only to come to a dead stop to sniff something. And I can't take her out too early, because she has to hold it the whole day. She can, and she hasn't had any accidents from that, but we don't want to push it. So I wind up with limited time in the morning to get any kind of physical activity in before the half hour drive to work. So that leaves the evening. On nights the gf teaches, I am able to stop at the gym on the way home from work, and get some physical activity in. On the nights she doesn't teach, I need to come home so we can have dinner and spend time together. And make no mistake, I'm not complaining about spending time with the gf. It's just frustrating to not be getting the physical activity in that I used to. There's also a driving range near my office. I try to get there on my lunch break whenever possible. Unfortunately, that hasn't been too often since the beginning of the year. Between the weather and being on the road, I haven't been to the driving range more than a couple of times this year.

So here's my plan. Starting Monday I'm going to measure my baselines (weight, waist, etc.) and post them. Then, I'll post on what my food intake was and my physical activity was for the day. My thought is that if I have to put it out here for everybody to see, maybe that will help me to stick with it. Wish me luck.