Good day!

[snookerum]

Hello everyone, my name is Steph and I'm overweight.

(Well, there's a start!)

So, my name is Stephanie, and I've just turned 21 last month. At the age of 9, I was announce to my class that I was overweight and had to attend a special exercise program during my lunch break in school, while my thinner friends got to eat and play on the courtyard. Growing up, I learned to hate my weight, my body, my reflection, and this was (somewhat) encouraged by the way my parents constantly criticized my body. I knew I had to change, but I didn't know what - so I continued to do what I did, pretending that their words didn't hurt me, and eating whatever I wanted.

Last year, I arrived in Melbourne, Australia, to pursue my tertiary education. I joined the gym, worked out twice a week, joined some dance lessons, and was finally looking good and feeling good about myself for once. This lasted the year, and then I went home for the holidays. At home, I ate whatever my grandmother cooked, which was often grain heavy, I lazed about the house doing nothing, and continued munching away on food that I knew I wouldn't get in Melbourne.

Guess what? A year's worth of exercise went down the drain in 2 months.

Fast-forward to today (To stop rambling on). I haven't been exercising since I left the gym at the end of last year. Even though my boyfriend and I try cooking at home, we both put on weight and did nothing about that as work, University and life took over. Recently I told my boyfriend about the Paleo diet and he took to it like a fish to water, and now we've been on the diet for a week. While he's doing great, I'm not doing so good, so I figured I should come here and publicly record my progress, we'll see how I go.

Hopefully this will encourage me further! :)

Short term goals:

• Completely quit grain products (i.e. rice and bread)
  
• Work out a Month-to-Month meal plan that is sustainable for a student
  
• Increase the amount of exercise done weekly
  

Long term goals:

• Gain mental and physical strength
  
• Be a good example to my baby brother (He's actually 17 now)
  
• Be a good encouragement and partner to my boyfriend (Who is also trying to lose weight)
  
• Learning to love myself again
  

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Welcome to the rebellion, there are a lot of Aussies joining lately. You have a great story and good, realistic goals. What kinds of exercise sound good to you?

[Laureleye]

As you found out the hard way diet trumps exercise. Good work getting it in order and getting your boyfriend on board. That'll be great working on this together. Take a peek at the challenge thread.

[snookerum]

I hate (HATE!!) running. Anytime I walked past the treadmill section of the gym I shy away from it. I enjoy moving my body (Although I can't dance to save my life), cycling and I've actually been doing the beginner's body weight workout that Steve posted on Nerdfitness. At the moment, I'm low on funds so I'm not going to be able to join a gym until next year, so until then, I'm just walking more and doing the beginner's body weigh workout.

[snookerum]

Take a peek at the challenge thread.

I've actually taken a look at the challenge thread, but I'm not sure where to start so I'm still observing it until the next challenge and maybe I'll persuade my boyfriend to join as well! >.<

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

You might want to start out in the adventurer's guild, its where a lot of us start, I'm still there.

[Laureleye]

I'm an adventurer as well. I don't do any workouts at a gym; when I started I didn't do anything but the beginner's body weight and walking. So I'm sure you'll do fine with the biking and BBW. You should be all set to dive into the next challenge.