Today starts the Fit in February Develop Challenge and I have decided to go ahead and participate. 2 years ago after seeing my 3 older brothers for the first time in many years I noticed that we had all put on excessive weight. I was embarrassed to sit there realizing how much weight I had gained since leaving the Navy in 1995 and determined to take it all back off. I knew how important it is to stay fit as I lost my Step-father to heart attack a little over 12 years ago. He was only 55 at the time. Over the next 6 months I lost almost 60 lbs and was back down below my final weight when I left the navy. I was pretty happy with my accomplishment and feeling much better.
Unfortunately, losing weight, and keeping it off are two different tasks. While I excelled at the one, I failed at the other. Over the course of the next 14 months I put 20 lbs back on, and then between OpenForce at the beginning of November and New Years I added an additional 17 lbs. This was not looking good. I had to do something.
Starting on January 1 of 2009, I went back into weight loss mode following a similar eating plan that helped me lose the 60 lbs the first time around. I did ok but was finding it harder this time to stay on plan. I found myself cheating here and there and I wasn’t having the results I had 2 years ago. Even at that, I still managed to lose 8 lbs. in January. But I knew I could do better.
Now that Caleb Jenkins has started the Fit in February challenge, I plan to use that to help keep me motivated to stay on plan and even step up my game. Now I just need to follow through. For me that means staying disciplined and being accountable. For the month of February I’ll post a weekly blog entry outlining my activity for the previous week and my progress towards hitting my target of getting back under 200 lbs by March 1.
As part of this challenge I will also get back on the hundredpushups plan. I am starting off this time at 20 pushups in my initial test and should be up to over 50 pushups by the end of the month. Having started this once before I know that this is not a simple plan to stick to, but I know that as long as I keep being accountable that it is much easier to stay on track.
Each week I’ll post a new chart and once the challenge is complete I’ll post my final picture to see how far I made it. Even once February is through, I’ll continue working to get back down to my average weight from my Navy days. This should keep me going for a few more months which is long enough to help re-establish a healthy eating and fitness regimen.
So why make a whole blog post out of this? Well, that is where you come in. I am sure that like many in the tech industry that I have at least one or two readers who could benefit from a little healthier lifestyle. I challenge you to join the rest of us taking part in FitFeb. Losing weight and getting in shape is much easier to accomplish when you are doing it with friends. So jump in, what have you got to lose – besides a few extra pounds.