Usually when I talk about goals on Career Break Secrets, they are related to taking a career break. But, today I’m going to include you on a personal journey of mine. Chances are, at some point of your life, you’ve had the same goal: lose weight!

I’ve had a life long battle with the scale, and I usually have lost. One of the goals I had on my career break was to lose weight and get healthy. The corporate life got the best of me. The combination of losing control of my work-life balance and a history of weight gain (and loss, and gain, and loss, ad infinitum) meant that I got up to a hefty 259 pounds (117.5 kgs). I have the pictures to prove it, but would really rather not, thanks. The amazing thing is that this wasn’t my all time highest weight. Back in early 2002, I topped out at 268 (121.5). Wow! Did I really just disclose that?

I worked out for 6 straight months before I left to go travel. I didn’t want to get on the road in that condition. And, while I was traveling, I continued to lose weight. If you ever need proof that all that travel helps get you into shape, I can provide you with a testimonial. At my peak on the road, I got down to 207 lbs (94 kgs) and 17% body fat. I was pretty proud of myself, even though I always felt I could have gone further.

Since my career break ended, I’ve maintained fairly well (some ups and downs). But, I haven’t been in the gym a whole lot. So, while my weight isn’t too far up from my low, I’ve lost some of my muscle mass and my proportions are not where I want them.

Enough! 

I am determined to take back control before I let any more of it slip away. So, to help keep myself honest, I’m going to be blogging my progress. I won’t be going into painstaking detail about it. But, as I progress, I will post.

Now that I’m in Colombia, it’s all metric. So, like it or not, I’ll be posting for every kilogram drop, or 2.2 pounds. It’s a rounder number and I like talking about my weight in kilograms. For a former fat kid to talk about his weight being under 100, it’s a slight (albeit ego-stroking and insignificant) motivator.

I weighed in on Monday at 98.5 kiolgrams (216.7 pounds). My goal for the next few months is 90 kilograms (198 pounds), a weight I haven’t been at since, well, ahem, for some time. I’ll be eating well and hitting the gym: a mix of spinning classes and weights. Once I hit that goal, I’ll reassess to see where I am and if I should keep going or switch over to maintenance mode.

Bear with me. It will take me a bit to get going, but hopefully, once I’m in the zone, it will all come right. Thanks in advance for the support!

Jeff

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 12th, 2012 at 7:00 am and is filed under Home Page Show Updates, Jeff's blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.