Being fit and healthy should be at the top of every bodies list. Your health is your wealth. Without it, life could be miserable, just look at the recent case in the UK where Tony Nicklinson who suffered with locked-in syndrome and requested to die due to such bad health. I do realize that this is an extreme case and is out of context here, but it gets my point across about your health being your wealth.

What I’m referring to here is weight loss. There are many cases, particularly in the good old US of A, where people have become so over weight that they are confined to their beds. One case was so bad that when the guy had to go to the hospital for obvious health reasons, they had to take a wall out from the side of the house in order to get him out. Again another example of your health is your wealth but this time this case is a bit closer to home. I’ve always struggled with my weight. I’ve tried this diet, that diet and the other diet. Some with a bit of success and others not so. The main reason that any diet does or doesn’t work is completely down to the individual themselves in most cases, although I do realise that there are other reasons why some people can’t loose the weight such as thyroid glands. For others though this does ask the questions, what is their level of motivation? What is the reasons behind it and are they willing to commit themselves to a restricted diet and an exercise regime that may be tasking, depending on their level of fitness.

What is my motivation? I have a few reasons that would motivate me to loose weight. The very obvious one is, as I said in the first two paragraphs, health. Being overweight can lead to a number of different health risks, which goes without saying really but the two that I fear the most are diabetes and heart problems. You always hear of over weight people having heart attacks in there 30′s, 40′s and 50′s and this to me is way too young an age to be suffering from the effects of a heart attack. Preferably I’d love to never suffer from a heart attack. So loose the weight, lower my cholesterol and reduce my risk of heart attack.

Diabetes is a dieses that nobody wants. Having to constantly watch your sugar intake, your insulin levels and being very careful with what you eat or drink, just think of those delicious chocolate bars that you can’t have or those refreshing pints that you crave. If you are good at watching all of these things then you won’t really have a problem, but what happens if you don’t monitor these things. Gangrene, amputations, I think, I’ll stop there.

Another motivation to loose weight is how I look. Everybody is concise of how they look. For me it’s about being able to wear clothes that I like without having to find a t-shirt that doesn’t make me look like I’m pregnant or hiding a football up my top. Then there is the other side of it. Seeing a top or pants that I like and not having to worry if they have a size big enough to fit me. Particularly pants, ever hear of “builders bum”? It’s not pretty!

So what do I need to do next? Well, I have been part of a sliming club all summer and to my shame and embarrassment, I have not really been following it perfectly if at all and it comes as a waste of my time going to the meetings, a waste of the peoples time there and a waste of money by paying the weekly fee. So the first thing I need to do is plain and simple, JUST STICK TO THE FUCKING THING!!!

So that is the diet part sorted. What’s next? The exercise. A gym I hear you say? Indeed!! This is my next move. I only need a gym with exercise equipment and some weights also as I have found in the past that gyms with pools, saunas, steam rooms, etc are all just a distraction to the purpose of my going to the gym.

So my check list:

• Buy food for diet
• Join gym
• Stick to diet
• Go to Gym

Simple right?

We’ll soon find out. I will write a post with my current stats, i.e., weight and measurements and will post them to the blog, I may even create a page where you can follow my progress if you like. Nothing like making all of this public to encourage me to do well, otherwise I would feel embarrassed to be publishing posts each week where I hadn’t been to the gym or ate and drank all around me.

Wish me luck.

Mike

P.S. This is part of the 101 in 1001, Get Fit