Hello all!

[GreenestTrampler]

I've had a NF subscription for a long time now, but I've never really utilized it and never joined the forum. I've always made noises about getting in shape, living my best life, yada yada, but I've never really made solid steps to doing it. I'm at the point now that even though I'm in my 20s,  it hurts most of the time just to get out of a chair because of back pain. I can tell I'm a LOT weaker than I used to be, and I'm seeing members of my family go through health problems that probably are primarily because of their weight and lack of exercise.

So I've decided to do something about it! My fiancee naturally enjoys exercising, and while I doubt she'll ever convince me that running is fun,  we both want to start going to the gym to lift weights, and we both enjoy going on long walks.

 

My goal is to get strong. When I was creating my character, Matthias the Indomitable, I had a "tank" in mind. Whenever I've played MMOs in the past, I always play the big tank up front, carrying a massive shield and yelling obscenities at my enemies to get their attention. For those of you who play LoL, I'm also a Braum main, so you'll know where I'm coming from.

 

So fitness wise, I'm going to focus on weight lifting and use walking/burpees/literally anything but running for cardio. As things stand, I could probably stand to lose 50 lbs, though if lost less than that because I was getting too much muscle, I definitely wouldn't be upset.

 

The hard part is going to be diet. I drink a LOT of alcohol throughout the week(It's a stereotype for software developers for a reason), so my first goal is to cut that. I've gotten better about cooking my own meals rather than always eating out or ordering DoorDash. The last time I was successful losign weight(lost thirty pounds working at a bakery of all things) I went on the Paleo diet. The only time I would splurge was Diet Pepsi and once a week getting a full order of biscuits and gravy. I plan on doing that again and focusing on meats and veggies. As we speak, I've got a crock pot of chili driving my dogs wild.

 

Anyway, thank you for letting me into the community! I'm looking forward to interacting and working with all of you so we can all achieve our goals!

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Welcome to the forums. You don't have to run to get healthy, you just have to move. Steve has a success story on his blog about someone who's only exercise was walking.

[Elastigirl]

Welcome! If you are a big alcohol drinker, and cut that, I bet you lose a lot of weight, just focusing on that change.