A road most travelled

[poppiestar]

Hello all, I'm finally making my introduction...

 

First, the backstory: I'm an Aussie living in London. I've been here for just over six years and I have no intention of going back home (especially after those election results). Although I'd been noticing my clothes were becoming tighter and tighter over the years, I didn't realise how bad it'd become until a trip home to visit my family this year resulted in three separate comments from family members about my increased size.

 

Upon my return to Blighty, I proceeded to buy some fancy Withings scales in an effort to start battling the bulge. Nothing actually happened in the following months though, aside from my discovering the best chinese takeaway I've ever known - cue even more kilos packed on until the scales eventually read 96.2kg. This was, with no exaggeration, the fattest I have ever been. This truly was the time to act. A plan was formed, and the following day it began in earnest.

 

My first step was to start exercising again. I began walking to the next tube station further along both mornings and evenings, each way being a good 30 minute walk. I started tracking each walk with Runkeeper and discovered that my walking times were slowly improving, until eventually I started to run part of the way - running slightly further each day until I was able to run the entire way to and from the station.

 

The most important change I made, though, was to completely change my diet. I am a sugar junkie, it is my one true weakness. Although I'd taken the step earlier in the year to stop drinking sugary drinks, this time I took more drastic steps by cutting out booze and all junk food as well. This was quite a challenge for the first week, as you'd expect, but as time went by it became easier to just say no to junk.

 

I began my journey just over three months ago (June 3, to be precise). At the time, I had a specific goal in mind: in October, I'm flying back home to attend my best friend's wedding. Not only that, but he's asked me to be his best man. I really want to look my best for this occasion, so my first thought was that I wanted to weigh 80kg by the middle of October. Needless to say, I'm ecstatic that I reached my goal almost six weeks early! However, my story does not end there.

 

Despite having successfully reached my target weight, it's come at the expense of losing 3kg of muscle. This is why I'm here and how I discovered Nerd Fitness. I really hate going to the gym, so I was hoping to find some advice on muscle-building workouts I can do at home. For the last three weeks I've been doing the Beginner Body Weight Workout which, according to my scales, has slowly started to turn the tide of my muscle loss.

 

The first day I did this workout, I almost vomited I was in such agony. It's only taken three weeks for it to become quite easy though - and this includes increasing the amount of reps each workout. I've bought the Rebel Fitness Guide and plan to move over to the first level of that very soon, but my biggest problem with it is my hatred of the gym. I guess this is where I need the most help, making that next step.

 

I hope I haven't bored anyone too much with my story. There's loads of detail I've omitted for brevity, but the main points are all there - and I'm happy to fill in any of those details if anyone's curious.

 

I guess the last thing I should do is list my nerd credentials: I work as a front-end web developer, although I have aspirations one day of writing. I've been a gamer my whole life (most recently finished The Last of Us which was great, and really excited about Arkham Origins next month) and I've recently picked up on the comics again after a 10-year hiatus (DC mostly, but starting to venture into other interesting stories). I'm also a music fiend (the music scene was one of the big perks about coming to live in the UK) and I play guitar to a fairly low standard. There's almost certainly more to tell, but surely that's enough for now?

 

Anyway, hello to you all!

[Krunchy]

Welcome! Sounds like you're doing a great job so far! Sorry I don't have any weight tips (noob here), but I'm sure you'll find lots of people with the answers you're looking for!