Hi, new to nerd fitnness.

[MatthewGeorge]

Hello, my name is Matthew, I was recently introduced to Nerd Fitness by a friend who is on the same adventure as me.  That being, getting healthy.  I started my journey back in February weighing in at about 250lbs and am now fluctuating between 220 and 230.

 

My journey began shortly after quitting my job due to stress. I finally found the time to get a number of things done I had been putting off, one of those being finding a regular doctor and getting myself a check up.  At the time I was a little bit paranoid about diabetes, as a number of people I know who were a lot healthier than I, were being diagnosed with it.  It turned out that aside from being overweight, most everything was ok with me physically. When I mentioned that my snoring was causing my partner to sleep in another room my doctor referred me to a sleep clinic where I ended up being diagnosed with sleep apnea and needed a CPAC machine.  Now, what really kicked my ass into gear was the doctor at the  sleep clinic.  After giving me a once over he began to dictate into  small tape recorder his appraisal of my physical condition, needless to say it was blunt and not at all flattering.  After he was done talking about me he took a few second to give me his recommendation, "lose weight."

 

It's amazing what having someone be blunt with you can do to get you motivated.  I started going for daily walks, first for half an hour and then worked my way up to an hour.  As well, I started doing research into the principals of gamification and started implementing  them as a way of incentivising healthy habits.  Basically, any habit that I wanted to promote gained me points while those that I wanted to be rid of and thing that I enjoyed cost points.  There are a number of articles out there on the subject of gamification and I do recommend doing a search on the topic.

 

Since then I have, for the most part, cut out pop and junk food from my diet and stopped eating fast food regularly.  Also, I have done the Sacred Heart Diet a few times to flush my system.  Not something I can do continuously as it is incredibly restrictive, but my mother in law has been on it for about two months and has great results. 

 

About a two weeks ago I joined a gym with the friend that introduced me to Nerd Fitness and have been going three times a week since.  The long term goal I have is to be able to run a marathon and get back the energy that I had when I was younger. I was one hell of an energetic kid up until I hit puberty.  Currently, my short team goal is to be able to jog for half an hour on a tread mill.  At the moment I'm walking for half a lap and jogging for the next half. I hope to reach my goal by the holiday season.

 

Well, that is my journey so far.  I'll try and keep everyone appraised of progress.

 

cheers and long live the rebelion.

[Guzzi]

Hey! Welcome to the rebellion.

 

Well done on the success so far, sounds like you're doing all the right things.  Sorry to hear about the sleep apnea, that's not nice.  But, like you said, losing weight can really help.  There's a real community on the forum so I'm sure you'll find a lot of support and some pretty inspiring stories too.

 

Good luck!