1 Week Down

I've made a huge mistake... I didn't read my scale correctly so my first weigh in was wrong! I was really 195 pounds and a BMI of 29.6. I guess my first part of training should be to learn to read scales accurately.

For this past week I've been riding my bike to work as often as possible and bringing my own lunch instead of buying stuff at the cafeteria that comes straight out of the fryer. Bringing lunch didn't matter since I didn't have many shifts long enough to require taking a lunch break. I was also informed by my girlfriend Erica that we would be participating in Fast Food Free February (FFFF), I had no say in this decision. The idea is to not eat at any fast food restaurants for the entire month of February. There aren't rules stated anywhere so we made our own. One was an exception for quick service restaurants that offered "healthy" choices.

Being a week in now (and being able to correctly read my scale) I am at a weight of 193 pounds and a BMI of 29.3. Woohoo!! -2 pounds! Not bad for just one week I guess, and this is just minor stuff. The bike riding will continue, but I'm not sure yet when I'll start doing longer rides or even working on my swimming and running (neither of which are my strong suit). I guess we'll see...

First Weigh In

As a way to track my progress I'll weigh myself and check my BMI. As of now I'm at a weight of 190 lbs. and a BMI of 28.9 which they categorize as overweight (I don't feel overweight). According to the BMI calculator on the CDC's website, a "normal" weight for my height (5'8") is somewhere between 122-164. My average weight through high school was somewhere around 180 (I think).

I assume these calculations could be a little off since it might not take muscle mass into account (it does weigh more than fat). My weight had stayed pretty consistent throughout high school even though I had stopped boxing since I was pretty involved in a lot of activities; JROTC, FFA, marching band, and a semester of volleyball. Then of course after graduation comes college and with it, the freshman 15. I wasn't so worried about my weight for these next few years because I felt good about my body and was casually going to the gym or taking a gym class. Then in 2010 I decided to do the National MS Society Pacific South Coast Chapter's Bike MS Ride for the 2nd year. It was a 100 mile bike ride whereas the year before I only did 30 miles. This was going to require a little more effort so I decided to train harder and track my progress, I weighed myself in sometime around summer and I was 205 pounds!

When the hell did this happen!? I had no idea but I was gonna fix it. Through training I dropped 20 lbs. in 3 months and weighed 185 on the day of the ride. I've been slowly floating around that range ever since. This story is also pretty important because this was the start of my cycling addiction and my eventual decision to do a triathlon.

The Starting Line

So this is where it starts, I have no idea what I'm doing but have read enough blogs to get a rough idea. I never had anything interesting to say; I wasn't a preschool teacher, didn't need to keep my family back home in touch, and I wasn't a YouTube star. But now I figured it out with some help from my girlfriend. This is the start of my training program for my first ever triathlon.

I'm 23, working a part-time job that's fun but not what I want to be doing for the rest of my life. I say I'm on a break from school but in reality I've been academically disqualified and the amount of money it would take to get back in is too much in my opinion for a piece of paper that might not do me much good in the real world.

I've been saying that I would try to get more active and this is definitely going to get me there. I'm by no means a couch potato, I love riding my bike and use it to commute to work when convenient and I play in an adult kickball league on the weekends. Doesn't seem like much when I write it down but it's enough to keep me at a consistent weight, and I'm happy with my appearance (although it could use a little work).


I don't know exactly how often I'll post on here but I'll try to at least once a week (we'll see how that goes).