Welcome to the blog. My name is Paul, and I'm a fat bastard.

I don’t plan on staying one, however. I have a plan to lose the blubber and get fitter, and the programme starts in January. I’m currently pushing 16 stone (102 kg) at 5’10.  I need to lose at least three stone (42 pounds / 19 kilo) at a minimum, and ideally a bit more. I don’t expect to do that quickly. In fact, I’m budgeting for a full year to shift the weight.

Getting fitter is the other aim. At the moment, I’m horribly unfit. I want to make that abundantly clear right from the start. I’ve read a few ‘fat to fit’ pieces from people who – while they undoubtedly made admirable progress – weren’t all that unfit to start with. At least not compared to me. I’m really unfit. I can’t run a mile. In fact, I doubt I could run more than about a hundred yards on the flat without having to stop (I could maybe jog a bit further at a steady pace, but even then, I probably couldn't do a quarter of a mile). I can walk a mile, but if a significant part of it is uphill, I’m going to find it hard going. A few years ago I could and did walk ten miles without much trouble, but that was then and this is now. I can climb maybe four flights of steps before running out of steam.

That’s the baseline I’m starting from, and it’s a pretty low one. In fact it's a ridiculously low one for a guy who hasn't yet reached forty. 

Strength-wise, things aren’t quite so bad. That’s because the only form of exercise I'm doing at the moment is a little weightlifting in my garage. I'm currently lifting 70kg on the bench press and 100kg on the deadlift. (I’m not barbell squatting at the moment due to an injury, so the only form of squats I’m currently doing are a few sets per week of goblet squats). Those aren’t amazing numbers, I’m quite aware of that, and I know a serious lifter would see those weights as light. All the same, it took me a while to get up to that modest level of strength (max bench was 35-40 kg when I started), and I don’t want to lose what strength I do have. So my goal is to shift the fat, get fitter but at the same time preserve existing strength levels. (Eventually I’m going to want to get stronger too, but that isn’t the priority right now). That means dieting, starting a progressive cardio programme and keeping up the weights at around current intensity. Sounds pretty straightforward, huh? How hard can it be?

Apart from losing the weight and preserving existing strength, I’d like to be able to run a mile in a 

reasonable time for my age and tackle 15 flights of steps without being totally knackered. And I'd like to be able to walk ten miles again. Those aren’t athletic goals by any means, but I feel they’re reasonable ones. They won’t make me super-fit, but they’ll make me a hell of a lot fitter than I am right now. Oh, and I’d like to be able to knock out a few dozen press-ups and a few pullups too. I can’t even do one pullup right now, due to being too heavy (I used to be able to do a couple at a time until I reached about 14 and a half stone). Again, not athletic goals, but I'm not trying to become an athlete. I'm trying to become moderately fit, not super-fit.  

I'm starting 2^nd January because I want to get Christmas and New Year out of the way first, and the 2^nd is the first Monday after that. I don’t actually expect to lose much weight in January, if any. The main aim for that month will be to get my calorie intake down to 1800 per day (gradually) and to make a start on the cardio routine. Having built those foundations, February will be the month I expect to start dropping the weight. By the time I hit my 40^th birthday in late March, I’m planning to have made significant progress.

So, there’s the plan. In the meantime, might as well make it a Merry Christmas. Cheers!