About Me (Ryan)

I'm not going to go into a personal history or anything, but here is a little about my history with weight loss.

While I feel I am currently in the best shape of my adult life, the last time I was in any kind of shape was shortly after completeing Basic Training and AIT in the Army at Fort Jackson, SC. That was almost exactly 10 years ago. At that time I weighed ~180lbs and could jog 2miles in under 14minutes. From that point in time it was a slow slide, or climb rather, up to ~245lbs. 

In November 2007 my daughter was 6 months old and crawling everywhere she could get to, and I was fat and out of shape. I decided I didn't want to be a fat lazy father; so I got my ass to the pool to start swimming laps during my lunch break. I was, and am, lucky that I love to swim. I swam twice a week for 3 months and lost about 8lbs without changing anything else in my diet or activity level.

In mid January '08 I started a new job, where I met Dave (another poster on this blog). The new company paid for gym memberships and I figured I might as well take advantage of that. So I enrolled at LA Fitness and decided to also go ahead and start a new lunch tradition of going to the gym 4 days a week. Obviously, this was a lot easier to do with a major routine change like getting a new job. I didn't know anyone yet so it was easy to set the precedent that I work out at lunch and don't go out to lunch. 

Around this same time, my friend Jeff (another contributor on this blog who had already lost considerable weight at this point in time) sent me a link to The Daily Plate. He told me it was really working for him so I signed up and started tracking my calories. I will go into why this site was such an amazing motivator later, but for right now just know this was a turning point. While working out 4 days a week (2 lifting days, 2 swims) helped, it was this tracking of what I eat that really started to make the pounds come off. 

By May 20th of '08 (my 30th birthday), almost exactly 4 months, I had lost another 37lbs and was hanging out at around 200lbs. That's roughly 2 pounds a week I was losing. Which many doctors will tell you is the ideal speed at which to lose weight.

So, now, about 9 months later I am hanging out at about 190lbs. A total loss of 55lbs from my peak weight of 245. The amazing part is, it never really felt that hard. 

So, that's me, and my weight loss leg to stand on. All further ramblings of mine on this site will be about my philosophies, theories, musing and experiences with weight loss and getting into shape. Cheers!