Raising the Bar!!

This morning was a very important time in my early stages of this journey.  It proved to me that I have been hiding behind my weight for the last 20 years and denying myself the opportunity to improve my quality of life and also that of my family.  If I had found exercise and the feeling I have felt in the last weeks from the exercise I have been doing a lot earlier I would have been a far better husband and father.

Why would this be the case you may ask?  Well in the last 3 weeks alone since starting the Michelle Bridges 12WBT I have been able to change a number of things in my life, but none more important than my mindset.  Now this does not mean that everything is perfect for me, I am sure my wife will surely agree that it is not the case, but a number of things have improved.  My diet for one is drastically better.  I have exercised every day as per my schedule and only taken Sundays off as per Michelle's instruction, which has never been that case in my life even when I was young and fit and playing football.  I also feel that my relationship with my wife has improved as we are both feeling better and more positive about the changes and working together to support each other to reach our goals.

With all this in place, I believe that we have started to show our children that being overweight (which is the only way they know me) is no way to go through life and only through making the correct choices and sacrifices will we change that.  The most important thing to me is being a good role model to my children and a good husband as well.

So why would this boring be so important after reading all this.  Well I have today taken another step forward in my fitness and weight loss journey.  My wife and I got up at 6:15 this morning for our personal training session.  Yes it is a Saturday morning and we are getting up before the sun, but it needs to be done to fit into our schedule and the trainers as well.  Thankfully this is done in our garage so we don't have to travel and our 4 kids can watch out the window when they get up.  It is only our second session so we were not sure what to expect, but I can only say that it was a quality 45 minutes that had everyone huffing, puffing and also swearing to some extent.  This little session allowed me to burn 450 calories, which was nearly half of what I had to burn today.

This is the point where I would normally finish my work out in the first 2 weeks but not anymore and especially not on Saturday when we need to burn at least 1000 calories.  This week has seen me start to push myself a little more to try and burn at least 700 calories each weekday session and obviously at least 1000 on Saturday.  Now my training on Saturdays has meant that I need to go for a bike ride in preparation for my Ride to Conquer Cancer in October, so this morning I was very happy to see clear skies as I jumped on my trusty Trek and headed out into the chilly morning.

Whilst I was a little tired after the PT session, I knew I still had to get some mms into my legs and was going to try for at least 35 kilometres or more in the time I had.  I was watching my heart rate monitor and the distance travelled and when I finally made it home after 36.4 kilometres I had burnt a total of 1621 calories for the morning.  This is 400 more than I have burnt in the previous Saturday Super Sessions or SSS as Michelle calls them.  WOW was my initial response, as I did not in my wildest dreams think that I could do that and still be able to walk after it or not have vomited.

Now sessions like this are the norm for a lot of people I know, but none of them are over 130 kgs either so I might add I am extremely proud of myself this week and I am looking forward to the next 9 weeks to see what I am capable of.  I might add that my wife's efforts this morning considering it was her first boxing session were brilliant. She never stopped no matter how hard it got and she is losing heaps of weight as well which is a credit to her considering she is not able to do the level of intensity I am with training due to her ankle condition.  She is an inspiration to me as she battles this whilst also doing her daily task of looking after the family and still working 20 hours per week.

I can't even imagine how good both of us will look when we go to Bali in October to celebrate our 40th birthdays.  I can't wait.  I have threatened my wife that I will be looking that good i will be wearing Speedos when we go to the pool.  She has said she will not be hanging around me.  Not very nice at all, but i don't blame her.