Here goes!

[grz]

Hello Everyone! I stumbled across Nerd Fitness and the 8 bit Kick in the Ass Story and dove headfirst into the blog. And now I find myself on the boards. Oh boy. I'm sure a lot of you know this path of website addiction.

This may be more than anyone cares about, so I'm just gonna let it all out there as to how I wound up here.

My wife gave birth to our second and third children Last June. We had three children under three. Lots of work. But so awesome! My children provide me enough happiness for 10 lifetimes!

To compound things, I got laid off from my job 2 months after! About the same day, I flushed my gym membership down the toilet because A) it was no longer paid for by my employer and It wasn't doing me much good anyway. I wasn't losing weight. I'd run, try classes, and play basketball. But I could never get much below 220. (I'm currently 6'3" 230 down from 235 a few weeks ago).

While I enjoyed my almost 6 month hiatus with my new family members, the stress of joblessness compounded with acclimating to 2 new babies (who for some reason, are not fans of a full night's sleep) put a lot of stress on me and my wife. Needless to say, there was lots of ordering in, drive thrus, and desserts.

I found a great job in January and joined a gym in the same building in order to get my lunch workout in. Still, I wasn't getting anywhere. I'd run 3 miles on the treadmill, but my shins would hurt so bad I could only do it a couple times a week tops. And my diet of old carried over - still ordering in, still going through drive thrus, still not missing dessert.

In late April, we booked a vacation to Mexico for late July. We never took a honeymoon, so we thought we'd make up for it considering we'd had a pretty challenging year. It was just what we needed. We have about 80 days to really feel good about ourselves in bathing suits. Of course, I'm not expecting infomercial type transformations, but I do think I can make a big difference in 80 days. What do you guys think?

Booking it really motivated me to clean up my diet. I started looking at diets similar to the paleo diet and jumped in. I'd say I'm about 60-75% paleo right now. I still eat more raw fruits than veggies, and I still have a couple bites of bread here and there. But overall, I feel great! 2 weeks in, and I need caffeine far less than before. I used to think I couldn't live without it! I no longer snack with chocolate or chips. If I'm hungry I'll have some peanuts or an apple - still need to get more into veggies though.

We cleared our fridge and cupboards of junk, This made a HUGE difference since now I have no option but nuts or fruits/veggies for a snack.

And that about gets you up to speed. I've found my way to the free weight section (unfortunately, no squat rack) and am really feeling the burn from the beginners body weight circuit. After reading Steve's posts and Staci's story, I'm more motivated than ever to build strength and increase lean mass. Hopefully, with better eating, I'll see better results than my past efforts.

Oh and goals, my goals have changed.

Initially, I really wanted to get below 200. I think it's really just the number that had me obsessed with losing weight. After more time on the blog, I realized that I really need to focus on eating well and being stronger than I was the day before. I really need to increase strength, so here are my first goals

• Do 1 dip unassisted
  
• Do 1 pull up unassisted
  
• Do 25 push ups in a row
  

Whaddya think? Too high? Too low?

Of course I have a big goal too

.... I want to dunk a basketball

That's it, that's the big one, to quote Clark Griswold.

I'd also like to set some squat and bench goals as well. But I'm not sure where those should be.

Anyway, if you made it this far, sorry for the rambling.

And for you redditors out there:

TL;DR I'm starting to eat better and exercise like a Nerd Rebel.

[wildross]

welcome aboard. know the drill with the wee folk. your goals are great to start. I suspect you will revise them pretty soon.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2

[Elastigirl]

Congrats on the new little ones in your family. Those look like great goals. Maybe you want to looking into some jump excercises to work up to your big goal.

[Strawberry Squatcake]

Welcome aboard. Wow! Twins! My parents had triplets. Five girls under three years old. (This is where everyone says, "Your poor dad.")

My dad told me a few years ago he'd sleep on his workbench during lunch breaks at work. Haha! OK, that's not funny. Poor Dad. But I can empathize with your adjustment pains. So I have to say, good for you for getting back at it so quickly! Your kids will thank you for being healthy and ready to take on the world playing with them!

I think you have great starting goals and my only recommendation for setting bench and squat goals are to get in there and do some, figure out where you start to stall and set goals from there.

Or if you want to go more basic than that, set a goal to do X sets of Y reps Z times a week/month. Good luck!

[grz]

Thanks for the support everyone!

Cutting grains and junk has already had a huge effect on me! For the first time, I'm looking at the clock WANTING it to be lunch so I can go to the gym and lift. Before, I would always try to think of an excuse to NOT go. I have WAY more energy - and I'm only 2 1/2 weeks into this change!

My toddler, and even my twins, are eating better as a result since we don't have so much junk around for them.

I'll keep everyone posted on our progress!

[br!t3r]

Welcome aboard! Sounds like you're off to an excellent start!

[luaurenpants]

Welcome! Love the starting goals. I agree with Elastigirl's advice to start jumping. Find a low enough surface to start box-jumps to, even if it's just a step :-) Plus they're really fun!

Congrats on the diet changes. You're doing great things for yourself and your family :-)

[bgvanbur]

Your goals cover some good arm strength but might be good to get a goal for those legs. You mentioned running so you could have a goal for speed or distance or a goal for lower body weight exercises (such as body squats or lunges) or perhaps a simple goal such as more family walks with the kids.

And always good to find others that still enjoy their Sega CD!