Update!

So...bad news everybody. Turns out I suck at sticking to the plan. I have been quite good a sticking to my kilojoules but I have skipped the gym everyday this week due to a couple of factors.

1. Laziness, well duh!
2. Uni work, it is the second last week of uni and I have been a bit busy with assessments but not over the top so not the best excuse really
3. Netflix, it launched in Australia this week and I watched it.

All of that coupled with a friends 21st (sarah) this week has not helped in the results department much at all. I am going to try and stick with it this week and go to soccer training and the gym at least twice as friday is good friday and I am away all weekend.

As far as weight loss goes this week, well let's not talk about it just quite yet! That should give you an indication of where we are at.

Weekly Weigh in!

So I have heard it is a good idea to weigh in and record your progress weekly so you can see how you are doing over a long period of time. Sounds fair enough I suppose and I have been doing this for a number of weeks now seeing my weight fluctuate up and down a fair bit. I started at 119 kgs and have since dropped down to today's figure which is...114.4kgs! Booya! Only has taken me 5 months to drop almost 5 kgs because of my lack of effort. But in good news in the last 2 week I have managed to drop a kilo and a half.

For those of you playing at home the theory behind weighing yourself once a week is to show your overall progress as weight loss takes flipping forever and there is no quick fix. There are ideas that you should weigh yourself at the same time every week which is a good one as weight fluctuates a fair bit. Some people will argue Wednesday is the best day just because if you have a big weekend it takes a while to wear off. I say who cares? Just pick a day and commit. The morning works best because you will be lighter ;) but beware because it can be a little inaccurate if you ate really late the night before it may effect your results a little bit that week (but then next weeks might look even better when you have lost heaps) but over time it balances itself anyway so who cares!

Tools of choice!

I have decided to implement a little something  I call the tools of choice section. What I am going to do is just write down a thing I have used to help me every now and then and talk about it. For our first one I want to talk about HIIT. (Also known as High Intensity Interval training)

HIIT is doing a lot of hard work for a short period of time followed by a break then doing it all again. It can be on a treadmill where you would sprint then walk then sprint then walk then sprint then walk maybe for like 2 minutes then 1 minute and repeat that 5 times. Or it can be in a circuit situation with movement like push ups, burpess, sit ups, box jumps each for 30 seconds then a rest for 2 minutes then go again 4 times. I tried doing a circuit this week because I was bored at the gym with running on the treadmill and doing cardio that way.

My circuit I just made up myself not knowing what to do or how it would go. Here is what it ended up looking like:

1. 10 box jumps
2. 20 mountain climbers
3. 10 lunges
4. 10 frog jumps
5. 10 push ups
6. 20 second plank
7. rest for 2 minutes and repeat 4 times

So honestly that's a little bit of a lie. That was the dream. In reality I am not fit at all and not that strong so I managed to finish all of those exercises in the circuit 4 times but the break might have been 3 minutes a couple of times and there may have been a couple of big deep breaths in between some of them but I still made it and let me tell you now it is currently the next day and I am sore for sure! And it was really tiring yet it only went for 20 minutes all up.

HIIT is a method that is good for getting the heart rate up and keeping it high. It is apparently supposed to be good at getting your fitness level up quicker as you are elevating your heart rate then letting it drop then elevating it again over and over. Fitness after all is the hearts ability to pump blood efficiently and provide oxygen to muscles to keep working. Hence someone who is fit has a lower heart rate. The faster your heart rate can decrease the fitter you generally are. (All these claims I just made I have done some reading on line a little bit but don't trust me or anything you read on line do your own research!!!!)

But why...

I think this is a really big question that needs to be asked when starting any form of weight loss sort of journey. I am the kind of person who needs a reason and motivation to do things or else it just is not worth my time or effort. Weight loss is one of those things that I really struggle with because it takes such a long time and it is so easy just to say no to exercise and do other things...kinda like uni work.

I guess to know the reason you will have to understand who I am first so here are some of the details:

1.  I am a 23 year old guy
2. I currently study at university hoping to one day become an industrial arts teacher (high school teacher who teaches woodwork and metalwork and fun stuff like that)
3. I am a Christian who loves God (that one might not seem important but I think it is one of the most important parts of me)
4. I have a fiancé whom I am due to marry in November (Heck Yes!)
5. I don't really get up to much besides uni, church, bible study, studying and catching up with friends

Hopefully that helps to give you a bit of a better picture of who I am and to understand where I am coming from. I really am just an average Joe you would walk past on the street and probably nnever even realise or notice in anyway.

Anyway back to my reasoning...I guess that I have been struggling with my weight for the last 5 years. Ever since school finished my metabolism slowed down and I suddenly went from sport 6 days a week to almost nothing which made me add on the kilos fairly quickly. When I finished year 12 I was 105kgs. Most of my teenage years were spent in the low 90kgs until I finished my final exams. After I finished school I worked in outdoor recreations (running school camps) for a couple of years. Now this may sound like it should help being outdoors and active running things like abseiling and rock climbing and running around with kids. I am sure it did help a little bit but it also meant I spent two years eating every hour and a half. The way camp works is that happy customers are well fed customers and they were highly refined carbs most of the time. Eating breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, dessert and supper everyday started putting a few more kilos on. By the time I finished working there and started uni I was fluctuating around the 118kg marks or so.

And that is where it all had to change. I struggled for a year at uni with trying to eat healthy but with not great budgeting skills and laziness I often turned to fast food out of convenience. So Here we are in 2015. I got engaged last September and am getting married in November and have decided it is time to start getting serious. So far I am down to 114kgs which I am proud of so far seeing as I have not really tried that hard but last week we got even more serious about it all so we will see what happens. The main reason is about marriage. It is a little selfish and materialistic of me as I do not want to look fat in my photos mainly because I have to look at them forever but I think more of the reason is so Em (my future wife) can be proud of me and not have to tell me she doesn't care or mind which she probably doesn't but it is so hard to believe so it is time to start.

Most people say it is good to have a goal in mind when starting a journey and my original goal was to give it a go and try and get to 110kgs by Easter. Probably not going to happen seeing as there is only 2 weeks left til Easter but I feel like I have done well still. My dream goal would be to go under 100 and into double figures for my wedding and we still have 8 months to get there so hopefully we can stick it out!

Hi guys,
Welcome to my blog. It is weird that a guy in his early twenties who is a bit rough around the edges is sitting here and starting a blog (well it is to me anyway). I guess there is only one reason for this blog. That is to document my efforts in trying to lose some weight. I am not here to promise anybody tips and advice for quick fixes or that sort of stuff. I am simply here to write random thoughts down and stuff as we go along. So if you are reading this, Thank you for dropping by I hope our time has been enjoyed by both. :) Here is a photo of me to share a little bit more of myself.

This is me down at Head of Bight in South Australia watching the whales