Full System Reboot

[Craynon]

Hello!

I'm posting a quick intro here as a way of committing to levelling up my life!

I'm a 21 year old male Computer Science student living in Southampton, UK and I am trying to completely change my life. I'm 6ft and as of yesterday I'm 155lb and to my eyes, pretty scrawny. I've never been comfortable with how I've looked in the mirror. I've always been naturally strongish with good endurance, but as my teenage metabolism is now finally deserting me, I'm not quite as fit as I liked to think I was!

I've recently rekindled my love of caving, having joined an awesome club at my university (the binge-drinking socials aren't exactly paleo, but oh well!). I've really been enjoying getting back into the sport, for multiple reasons: my interest in geology, the amazing community and the physical exercise. I noticed on my last trip that there were certain precarious moments where I wish I'd been a bit stronger, so I'd really like to work on that!

I recently came out of a relatively long relationship, and I'm very much revamping my life. I've already replaced almost my entire wardrobe and I've given myself the rule of not turning down any invites to social situations unless it would compromise my studies. I've never had a workout program before, nor have I really cared about what I've eaten. I love good food (thanks mum!) so my eating habits aren't too bad (I reckon level 3 on the NF diet) but I probably slightly undereat on the majority of days, and then occasionally overeat with takeaways and take in a huge amount of liquid calories (copious amounts of alcohol are consumed through caving socials...)

So, here are my goals:

• Bulk up and get some visible muscle. Not crazy muscle, but enough (rippling pecs and abs wouldn't go amiss however). I'm not setting a weight target until I'm in the routine of working out.
• Get used to having a routine and constantly improving myself, which should have the added bonus of improving my terrible work ethic
• Be stronger than both my younger brothers by the summer holidays and eventually my dad (all 3 are relatively sporty - I'm the nerd who doesn't like teamsports)

And here's how I'd like to achieve them:

• Go paleo (on a low student budget) - I'm trying to bulk up, not lose weight, so may need to tweak this down the line (GOMAD?)
• Workout Mon/Weds/Fri from home, until I feel confident enough to join my university gym
• Walk to Mordor, I walk a lot across town when I can manage it, I just want to scale that up and track it properly
• Fix my sleeping pattern which is currently terrible
• Whatever else will help!

I'm hoping my easily distracted nature won't obstruct me getting into the above routines, and that my addictive personality should help me constantly push myself further. My family are aware of my plans to workout, but not the full extent of the changes I'm planning so I will hopefully surprise them!  Unfortunately, I don't have an accountabilibuddy to work with, so I'll have to make do with comparing myself against myself. I've just found a gym buddy just after finishing writing this! I'd told a friend of mine I'm hoping to hit the gym, who told another mutual friend: he wants to get back into going to the gym, so now I don't need to worry about not knowing what to do and being so self-conscious! Yay!

I've taken the plunge and plumped up for a NerdFitness Academy membership as I've never tried to make this many change and I'm thinking I'd like to aim for the Ranger class so I can enjoy how I look and the Adventurer class so I can do better at the activities I enjoy (caving, climbing etc)

Thank you for reading this!

P.S It's exam season for a couple more weeks for me, so I don't intend to fully commit to a workout program until the end of the month, in the meantime I'm going to walk, eat well and log the food I eat.

[raptron]

Yours posted also! 

[Craynon]

I know! I've been trying for two days, glad it finally did

[raptron]

Congrats on your new gym buddy as well! 

[Craynon]

Thanks! I've never been to a commercial gym before (except to use the bouldering wall at one when I was in school), so having a friend there should help a lot!

[AtomicZombie79]

Good job on getting the post to finally stick.  I had to go through a bit of an ordeal to finally get mine up as well.

 

Good luck on your journey.

[Craynon]

As did I! I ended up posting it from Tapatalk and then editing the post on here to fix the formatting issues.

 

Good luck to you too!