Initial numbers and my current plan.

So, to get things started-I need to catch you guys up to where I am now.

I started monitoring my weight on September 19th, 2009, when I was back in Indiana for my Mom's wedding. I weighed 216 pounds....this gave me a BMI of 29.3-the very top end of the range for being overweight. I did not check my body fat percentage.

What I started doing was reducing the portion sizes that I ate while gradually cutting back on the soda consumption. After a month of that, I was down to 206 with 26.1% body fat, and a BMI of 27.1. At the time of writing this post, I am at 198 and 23.6% body fat. I am gradually making progress.

I decided to add some basic lifting into my day. I started to follow a modified version of this workout http://tinyurl.com/9hc7tm . Modified for several reasons, A. I don't have enough strength to do some of the exercises and B. I don't have some of the equipment.

At the present, I have 3 strength workouts that I follow. They are all variations on the Bodyweight 200 c/o Men's Health. They are a full body, upper focus, and light. My goal is 4 days per week doing a strength workout.

The full body workout is this (in order):
30 prisoner squats
20 per leg step ups (I use an ottoman)
20 push ups
30 calf raises/dips? I stand with my toes on 2 2X4s that have been screwed together and placed on my dumbbells to raise them up.
20 dumbbell bicep curls (per arm)
20 lat extensions
20 more step ups
20 more push ups
50 reverse crunches with a swiss ball
20 bent over dumbbell rows
20 more calf raises

For the upper focus, I drop the 2nd sets of the leg exercises, the crunches, and I add in lat kick backs, shoulder shrugs, dumbbell bench press using the swiss ball, and I end by doing as many push ups as I can.

The light workout is just 1 set each of the full workout and no abs.

I also walk/jog/run at least 3 days a week. I am using the Couch to 5k plan. http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml I am using the blocks in my neighborhood as the guide. Currently, I am walking 2 straights/blocks for every 1 that I run, and after 20mins, I walk the rest of the time. I am up to 45mins at a time.

The most progress has started to occur when I started tracking my eating and exercise at 411fit.com . It is a site ran by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Totally free. McDonald's looked even less appealing when I saw what it did to my numbers.

I'll save my eating habits for next time.