Hello, my name is LeadChipmunk* and I am a...

[leadchipmunk]

Rebel.

*My name actually isn't LeadChipmunk (by birth), just my most common gamertag is.

Ummm, where to start. I am 6'2"-ish, 21-years old. I live in Ohio, pretty much right on the Ohio River, and I work as a "Technology Aide" at a local school, which pretty much means that I get to do most everything in the IT department here, but I'm only classified (and certified) as a teachers' aide, so they can pay me as little as possible. Yay me! I also work as an armed security guard and private investigator, but that is very part time.

Anywho, enough about my life and more about why I am here. Since somewhere around 3^rd or ^4th grade, I have been overweight, going as high as close to 500 lbs. in high school. Currently I am around 245, but very little of it is muscle. I'm not sure how I lost most of that weight, but it may have something to do with only eating one or fewer meals a day.

Well, as of early this month, I found this site and it has inspired me to do something about my health. I have been reading article after article on the NF site, then I found the forum and posted a question I had, and started trolling it. Finally today I decided to give a real post and become part of the army.

I've decided to start eating paleo, or some form of it because there are so many versions of the diet and it confuses me which is which sometimes. And I am going to start working out. I'm thinking about doing a (slightly modified) workout outlined in the How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse article on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. On Wednesday afternoons I'm going to do the Beginner Bodyweight Workout. And on Saturdays I'm going to do the Interval Running that was shown in the Interval Training article.

The 2 biggest modifications that I will have on them are as follows.

1. I may not make it through the whole workouts the first couple times because of how out of shape I am.

2. I cannot do pullups in my house because there is nowhere that a pullup bar would work, so I will switch to dumbbell rows and then up to inverted bodweight rows.

Well, that was a long post, so I will just say this to finish. I have had trouble with keeping up with working out before, so hopefully by leaving this here and joining in the community, it will help inspire me to keep it going.

And for the people looking for this, I will leave it here:

*TL;DR* - Quit skipping ahead and missing the important (and less than important) parts of a post (article, story, etc.) and scroll back up and learn to read.

Thank you,

L_C

[Rosie]

Hey, welcome to the rebellion and good luck with your goals

[ebm1224]

welcome! glad you're here! if you've had trouble sticking with a routine before, perhaps you should just aim for 3 workouts a week. if you want to do more once you've been consistent with that for awhile, go for it...but sometimes setting the standard so high can backfire. but, hey, everyone's different so do what you think is best as for diet, do you eat pretty healthy now? going from eating lots of fast food or similiar stuff to eating paleo might be a hard transition - maybe smaller changes like substituting a less-healthy side for veggies would be a good start. or cutting out some of the more processed snacks in favor of fruits or veggies. just some suggestions that have helped me. again, glad you're here!

[leadchipmunk]

I used to do really good for a month or two, but something would always come up and I would miss a day or two and just wouldn't be able to convince myself to start again. And I was going to do 3 workouts a week, but I couldn't decide between the "zombie apocalypse" routine or the bodyweight one. So I decided to try them both. If I like one more than the other, then I will solely go with it later on.

For the running, I try to make it to the gun range every Saturday, so I'm just going to throw the running in before I go shooting. Seriously, who would want to mess with some random guy running through the woods with a rifle strapped to his back? Haha.

Foodwise, I go back and forth between good and bad food. Most days it is home cooked something or other, but maybe once a week I'll have some fast food or it will only be junk food for that day. I eat fruits whenever I have them around, and I love vegetables.

[Corbab]

Sounds like you have a solid goal and a good plan already, which is really helpful when you're starting out. If you have any questions, there's always someone here who can answer them. Welcome!