8 months of hard work.. Class 2 obese -> Healthy!

Hey Guys,

I know i haven't reached my goal on MFP, however i feel that was an unrealistic goal, set at a time when i wasn't really sure what my body would be like as i lost the weight, so here is my success thread.

I started in Janurary of 2013 (along with how many other people i wonder!) I was going to turn 29 in 2013 and having always been 'big' i felt that if i didn't go something before i'm 30 i was always going to stay like that.

Here is a picture of me trying on suits for my wedding -



To be honest i couldn't tell you my starting weight, it was that bad! My weightloss started by my wife sigining up to do the moonwalk walking marathon, she needed a training buddy and i thought that it would be motivating for both of us to have a common training goal. My wife also bought me a polar FT7 for christmas which i wanted. Add to that my mum winning a decent Reebok exercise bike (and donating it!) i felt that perhaps this year was the year...

When i started i was a comfortable 40 inch waist and an XL or 2XL t-shirt, here is my 'starting' pics from February the 1st (when i started taking it seriously -

I weighed in at 116.6KG (over 18 stone) with a body fat of 44% on that morning -







I didn't feel i could run, lots of excuses about knee pain later in life/impact issues, didn't want to cycle as i live in london and there are plenty of horror stories about accidents on londons roads with cyclists, walking seemed to be the only sensible exercise, along with the exercise bike.

I didn't really have much direction with how to lose the weight at this point, a friend showed my myfitnesspal and it seemed a good way to add a little direction and tracking to my weight loss. I set my goal to 100KG, between this and the HRM things started to happen!

I decided to try running, so many people say it's the way to loose weight, and how bad can it be? Well as with many people i went out the front door and sprinted for as long as i could, which it turns out was around 100 meters, at which point i needed to stop and have a rest, i was hyper ventilating and it really didn't feel good - how could people enjoy this i thought?! I ran 2.73KM in 21 minutes that day.

Two days later i ran again, 4.33KM in 34.32, two days later again, 4.34KM in 37.19

At this point i started to realise running can be fun, you just need to pace yourself I paid for a years membership of endomondo to try to give me the motivation to carry on..

I completed my first 5k on the 25th Feb, 5.62KM in 42.47 i was over the moon to run 5k (although i did need to walk a few times) and using the peer benchmark i could see i was in the bottom 20% for my age group - this gave me the motivation to improve...

This is the progress by late February -





At this point the weight was starting to come off, i started running and walking at least every other day, with my wifes training ramping up on distance & time it started to give me the endurance to run further...

Arrive at may when i decided that whilst running was great, i needed an exercise i could do daily which would get my heart rate up without the impact of running (i was starting to get knee issues if i ran every day) so i decided to give cycling to work (14KM each way) a go, i borrowed an old bike and off i went. Whilst i will say it has it's moments cycling on the road in london is ok - as long as you pick your route! I changed my goal weight to 75KG as i had got down to 100KG

So skip forward a few months of hard work and eating a lot cleaner, here is me in June -





by july my running shoes had racked up 1000KMs on them -


so i got some new ones

By the end of july i started to visit the gym with a good friend of mine to try to tone up a little (as i've been left with a lot of excess skin!)

Here is my now (78.6kg - 17% body fat) -





and with some clothes on



Here is my weight graph -



I'm now a 30" waist and a small t-shirt size, i've got rid of all my old clothes and it feels great! My running times have improved to -

5k - 23.18 (really want to get sub 22!)
10k - 47.58

So to those who think 'i can't do this' trust me you can....

I'm currently starting training to compete in tri-athlons as i'm a cardio nut now!

My final aim is to get my bodyfat down to 15% and hope i lose my excess skin (using a lot of cocca butter!)