There's more of me to love

Lately there has been more of me to love. I'm coming to terms with the fact that I am overweight. My wife is a really good cook and I happen to also have a penchant for ice cream and a desk job that encourages me to be sedentary. The result is that after 6 and a half years of marriage, I've gained almost 30 pounds.

This situation creates a bit of a paradox for me. When I started backpacking a few years ago, I carried almost 50 pounds of junk with me. I've been working very hard to reduce my pack weight (See previous posts about making my own gear.) On my last trip, my pack weighed less than 20 lbs including food and water. The problem is that I've worked really hard to reduce my pack weight while my body has continued to grow horizontally.

Well... I've decided to fight back. I'm on a plan to win my body back over this Holiday Season. I thought about purchasing a BowFlex, a TotalGym, or some other "miracle" fitness machine guaranteed to make me look like Chuck Norris, or Heaven forbid, Christie Brinkley. I thought about joining the local gym. In the end, I decided that the local gym was inconvenient, and the machines were over-priced and beyond what I need at this stage of the game. Simple (Free or Low Cost) exercises would have to do it.

Since the bulk of my weight has landed in my core (Gut, Love Handles, etc) and I've had some lower back issues in the last few years, I've decided to focus my workouts on core exercises, at least initially. A simple Google search has paid off big dividends. I'm now running through some hard-core exercises for 30 minutes 3 times a week. These things are brutal.

In addition, I've put myself on a common sense, healthy step-down reduced calorie diet. 1700 calories for the first two weeks, 1600 calories for the next two, on down to 1300 calories for the final two weeks. This is provided that I can function at the lower calorie levels. So far, 1700 is going pretty good. After a week, I'm starting to see the first signs of results.

DEATH TO ICE CREAM! LONG LIVE BANANAS!