Lurker -> Recruit

[WilsonD73]

Howdy howdy. Guess I should introduce myself, seeing as I've been reading this site for about a year now and haven't posted.

My name's Dave, and I'm 37. (I feel like I'm starting a dating survey...) Anyhow, I've been overweight pretty much since puberty, and I'm over it. I've tried I don't know how many diet programs, and every single time I got to the 35 lb. mark, I freaked out and stopped.

I decided to put my 2 cents in on here because I re-read the Rules of the Rebellion, and realized that I needed to stop basing my self-esteem around a number that may go down a lot or not much at all, and start focusing on just getting healthier and more importantly in better shape.

My first measurable goal is to get through level 2 of the Fitness Guide. Once I do that, I'll re-evaluate and see if I want to do level 3 or if I want to do something different. But Level 2 of the Fitness Guide is my first goal.

[rdwagner]

From one lurker to another, Welcome! Great to have a solid goal to work towards. Keep us posted on how things go!

[Alethea]

Hiya, and welcome (finally)!

Happy to hear you're changing your focus from external rewards (how people view you) to internal awards (doing cool shit because you want to). How often are you working out per week?

We have a Weekly Challenge starting up on the 7th, if you'd like to join. It's good fun, and keeps you accountable. We're all in this together!

[Plex]

Howdy there and welcome to the Rebellion.

I agree with Alethea's sentiment, its about inches, not pounds.

[Gowaduv]

Welcome! I thnk you'll find that those of us in the "need to lose weight" group have a looooot in common. Though you're not on a "diet program" what does your day-to-day eating look like?

Good luck on your goal- keep us posted!

[WilsonD73]

Honestly, up to now my day-to-day eating has been abysmal. I work as a corporate trainer, but most of my job lately has involved sitting my butt down in front of a computer and either recording audio files or trying to convince various programs to give up the ghost and do what I want them doing. Then, I come home and either plop in front of the computer some more to chat with friends, play World of Warcraft, or browse the web, or I get in my car and drive to get food because I'm mentally wiped and don't want to think about cooking.

Obviously, the fact that I've been here is indication that I'm aware that's bad, but I've not had the inclination to fix it until the day I actually signed up. My company has a "wellness program", and part of it is getting blood drawn and all that. I got my results back, and found out that I'm heading towards being diabetic, on top of being ridiculously overweight which I already knew.

I'm still trying to break my bad habits, and that's going to be one of the hardest things for me I think. However, I know I need to, and if I can tie that into changing the bad habits into good ones, I can beat this malaise that's settled over me. That's the biggest thing: convincing my psyche that I'm not permanently locked into this cycle of feeling bad, fixing things for a bit, then freaking out and dropping everything because I can't lose the weight fast enough. That's why I want to stop looking at the scale all the time: it doesn't change fast after the first couple of weeks, which is mostly water weight.

I'm going to give the Paleo style of eating a shot and see if that helps. That, and I've got my gym membership which I'm going to start off easy with and work my way up from there. I can't change everything at once or I'm not going to stick with any of it, but if I change things gradually, I'm hoping it'll stick better.

[werwolf]

Welcome Wilson! I say exploit that corporate wellness program as much as possible. I think those are a great help to people who want to get healthy. Although, I must say that all the Rebels are an even greater help. So it's a good thing you crossed over to the non-lurker side.

[WilsonD73]

Welcome Wilson! I say exploit that corporate wellness program as much as possible. I think those are a great help to people who want to get healthy. Although, I must say that all the Rebels are an even greater help. So it's a good thing you crossed over to the non-lurker side.

Honestly, I'm expecting this to help way more than the wellness program. The two big problems with it: there's a gamification process in play with it, which while helpful in theory isn't playing out that way at all in terms of stuff actually sticking, so that's #1. #2 is that we have a number of vendors who come and woo us, and nobody is telling them to stop bringing the crap food. I kid you not, the week after we launched the wellness program, vendors came in with 3 different types of chocolate fountains and at least 7 lbs. of crap food (cookies, cakes, Rice Krispy Treats, brownies, donuts, etc.) and nobody told them that that was a horrid idea.

[Alethea]

My advice to you is focus on making small bits of progress, one by one. Every little thing you do builds momentum to make that next step easier, down to brushing your teeth to make that midnight snack less appealing. You may not get where you're going as fast as you want to (we never do, impatient creatures that we are), but you are closer today then you were yesterday!