This is the year for geo to take care of himself. This is where I stop myself from putting myself into an early grave through the excesses that got me to here. Ugh. I've been dreading it for ages, but now it's actually looking quite interesting. There is a hell of a lot of information available and some pretty cool tools.

First the dreadful stats:
age: 31
height: 5'8"
weight: 199.1 lbs. (damned if I get over 200)
fat %: 30.1 (or 35.1, or 31.5... can't remember)

I found a few good tools, and my personal trainer gave me a brief outline of what I want to accomplish. Oh yeah, didn't mention I have one of those. It was a package deal with my gym membership. His name is Patrick. He's a pretty cool guy, and has been doing a pretty good job at keeping me motivated so far. It helps to have someone there to show me how to use the equipment, because it can be quite intimidating.

I found out that roughly I need 3000 calories per day to maintain my current body at my current levels of exercise (which was almost none). If I cut that down by 500 that's worth a pound of fat a week. Pretty sweet deal! I'm thinking 25 of them would be enough to get a good start, so I suppose that means 25 weeks. Hrm. Past summer. I might want to accelerate that a bit, so I might have to go lower. From the 2500 calories I need to source them from (I forget the percentages) mostly from carbs, then protein, then fat. I also need to divide the calories into 5 meals during the day to maintain my metabolism.

Crazy stuff! Sounds a little extreme really. It starts off simple, but in practice it's pretty damn hard to follow. I've got that in the back of my head though while I make small changes in my life at a time.

My way of looking at it so far has to make a conscious effort to look at what I'm eating. If something looks really bad or has a simple alternative then I'll make it. One example is pop. I drank at least a couple cans a day, or a can plus a large drink from a fast food joint. By replacing that with water, or diet pop I've saved at least 350 calories a day. That's most of what I need to kill! Dropping a tablespoon of mayo is another 100. It's really easy. I'm finding stuff all the time, and just making mental notes.

As far as the gym goes, I'm not going balls out every day working different muscle groups, or whatever everyone talks about. I'm just going in, doing a half hour of cardio, and maybe a go around on the circuit of machines. Simple. That's what it's all about.

Now that the spring weather's getting better I'll be going out and riding my bikes again. Probably mostly staying around the city with the occasional treat doing some trails. Nothing crazy, because I know if I get too hard into it it won't stick.

Today I was pointed to fitday. It looks like a pretty anal way to calculate the value of what you eat during the day. It lets you track your intake and graphs it and all kinds of fun stuff. I think I'm going to try it for a little while to get a feel of how I'm eating. I know I'm still eating like an idiot, but at least now I know why.

I suppose I should have some goals, but I really don't. Maybe if I get a number or something it'll be easier to achieve. I haven't figured anything yet. I'd like to be able to do a 100k bike ride by the end of the summer. Should be easy, so if I hit it too soon I'll try for a 100 mile ride. That will be a challenge for sure. Maybe I'd like to be able to get it on without having to take a break halfway through...