Hello, and welcome to my blog. My name is Tom, I’m 26 and work in Software Quality Assurance in Georgia. The entries you read are all focused around two core themes, staying in shape and getting outdoors! It has been over a year since I decided I needed to lose some serious weight. At that time I weighed in at nearly 330 pounds, and I was still finding a way to gain weight. I had just made a trip to the doctor to get a refill on my Acid Reflux prescription and as always I got the speech about weight loss. This doctor gave me some new information that helped give me the shock I needed to begin my weight loss. He told me that at my present weight I would need to consume over 4000 calories a day just to maintain my weight.

I knew it was time for a change, I was single again and knew that if I wanted to start dating I would need to shed some of my extra weight. Instead of taking up one of those fad diets I decided to reason out a weight loss plan. This was my first serious attempt to lose weight my entire life. In college I put on my freshman 15, then followed it up with a sophomore 15, and kept up that schedule through graduate school until I found myself at 300 pounds. After that point I didn’t see much use in getting on the scale, all I know is that my pant size continue to go up until I could barely fit into a size 44 waist.

My diet was simple; I wasn’t going to diet, instead I was going to change the way I eat forever. I know this is what everyone says, and it never works out that way. I was committed; I needed a change and that meant never eating over 2000 calories in a day ever. I knew this wouldn’t be easy because my favorite part of the day was eating lunch out with friends from work. I wasn’t prepared to give that up, but I was convinced I had to do it on my own terms. I decided to cut out drinking away my calorie limit; it was only water and diet drinks for me now. I also cut out the big dinners. My theory was that if I ate a big lunch I would have no problem digesting it before bed time. In exchange I gave up big dinners, but I discovered how tasty lean cuisines, and similar food could be.

Of course eating right would take me part of the way, but I knew I had to exercise as well. I dug my inline skates out of the closet and made them the staple of my exercise routine. Again, I wasn’t looking for a temporary fix; I needed a life style change. That meant making a daily walk a habit, and changing my routine from spending free time in front of the tv to spending it outside.

This life style change started working almost instantly. I promised myself that I wouldn’t check the scale every day, but I could tell that my clothes didn’t fit anymore. Soon I was buying a brand new wardrobe, but this time it wasn’t because I gained too much. 5 months later I finally weighed in, and was shocked with how much I lost; I was under 260 pounds. This was instant motivation to me, and with autumn coming i was
able to get outside again without worrying about heat stroke.

Over the next three months I continued my new healthy lifestyle, and lost another 30 pounds. This brought my to my target weight loss of 100 pounds total. Of course I wasn’t satisfied with that, but with the winter approaching I decided that I should relax and just focus on maintaining my new weight. So for the next 4 months I stuck solid at 230 pounds, and I was proud of myself. However in the spring I found it more difficult to re-motivate myself to exercise every day. It took a month or two to get back in the swing of things but I’m back to losing weight now. My new goal is to drop those 30 pounds and bring my weight to a nice even 200 pounds.

This blog will let you follow me on my adventures. I’ll be sure to keep you posted as I lose weight, but I’ll also share many of the fun and exciting things there are to do in the area. While I’m living in the Metro-Atlanta area, few things I do are specific to this city. No mater where you are there are many things to do, and beautiful things to see. If you can make a point of doing them, you may find that you will have the nice side effect of losing some extra pounds as well.