Time to get serious!

[Helixagon]

Hello there! My name's Helixagon, but you can call me Greg. I've been at this gaming malarkey for probably as long as most of the folks here, so what with me upping my fitness goals lately, I just couldn't ignore these forums when I discovered the site. I am shameless, and if I can revel in something I love while bettering myself, in the company of others who are doing the same ... well, awesome.

Being in good shape has been a dream my whole life. I've been overweight since I started secondary school (that's about 11 for you non-British heathens) and it was not a fun time. Over the years I've made very slow but definite progress, educating myself about good eating and exercise. I've lost a great deal of weight, but always somehow fell short of my goals.

As it stands, I'm 24 and 208 pounds, male and 6 foot 2. This year I quit daily drinking, made walking to work a daily thing rather than getting the bus, and made an effort to stop getting takeaways (which have been a huge weakness of mine ever since I moved out with little-to-no knowledge of cooking). I expected this to make a significant difference, but contrary to my hopes it hasn't tipped the scales, and I'm still not at my goal. I quit my job not long ago in preparation for doing some travelling next year and to pursue some personal goals, and since I have all this extra free time it's an excellent time to get serious about my health changes.

Starting a week ago, I've cut my calorie intake to ~1500 calories daily. This seems rather extreme given my size - I'm a big guy even without the extra chub - but as aforementioned, my body HATES giving up fat. I've tried steadily decreasing my calories over time, but it's taken too many years with not enough progress, so I'm going to reverse it and simply increase the calories gradually once I hit my goal. It's going to be hard, but I have a lot of discipline when I know it's for a result. About two years ago I underwent a fast for two weeks where I had nothing but water, so this pales by comparison. I may change this, but I'm going to be doing it for a minimum of 1 month before I look at the results and decide.

This isn't just going to be about numbers, though. I'm getting more stringent about the actual food I put into my body, which means more fruit and vegetables. Last week I made sweet potato chips for the first time to eat with a steak, and it was glorious. Today for lunch I had a bowl of strawberries. Life is delicious. There are some things I love which I'm going to have to cut back on - pizza is the big one. I won't lie, I freaking love pizza. Thin, deep pan, stuffed crust, calzone - I'm a connoisseur. But such calorie-dense foods don't have any place in the diet of someone who's trying to lose weight seriously. Maybe when I'm at my goal weight, or maybe I'll finally learn to make my own pizza and do it with some wholewheat crust (I vastly prefer wholewheat to white bread, in any case).

I've struggled a lot with exercise because, regardless of how much time I put into it, my body always seems to take forever repairing itself. I'll be sore and stiff for days afterwards, and not just for the intiial weeks of starting a regimen. I've figured this may simply be because I push myself too hard. So my new goals for fitness, with weight loss as a focus - as opposed to the vague 'gain strength and lose weight?' goals I had previously - are to work out daily and not push myself to the point where I can't move for several days. I'll be doing standard day-on-day-off, with my 'on' days focused on resistance training and my 'off' days focused on light cardio which raises my heart rate without wrecking my muscles for the following day's workout.

What I've always wanted is to be slim, fast, strong and agile - so despite the idea being a long way off, I'm going to be joining the Assassins forum. I'll doubtless be making a topic there soon. Maybe long-term, if I hit my goal weight, I can start making my goals things like "do a backflip". As for now though, this is way longer than I intended to make it, so I'll cut off by saying hey. Hello. And if anyone wants to add me on Steam and play some vidjergaems, feel free! And thanks for reading.

[NicholeLeigh]

Greg, it looks like you have some fantastic ideas! I wonder, have you ever been tested for hypothyroidism? The only reason I ask is you mentioned your weight issues started around puberty. If everything is in the clear health-wise, i think cooking for yoursel is a wonderful second step! I pulled this site for you, FoodNetwork. It has some great recipes that are easy to pull together and includes things like pizza and burgers...HEALTHY PIZZA!

Let me know what you try and if you love it! Best!

[Kinder]

I buy ready-made whole wheat pizza dough from the store, then get to creating!

Easy enough to spread out the dough, I load it up with veggies (I use sliced tomatoes instead of pizza sauce), and make sure to only use 1 oz of mozz per serving. I am a huge spinach fan, so it's generally got heaping portions of that as well. Try the recipe site www.skinnytaste.com, lots of recipe adaptions.

[Helixagon]

NicoleLeigh: I just did a bit of reading up on hypothyroidism, and to answer your question: ... I have not. Those symptoms are rather scarily uncanny though. After I left puberty I've had hugely dry skin and have to moisturise twice daily or my face cracks open, which is exacerbated by cold. I'm definitely going to look into getting tested for that, big thanks for putting onto it. If it turns out I do have that, it could explain a lot!

And awesome, pizza recipes. Good ideas all round! My toppings for pizza tend to be pretty healthy (spinach, olives, chicken) ... it's just the entire rest of the pizza that's so terrible for me