Hello universe! Let the fat loss begin.

Just call me “X”. It’s not that I don’t want you to know my name, but rather I don’t want my name to create an impression of me before you really get to know me over the next 3 months. Just as Trixies around the country are ‘typecast’ one way with certain characteristics upon first meeting them, and Margarets another, I would rather you just see me as plain old X.

I am 38 and out of shape. I had been a gym go-er for 20 years but for me 2007 turned into the year of the slug, not the gym rat. My decline into poor health was pretty slow and although it happened before my eyes, it was so hard to see it, until one day I looked in the mirror and saw a fat backside and complementary back chunks, and I just couldn’t believe I was looking at me.

Let me talk about motivation for a bit. It’s the lack of it that has gotten me to this place: I am in the worst cardiovascular shape I’ve been in about a decade, physically my hip flexors are tight as drums, and my inactivity has made my health suffer for a good six months now. I kept telling myself that tomorrow I would get around to working out, or I would wait till the first of the month, or the first day of the week to get going. But nothing happened and I couldn’t get into a workout groove and stay there.

Okay, credit where credit is due: I have worked out more than a few times over the last six months! Actually I worked out a few times a week for the first half of 2007, but I got de-motivated. How? Well the first half of the year saw me working as a personal trainer [yeah, I admit it - I AM AN OUT OF SHAPE PERSONAL TRAINER!!!!] – in a gym that frankly, in hindsight, I see was just not a match for me. I got disheartened and saw my clients get fitter and fitter while I got fatter and fatter.

The fat gain wasn’t so obvious at first as I had a lot of muscle, but over time, with so few weight training sessions, I started to lose serious muscle and tone. The last half of 2007 saw me quit the gym, the fat creep in, the hip and back pain issues start, a stressful house move, Christmas… you know – life! – and I convinced myself that I would be OK — when I started back exercising: next week, the first of the month, etc.

Fast track to today. This morning I took a short walk and felt invigorated enough when I got back home to put on an exercise DVD that had arrived from Netflix in the mail the day before. As I worked out thoughts suddenly bombarded me. I was somehow being ‘fed’ information from deep within and this thought came to me loud and clear – I would dedicate the next 3 months to getting in shape, any shape other than pear or circular is preferred, and that I would use my Netflix subscription and a whole lot of motivation to get me there!

The Netflix workout plan
Go to Netflix and search through their extensive workout DVD catalog and order as many different workouts as I can over the next 3 months. I have plenty of pieces of workout equipment I can utilize at home – step, Reebok core board, barbell, hand weights [powerblocks], swiss balls, weighted balls, medicine ball, resistance bands and pilates ring.

I can choose any workout my heart desires but I must make sure I am working out with weights 3 times a week with cardio in between.

Because this plan just popped into my head I had not spent the time to get body measurements so I could get start and finish stats before I started writing all this [oh yeah, my inner voice told me to blog my 3 months too so I couldn't back down] but I will do that tomorrow. But I can say that I was about 152lbs a couple of weeks ago – about 17lbs more than I want to be – and that I feel I have so much body fat that I dread finding it out tomorrow.

My goal is this: lose the fat, don’t worry about the scales as much [muscle weighs more than fat] – just get back into those old clothes so I can look good and feel great for the summer.

I will now pray to the workout god Nike and use the mantra ‘just do it’ and get over myself. No more slacking off. No more putting off. Now I have a plan and it is simple.