Health Adventure

It's really weird when you write what you eat. But it paints you a picture of where you're headed.

I'll be frank, I'm a little heavyweight and I'm starting this blog to help me in my journey back to my lightweight days.

Yup , I was a 140lb dude turned into a 210lb guy back in '99 after I got married (yes I love my wife, and she cooks really nice). On my desire to lose weight, I lost 60lbs of which as of October '06 because of South Beach nutrition program which I started march 2005- uh yes It DOES WORK and it's not expensive as others would have thought. My meals like the veggies would cost only 25% of what it would cost you to prepare a pork stew or roast chicken. The only challenge is to discipline your self and JUST DO THE DAMN PROGRAM without excuses.

However, I went on a long pause on the program when I reached SB phase 3 'coz work caught up with me, and stress management became a gargantuan task. In other words, I got unreasonably busy... I closed a couple of large contracts my clients and needed to get my company to perform our end of the deal, and it was my first time being a school parent. Well baseline is, I was overwhelmed with tasks and my naughty side took over my health program.

The result? I'm back at 178-180 lbs... yuck - for me.

Now that I've been on both "weight worlds" being the slim and the heavy, let me share you a piece of my experience on both:

At 150 lbs:

• I can jog 4-5 kms easily in 40mins, and still
• play 1-hour basket ball game, and
• 1 game of badminton,
• 30 push-ups
• 100 sit ups
• 180bpm is manageable
• I can wear nice clothes. My waistline is 32"
• I don't fall asleep in meetings and in front of the computer.
• many other good stuff ;-)

At 180lbs:

• I can only jog at most 2kms
• I CAN'T play basketball or any other workout after jogging.
• I feel old and a typical 160bpm peak makes my head pound.
• I fall asleep in front of the computer and while watching movies.
• My clothes wont fit.
• I feel heavy - my cheeks feels thick, my tummy is sagging, flabby in my arms - it's frustrating.
• 1hr of casual basketball game is very very tiresome - I can't finish the game at all.
• waist line is 36-37"
• need I say more?

Now it's Feb 1 of 2009 I've eaten the last batch of the rather "unhealthy" foods into my body hmmm....
Fried Chicken
Tuna omelet
2 buns
4 glasses of soft drinks
1 roast beef roll
few cookies
and fried squid.

Beginning Feb 2, my journey away from large sizes begins by jumping-back to my South Beach program stage 1 simply because I've done it and it works. The only difference now is that I'll document it here in my blog and risk humiliation - lol.

I'll also start with my moderate work-out program - admittedly I can't jog 5km for now to avoid fatigue and knee injury due to overweight , but I'll start with my typical stuff I did 4 years ago:

5-8hr sleep time
5:30am wake up time
400 crunches
100 obliques
100 lower abs pull
shoulder and biceps pull
15 push-ups
2km walk-jog combo

I'll do this basic program until my weight drops to 168-170lbs - hopefully within 12 days. (Feb 14) :-D from then I'll "add stress" to my work out by increasing the jog distance and lower abs pull. By then should be able to maintain a 1.5 hour workout until I reach my target weight.

My target weight is to lose 35-40lbs which will be somewhere between 135lbs and 150lbs. I think 145lbs sounds good for my height based on clinical computation.

Doable? It's a tall order but YES, been there, done that.

The first 5-10lbs should be manageable in 12 days since it's mostly losing extra salt and fluids and remaining calories from the last meal I ate. The work-out should kick start my metabolism back to fitness mode.

The next 20lbs will be literally crazy because I'll be declaring war on my cravings, "avoiding" foods that REALLY TASTES GOOD, while managing my business stress - oh I haven't mentioned that I work 3 jobs. I'm managing a couple of small corporations and a consultant to another- good thing I like what I do :-D bad thing is there are always free lunch and coffee :-P

Anyway, wish me luck on my journey, I'll need it 'coz will be very difficult and highly mental.

To close my post, here's my personal motivational bullets:

• avoid stroke - you might survive it, but unable to talk about it - veggie brain.
• avoid heart attack - you only have one, and you don't own yours once you get married and have kids who rely on you.
• avoid cancer - uhm let's just say my mom died ealry because of this.
• accept your problems and face the stress - prepare for and deal with them. Inevitably it will always find you in the most inopportune time. Just remember, problems opens opportunities that successful people takes advantage of- go figure.
• it's never too late - if you don't try, you'll never find out.

Tomorrow then!