I am, like many people, a proud member of the Wichita YMCA.  And like a lot of those people, I don’t use that membership nearly as much as I should.

So, here I am, 6’5″, 350 lbs. and needing to drop some weight in a hurry.  According to my good doctor, all of the hobgoblins of being fat are banging at my door,  High blood pressure, diabetes, and heart attacks – OH MY.  But seriously, I am the proud and loving dad of two beautiful girls and I have a wife who loves me more than I deserve, so I owe it to them and myself to be a healthier dad/husband/hunk ‘o’ burnin’ love.

So, after seeing my good buddy Carly make herself accountable to all of our good readers by committing to run a 5K, I’m going to do the same.  Every week, I’m going to tell you what and how I’m doing to drop some pounds. And hopefully I’ll show you that this is doable by a guy who loves to eat, hates to work out and is in generally worse shape than you are.

So here’s the plan:

Cardio – I will be doing the Couch to 5K program.  I did this before several years ago and dropped a ton of weight.  It’s a 30 minute jog/walk program. By the end, you’re actually running/jogging/walking really fast, all while praying for it to end.

Weights – I found a program on the Interwebs that builds over a 12-month time frame and results in you being a big ripped pile of muscles.  Now let’s be serious, that ain’t gonna happen.  But according to my research, lifting weights allows you to still burn calories long after you leave the gym, so I’m going to try it, as getting something for nothing really appeals to me.

Diet – Ack, and to paraphrase the Bard, “As I hate hell do I hate the oh diet.” The good news is that as a big guy, I can still down 3,000 calories and lose weight, for a while at least.  So my goal is to eat more often, eat less when I do and somehow manage to skip all of the delicious naughtiness that I dream of.

Oh, and as an added bonus, I’m quitting smoking too.  This should be interesting.  Now, if it will be interesting in a Rudy kind of way or a Hindenburg kind of way remains to be seen.  I look forward to your help, encouragement and, if nothing else, your blatant and brutal mocking.

Any hints or tips as I take this on?  Shout them out in the comments.  I’ll see you in a couple of weeks!

Related posts:

1. [move] ‘Til I Collapse: Week 2
2. [move] Till I Collapse: Reality Check
3. [move] Running Just As Fast As I Can: Week 4
4. [move] Running Just as Fast as I Can: Week 7
5. [move] Running Just As Fast As I Can – Week 1