"You've Lost Some Weight, Haven't You?"

Wow it feels good. Down here we are just starting school so all the teachers are getting together, comparing tans and vacation stories and otherwise getting ready for a new year. One of our returning teachers from the Netherlands looked at me and she said, "You look good. You've lost some weight haven't you?"

So great to get noticed, especially by a hot Dutch blonde!

Yesterday I did a powerwalk including some steep hills. It felt good during it but afterwards my back was sore. The back feels okay this morning but I'm thinking of postponing W2D1 until Saturday just to be safe.

Everybody have a wonderful weekend!

Rest Day - My Program

Today is a rest day, thank God! I have a few nicks and tweaks, ankle knee and back and I'm happy to give them a rest for a day. So because of that I thought I'd share with some of the things i'm doing to get the weight off.

The first thing I started was getting an account with www.myfitnesspal.com This is a free sight that helps you log all of your activities, especially your calorie intake. It has over 200,000 foods on file for nutrition information, including lots of foods from popular restaurants. One of he best things I have done so far has simply taken the step of keeping track of what I eat. My Fitness Pal also has good, basic articles on weight loss as well as easy-to-use-tools to determine things like how many calories is best for you to eat to keep healthy and still lose the weight you want.

My Fitness Pal is a great sight for the eating part, but I did find the physical side to be a little sketchy but then I ran across www.active.com which is the gateway to some magnificent resources on all kinds of active lifestyle subjects, including diet and exercise. Two affiliated websites are www.coolrunning.com and activetrainer.com both places I've used for their free and fee-based resources.

I really like the online training log they have. It helps me organize and record all of my training activities in an efficient and useful product.

So in short - I use My Fitness Pal for nutrition and Active for workouts. It works for me.

I also used Active to sign up for the ING Miami Marathon on Jan 28, 2012. Yes, my target is ten months away!

But for now I am down 15 pounds and my blood pressure this week has been a steady 125/71. I'll take that.

Rolling to Finish March Strong

Hello everybody, come on in and make yourself comfortable. This is my life to become a lesser me.

My name is Richard Evans and I am a US citizen who lives, teaches and writes out of Guayaquil, Ecuador. It's a great life, being an Expat, but while i have a fantastic wife, five dogs, two cats and a bird I do have one major problem.

I'm fifty years old and obese.

Aside from the fact you can't hardly find clothes to buy down here in South America for a guy my size, aside from the fact that airline seats are torture equipment to me, it just sucks. I'm on several medications for blood pressure and even then nothing was in control.

This was especially humiliating because in younger days I was the physical guy. I played football, wrestling, baseball, soccer. I went into the army and was the guy who let calisthenics and the runs and the road marches. I was on all of the unit teams - softball, basketball, football. Of course, I was incredibly athletic and active and I had to eat like one. Finally in 1993 I left the army. I still ate like I was in the army but I wasn't near as active as before and the pounds began to creep on.

Last year (2010) I topped out at 295 pounds and twice went to the hospital because my blood pressure popped too high. It was time to do something about it.

For the last three months I've made a commitment to a complete lifestyle change - eat healthy and exercise. So far so good. as of yesterday I had dropped 15 pounds. My clothes are feeling looser, I have more energy (as well as a few more aches and pains but they tell us we're still alive, right?) and I'm committed to be the lesser me I can be.

To keep my commitment fired up, and to offer others the chance to profit from my succeses and failures I decided to kick off this blog which will follow along my journey.

If this sounds good to you, welcome aboard.