Adding to the support group

[QuelThelos]

Hey all,

 

Ben here (or call me Quel), just your usual friendly
oversized out of shape desk jockey.

 

Some of you are probably going to hate me for this, but I
have great genetics and just never used them. I’m 6’4†and since high school
had girls fawning over my shoulders. Fawning is probably too extreme a word
since it was only my shoulders, and only a few girls. I ate poorly and my
workout mostly consisted of strapping a 40lb bass drum on and marching around a
field.

 

Come college I got a little crazy with things. I realized
that without band, my poor eating got me up to 260 lbs. My girlfriend at the
time was one of those people who would be on a diet for 2 weeks, realize she
didn’t like being on a diet and try a different diet. I convinced her to pick
one and stick with it and I’d join her for support. BLAMO, dropped to 180lbs on
weight watchers and an elliptical routine that would make you want to stab your
eyes out to avoid boredom (yeah, that boring).

 

The relationship goes south, the diet goes back to the way
it was, graduate college, get a desk job and next thing I know I’m over the 260
lbs. I’m not really sure how bad it got because I refused to get on a scale.
This is when my WoW addiction got really bad. I mean 8-14 hours a day bad. My
sleep schedule went to heck. I still joke about WotLK coming out and being the
~3rd Druid on my server to hit 80. Of course that was on 12 hours of sleep over
3 days and at least 4 pizza deliveries.

 

When I realized that my real life was circling the tubes, I
seriously cut back on WoW. I started tracking what I ate and joined a gym.
Figured that if I slept more and did what I did last time the weight would come
down. Sure enough I got my weight down to 230, was boring the heck out of
myself on the elliptical/treadmill and things were improving.

 

Then I got laid off. Moved back in with my parents, met my
beautiful wife, and got rehired by the same company and sent halfway around the
country. The company was paying me to live out of a hotel and eat out every
night. Dream job right? Until I looked down around my waist and saw I was back to
where I started.

Anyways, finally got married 4 months ago and realized I’ve
got this gym membership getting very little use. I start doing research and
learning about 1000 different diets. My wife pushed me to get back on weight
watchers since it worked before, but I’m not totally satisfied with that
system. A guy at work keys me off about the Macrobolic Diet (45/35/20 if you
were interested) which is a great weightlifting/bodybuilding routine, but not
quite for your average Ben. I combined this with some of what I’ve read in a
Men’s Health book on living healthy (notice not weight loss), and boom off
again; This time with weight training. As I continued to read about diets, I
stumbled onto the Paleo Diet which lead me here. At first I thought this was
just a cute website with great photos of Lego men. Still it was a well written
and referenced article.

Fast forward a few months and I’m looking to get into
something more of a routine on the weight lifting. I mean I’ve been logging,
but I’m just aimlessly throwing weights around. Back to Google and boom,
there’s this weird website with the Lego guys again (great gimmick those). Now
I’m reminding myself which muscle groups I want to hit, stealing Staci’s graph
for actually showing myself the improvement in my lifts (new squat record today

with 185lbs), and feeling a bit more optimistic about getting healthy.

I’m glad to say I’ve fallen out of the obese category. I’m
still badly overweight with 28% body fat, but it’s coming off. More
impressively my bone density is up a full percent since I started eating
cleaner, and I’m seeing definition in my quads, biceps, and triceps something
I’ve not seen since...ever.

I’m planning on getting into this website mainly for
accountability. My wife is a fantastic support base, but it’s really small.
And, I’m looking to meet other people traveling the road I’m on.

I’m hoping I can share some of the knowledge I’ve gathered
on diet, and maybe pick up some more on lifting routines and even running for
more speed (still working the C25K program for endurance first).

Looking forward to getting better.

-Ben

[Laureleye]

Lots of us just stumbled in here from a google search (Nerdfitness???) and stayed. Glad you found your way here. Cruise around the Ranger's challenge thread and see what the rest of the gang is up to, so you can be ready when the next challenge starts.