I'm making a change - because I MUST!

Hey everyone.

First off... I want to thank the creator of www.myfitnesspal.com for creating this amazing site and the phone app. It has really helped me achieve my goal of weight loss. I'll start off by saying that I've been overweight my whole life. Not because I ate fast foods or lots of deserts, but because I NEVER exercised and ate more than I should have. I've tried to watch what I eat and joined several gyms over the years. I think that helped me from being excevisly overweight but overweight is overweight. I reached my breaking point at 240lbs. now that doesn't seam like alot to most but it was for me. i hated looking at my self in the mirror. I hated being tired all the time. I hated buying larger size clothes. I hated when people made comments about my belly.

Last month I decided it was time to make a change. It was time to lose weight and build up my strength and fix my bad back. I knew i couldn't do it alone and so I hired a personal trainer. Four weeks into it I must say it was one of the best decisions i have ever made. He comes to my home 3 times a week for 1 hour at a time. The first session was devoted to talking about my nutrition. He gave me a list of foods i should be eating and told me to journal my meals. He told me to eat every 2-3 hours. I was like "WHAT"? That was the most shocking. He said to purchase meal bars but not the famous brands you see on TV. He gave me a list of a few and I must say - they actually taste pretty good. He said to eat breakfast, a snack bar, lunch, another snack bar, dinner and the last snack. I don't think i've ever eaten so much. I'm never hungry. oh, and he also took me to a vitamin store and told me to purchase a multi-vitamin and glucosamine (helps your joints).

That was the easy part. The exercise is not. ;-) but i must say... its getting easier. the first week was the hardest. he changes it up all the time and i never know what to expect. surprisingly though, I now actually look forward to it. and now that the weather is nice - he's training me outdoors - training outdoors makes a HUGE difference. It's actually fun.

So this is my adventure. So far I've lost 14lbs but i'm also stronger and can actually do push ups! (i couldn't do any the first day). I've been eating much better and I've been filling out myfitnesspalcom journal daily. My next goal is to try to write more about progress. It actually helps mentally.

Thanks for reading this. I hope it inspires you.

Joe

P.S. - I setup a youtube.com account with a few before & after videos of other peoples progress. They are also very inspiring. http://www.youtube.com/user/jpuccio390 - check it out.