Introduction - just 93.6 pounds to go

Hello to whoever may be reading this. Please don't be scared off by this long initial post. I feel that I need to introduce myself and provide a bit of background about what this blog is all about, so please read on.

My name is William Hanson and I'm a 31 year old man living in the Fredericton region of New Brunswick, Canada. I've gotten to the point in my life where I've decided that some changes are in order. My weight has gotten far too out of control and I need to begin getting fit again. I'm creating this blog with the hope that it will help keep me accountable with regards to what I eat and how much I exercise.

So here's my story. I've always been a big person and I come from a family of big people. My father's side of the family is large in structure and my mother's side is large in width. As long as I can remember, I've struggled with weight issues. Fortunately, as a kid I played a lot of sports, which I think kept things somewhat under control. Between hockey, baseball, golf, tennis and soccer I was able to stay reasonably fit even though I was still overweight.

In the mid-90s I began my university career with a heads down approach. I did exceptionally well in school and have since gotten a Bachelor and Masters degree. Unfortunately, by focusing solely on my education, sports took a back seat and the weight started piling on. My affinity to fast food and pizza, combined with my tendency to binge snack in the evenings (on chocolate and chips) definitely hasn't helped matters. Over the past 15 years I've lost and gained 30 or 40 pounds many times and I even lost 100 pounds once, however, it always comes back, typically with additional weight. I'm currently tipping the scale at 313.6 pounds.

One of the many reasons I've decided to do this is that I have a new baby boy of 4 weeks old and a little girl that just turned 2 years old and I need to be there for them. My daughter always wants to play and I'm finding that I just can't keep up with her at my current weight. A few weeks ago at her gymnastics class she asked me to jump on the trampoline with her like the other parents were doing with their kids. Of course I didn't feel that I could because I didn't want to break the trampoline, which broke my heart (for both of us). So this blog is the approach I've decided to take to attempt to do something about my weight issues.

When I lost 100 pounds, I did it with a friend. Having that support and motivation really helped me. So I'm hoping that by writing a blog and hopefully getting a few followers I'll be able to achieve that same sense of accountability that will keep me going.

So, my goal is to get to 220 pounds, which I feel is a reasonable weight for my structure and height and hopefully would be maintainable. My strategy is to eat better, cut out the binge snacking and start exercising more. Each day I'll post what I ate and what I did for exercise. I'm hoping to get 3 workouts a week in and eat 3 sensible meals each day with a reasonable snack in the afternoon. I'll also post a weekly weigh-in, probably from each Monday morning as well as a montly photo, probably from the first Monday of each month (I'll include my initial photos with my first daily post). Of course I'm open to hearing any tips from anyone out there, as I know I'm not the first person to struggle with weight issues. Please feel free to add your two cents to my approach and share your lessons learned from past experiences.

So here I go....

William Hanson