Let’s get this straight from the start, I’m no fitness guy! I’m currently overweight but not necessarily that unfit for my age.

I do however recognise the necessity to stay as fit as possible, to eat well, exercise and stay generally healthy both from a quality of life and prepping stand point.

At the age of 14, I was told that my dad had leukaemia, not a clue what this was and no internet back then I used the library to gain information, it didn’t read well! He went on to survive for 25 years after been given months to live. We learnt to live day by day, staying as germ free as possible. My dad claimed that it was his fitness at the time of being diagnosed that helped him fight. He had started Jogging as a part of the 70’s new craze! and was at a level where he could jog to work 5 mile with no problems. Not fantastic fitness, but better than average.
So my philosophy is to try to stay fit and eat healthy, of cause this isn’t always possible with fast food and being on the road most of the time. To give you an idea of my size, I’m about 5ft 10 inches and up until a 5 months ago weighed 103kg, so pretty over weight (in fact obese)!
I did the whole gym thing through ’97 to 2004, mainly weight training and bulked up to a reasonable size, also went through swimming fads, getting to a level of 70 to 100, 25m lengths in an hour, which is good going by any standards, but my weight still didn’t come down that much.
In 2007 I had sciatica which was physically the most painful thing ever! I couldn’t walk at all for a month and went through months of physiotherapy, acupuncture, stretching, etc. in the end it was just time and baby steps that got me back. My goal then was to complete a triathlon which I did the following year and again the next year.

So my goal this year is to lose weight, but accept that 30 years of piling on the fat, isn’t going to disappear in a few months, no, this is a long-term, small loss programme.

Using a Jawbone Up I have started to make good progress.
It’s a very simple theory, if you burn more calories than you put into your body, your weight will decrease! For the first month I religiously recorded my daily intake, inputting data is quick and simple using My Fitness Pal app, this app synchronises with the Jawbone Up making easy for the user to work over multiple software platforms, the Up wrist band measures your steps and converts to calories, the My Fitness Pal covers the intake! It also guides you on the types of food you’re eating.
After a few months I stopped recording the food intake because after a while you tend to be entering the same stuff day after day so become able to gauge yourself on what you are eating and govern it accordingly, I just check it now once a month.

I record my weight daily to see the small changes, most weight loss programs advise against this so as not to become disheartened, however in my view weighing weekly allows you to, well!, try to make yourself as light as possible for the weigh in!

I find that weighing daily before bed or when you get up at around the same time provides you with a clear and honest progress, your weight will fluctuate from day-to-day due to toilet timing, eating out, weekends etc but as long as the overall trend line is downwards then you are losing weight.

The chart opposite is a snapshot of my progress to date, I’m losing about a steady .3kg per week, I’m not on a diet as such. If I over eat one day, I’ll go for a walk and earn back my calories, think of it as ‘earning your food’

I’ll keep updating through blogs my progress, if you are interested, or need some motivation please let me know, like I said, I’m just a regular guy, not a fitness freak so understand the issues that the average person has trying to lose weight.