Do, or do not; there is no try.

[Jono]

Good evening all.

A bit of an introduction.

My name is Jono, I'm 31 and currently a software engineer, though I'll be made redundant in a couple of months. I'm also fat - the last time I weighed myself, I was 117kg which is ~258 pounds. I'm fed up with being fat.

Over the last few years, I've tried to lose weight a few times and had varying amounts of success, but it has never stuck, basically down to a lack of willpower, I think. I lost some weight last year, but come November and our annual family gathering, I drifted away from my eating plan. Then it was Christmas, and I had every intention of getting back into it in the new year, but that never happened and now it is (almost) May.

Aside from being just generally fed up with it, I have another reason for wanting to lose weight; I volunteer as a steward at the reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, here in London. On the nights I am on duty, this basically involves being on my feet for between three and four hours, sometimes in the cold and/or wet. I always end a shift with aching feet. Some of that is inevitable, but some of it is caused by my being overweight.

There is no try. I have come to the point where I think that failure is not an option - I need to do this, and hope that being part of a community of people with similar goals will keep me going when willpower in the past has not been enough.

I plan to participate in the 6-week challenge that starts tomorrow, and take things from there. Baby-steps, no grand vision. Ok, maybe some view of where I want to be at some indeterminate future time, but nothing concrete until I see how my progress goes with shorter term goals.

[srsbsnsrunner]

Welcome! I hope you find the support you need here

And you're right with starting with smaller goals, I was always told that the smaller goals lead the way to the bigger ones.

Plus, you quoted Yoda, so you get double brownie points from me. Or I guess since we're trying to be healthy here... we'll call them veggie points, or something. Heh.

Good luck!

[bigm141414]

Welcome Jono! We'll help you as much as we can. Let us know where you want to get to and we can help point the way.

[Bean]

Welcome Jono

IMHO you need to give yourself a vision to achieve - like "look good naked" or something.

Then set the smaller measurable goals that will get you there. You can do this!

Any thoughts on where you want to start?

[Jono]

Thanks for the welcome, guys.

I'm participating in the 6-week challenge that started today - you'll find my thread here

Bean: For a while, my long term goal was "be able to fit into a pair of Abercrombie & Fitch jeans (even if I don't buy any - have you seen the price?)". When I set myself that goal, I'm fairly sure the biggest they did was a 32-inch waist. They now do up-to 36-inch waist, so it isn't quite as strong a goal as it was. I'm going to maintain 32-inch as a long term goal, but it is a very long way off. The real target is, and always has been, "look good naked" or at least "like how my body looks". That is almost so far away as to be irrelevant, but Joe's story is a real inspiration -if he can do that, why can't I?

[Hcharles8540]

Welcome man! I too am trying to make a huge change to my life so hopefully both of us will be succesful =D! Best of luck!

[Rosie]

Hello fellow Londoner! Thats amazing that you are volunteering to restore the globe. How did you get into that?

[Jono]

The reconstruction was finished in 1997, you can find it on Bankside next to the Tate Modern. I volunteer as a steward during performances; checking tickets and looking after the public. They need at least 30, preferably more, volunteer stewards for each performance - as there are 2 performances most days during the season, which runs from late April to early October, about 600 people volunteer each year. Having done the tour of the theatre, I looked at the website and saw they needed volunteers, so I applied the next year. This is my fourth year of doing it.

It is a reconstruction, the best guess, based on all the available documentation, of what it would have looked like at the time. We do know that the original burned down, very quickly, during a performance of Henry VIII in 1613, due to a spark from a cannon catching on the thatched roof - amazingly no-one died. They rebuilt, with a tile roof, a year later but the second Globe was closed and demolished in 1642, when Parliament banned theatre. Ours has a thatch roof - the first one allowed in London since the Great Fire in 1666.

[Jono]

A medium-term set of goals has occured to me.

I have an occasional suit (a suit that I wear occasionally). I bought it 10 years ago for my aunt's wedding, and it still fits. On the one had, this is good because it means I haven't got much bigger, but on the other it is bad because things haven't really improved. I have a long coat with a similar story.

For various reasons, I recently bought another suit, but I cannot do the jacket up (this was intentional).

So, goal one: be able to do up the jacket on my new suit. Goal two is for the jacket on my old suit to feel so big that it is time to retire it. (I'm fairly sure these things will happen in this order.)

With the coat, it is approaching retirement - I've worn it much more than the suit. But I know a decent coat like this can last a long time, so I don't want to buy a coat that will feel too big in less than a year. So the (fairly nebulous, unfortunately) goal is to get to the point where I can buy a coat that I will keep for a while. I know it is a bit vague, but I'd consider it a milestone.

[seraphsong]

You can do this! It is hard, there will be good days and bad days, and you will want to quit. Just remember that excuses only bring you down. I believe in you. Also, remember MY favorite yoda moment:

*Yoda pulls the X-Wing out of the swamp.*

Luke: I don't believe it....

Yoda: That is why you fail.

Know that this is possible.