Day minus 24 - The First Post

Greetings!

Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to read my blog, well, to read this far at least.

I thought I should set the scene so everyone knows why I am taking the time to write all this.

My name is Scott Long and I have an excessive body fat percentage.  In other words, I am big fatty haha.  I am just your average, run of the mill, 25 year old kid from Caboolture, QLD.  I work as a technician for Telstra and I enjoy fishing, going to the gym and apple turn-overs fro Mai’s Hot Bread Shop (which unfortunately, do not go hand in hand). 

My weight has not really been big an issue for myself (it has for my knees haha), but as I get older, everyday things are getting harder to do.  Things like tying my shoes laces, getting in and out of cars and walking, anywhere haha.  One day I thought to myself "If I'm only 25 now and it's this hard to do things, imagine 5, 10, 20 years time?!"

So like many people that are overweight and looking for a solution, I have been actively trying to find ways to 'lose weight' and keep it off.  After trying a few diets and exercise programs, I have found the answer.

This program is called "Body By Design" and it’s the product of Kris Gethin, who is the Editor In Chief of bodybuilding.com a specialises in 12-week transformations.

Kris has been around the fitness and bodybuilding scene for many years.  I am not here to blow smoke up his behind so if want to know more about him, you can read more about him in his book or on bodybuiling.com.  Long story short, I trust he knows what he is talking about.

Gethin’s book, Body By Design teaches a few things that are vital to successfully reaching your weight loss/gain goals which I will touch on at a later date but today I'm here to tell you why I've started blogging.

This blog is going to help me firstly, by tracking my progress.  “Research has shown that keeping a food journal alone can double weight loss. One study published in the journal Behaviour Therapy took it a step further by determining that "obsessive-compulsive" self monitoring was the most effective-this means that the more detailed you are with your records, the better your results.”

So I plan to record everything from what I eat, what I lift and how I’m feeling about everything on this blog.

Secondly, it’s going to help me keep accountable.  “The most powerful method to bind internal goals to external actions is to tell everyone about your goals: in other words, to make your private commitments public. Studies have shown that turning a private goal into a public one can propel it from a passive to an active state; like the flip of a switch, sharing your goals with others shines a light on your commitments and ensures that you stick to them. It may seem as though a simple concept couldn't possibly have such a significant impact, but research has repeatedly provide that telling others about your plans can make all the difference.
What happens when you make a visible commitment is that you put your reputation on the line. If you share a goal with someone and then act inconsistently with fulfilling it, you are seen as lacking integrity and trustworthiness”
So even if only one person reads this blog, (which will be my Mum haha) I can be kept accountable if I miss a meal, eat something I shouldn’t (or ‘cheat’ as they say the in fitness industry) or skip a workout/cardio session, I have someone/where to confess to.


And thirdly, it will hopefully inspire someone else to take up the challenge of completing the Body By Design 12-week transformation as well.  The blog will be able to show that if you put in the hard yards, you WILL reap the rewards.



That’s just about enough for the first post.  Hopefully every post won’t be this long so you don’t get bored of me rambling and lose interest.


If you want to learn more about Body By Design you can go to the website:  http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/body-by-design.htm or just go to amazon.com and buy the book.  It’s about $30 US which is about 25 cents Australian and it is well worth the money! 

PS  I am not paid or sponsored by anyone to write this blog or blow smoke up it, I simply believe it is a great product and want to tell anyone who will listen about it.

- Scott