Goals and 1st day weigh-in and measurements

I'm really glad I saw Richie doing this, it's a great idea.  I watched "The Biggest Loser" last night too, and so I am extra pumped to get going.  For those of you who watch "The Biggest Loser", it was a sad night on the show, and it sucked that BOTH Jerry and Daniel fell below the yellow line as they were my two of my favorites :(

Anyway! Here we go.

The reason I want to lose weight:

Besides being skinny like pretty much every kid is at the ages of 0 to 8 (at least 20 years ago when kids played outside a lot), I've been overweight pretty much my entire life.  As a middle schooler, I weighed over 200 lbs, and although I wasn't what I would consider obese, I was still big enough to not have any confidence, was REALLY lazy as I'd started playing a lot of video games, and just generally unhappy with the way I looked.  This carried over into most of my High School days, until my Junior year when I started spending my lunch money on cigarettes instead of lunch.  I lost about 25 lbs and was down in the 180's between about 17 and 19.  Obviously, that wasn't a good way to lose weight though, as I was replacing foods with nicotene, and I still never worked out.  When I stopped smoking at 19, I gained a lot of my weight back, but had recently started college and as I wanted to date girls, I joined a gym and started working out and eating right.  At around the age of 20 I got down to 170 lbs and was actually in pretty good shape too.  I stayed relatively healthy until I moved from Dixie State College to Utah State in 2002 at the age of 23.  I slowly started gaining weight back, and although I had ups and downs, it was always steadily up.  In 2005, I was married, and at the time weighed 195.  In 2006, my wife got pregnant with our daughter Adah, and I gained what I like to call "sympathy" weight with her, and got up to 230 lbs, the heaviest I'd ever been.  I kept that weight on me until last year when I found out I was going to be in an MFA Acting program at the University of Idaho.  I didn't want to come looking like a fat slob, so I lost a little weight, and got down to 215, far from my goal.  My first semester at U of I, I was cast in a leading role, and decided I wanted to lose even more weight, and I did a pretty good job. I started doing Yoga, running on our treadmill, and eating more healthy.  I dropped down to 189 lbs in December of 2008, which I felt pretty good about, but still not good enough.  Over Christmas break, I wanted to work out and continue to lose, but instead gained 6 lbs of it back, which brings me to today, January 14th, 2009.  I currently weigh 195 again!  

I feel pretty good, but know I can be in better shape.  I want to be able to be active with my daughter, and also help her be active as she has some "fat" DNA in her blood from my side of the family as we have a lot of overweight issues.  I also want to be a good husband to my wife, and support her as she is also trying to lose weight.  As I'm in an MFA Acting program, I also know that getting into good shape will help my acting career and castability, as well as just feeling good about my physical appearance for the first time in my life.

Goals:

My goal is to lose 25 lbs, and get down to 170lbs.  The date I am setting for myself to do this is June 5, 2009, which will be my 30th birthday! What better 30th birthday present to give myself than to be in the best shape of my life.  And what better present to give my daughter and wife! :)

My goals for working out are to work out at least 4 days per week with a combination of cardio and weights.  Minimum workout time will be 30 minutes per day, but I will try for one hour.

By the time June rolls around, I would also like to be able to run a 10k in under 50 minutes, and be able to do at least 50 pushups without stopping.

I may add more goals later, but these are my two main goals for now.

The Pictures:

I'm really nervous about these, but here they are. I'll list measurements after. I made a sad face on purpose so I can look really happy when I look good :)

Stats:

Weight: 195

BMI: 28 (which according to the BMI index is "overweight" and borderline "obese"!)

Body fat percentage: around 22%

Waist at Hips: 37.5

Belly Button: 39

Pant size: 36

Biceps: L-13.5, R- 13.5

Chest: 40.5

Thighs: L-23, R-22.5

Calves: L-15, R 15.5