Introduction

My name is Austin Cole and this first post is to serve as an introduction to myself and the topics that I hope to cover in this blog.

Purpose of this Blog
Starting in January of this year (2011), I began a lifestyle change that would lead me to lose 40 lbs. in about 7 months. When I talk to people that I haven't seen in awhile, this is obviously one of the first things we discuss because the change is visually evident (I will post before and after pictures soon). Everyone wants to know how I did it. Also, I always see advertisements and infomercials on different products, supplements, and other methods for weight loss and becoming more healthy and I didn't really use any of them or spend any extra money so I feel that people are always interested in new ideas for healthy weight loss. I have a degree in Sport Management from NC State and have many years experience working in the leisure and recreation field but I have no specific expertise in fitness and nutrition other than my personal experience and research, so take what I say with a grain of salt because it could be specific to my situation. With that being said, here is a list of things that I hope to cover in this blog:

• Nutrition and Diet
• Options for exercise
• New things that excite me in regards to my lifestyle change
• Specific details from my own experience such as recipes, activities, and techniques
• General things that I think people might be interested in

About Me and My Journey So Far
I am 26 years old and have lived in and around Raleigh, NC my entire life. I have a great family situation and get along well with my parents and my brother. I live in Raleigh with one of my best friends, someone who is a constant source of information on all things nutrition and exercise. I worked at the YMCA with youth for 9 years and am currently working multiple jobs, trying to figure out what I really want to do and get some sense of security. I have played guitar for about 15 years and love going to live music shows. I also really like watching movies and have recently re-discovered a love of actually going to the theater to see them, As far as physical activities, I grew up playing sports and right now I play soccer year-round and have recently gotten into cycling, mountain biking and running. I enjoy doing anything outdoors and enjoy challenging myself. Also, I have colitis/Chrohn's Disease which is an autoimmune disorder that effects my small and large intestine. I am sure I will get into other things as the blog progresses but now onto my weight loss.

I have never been one to make New Years resolutions, the reason my diet-change started in January is pure coincidence. I started to not be able to fit into my size medium shirts and size 36 pants; this is really the wake-up call. I didn't want to have to by new clothes and did not want to wear large shirts.

I never really considered myself overweight and have never had significant issues with my self image. At the time, I was playing soccer once or twice a week although I do play goalie so it was not the workout that it could have been. At my heaviest, I weighed in at 207 lbs; I am currently at 167 lbs. This is the same size I was in junior year of high school, before I got sick with my condition and lost 30 lbs. Me getting sick is one of the reasons that I feel that my weight got so high; I never had a true baseline of what my weight should have been as an adult. When I was coming into college, I was still in the stage where any weight-gain was good news and even as my condition stabilized I continued to gain weight slowly over time.

In order to jump-start my weight loss and path to better health, I did two things: I changed my diet and made a conscious choice to be more active on a daily basis. I started slowly at first and built better discipline and techniques over time. Despite a slow start, the weight-loss was reasonably significant as I had so much to lose.

My Basic Plan and Things to Remember

I will go into more specifics in future blogs but the way that I started my diet change was to watch three things: carbs, fats, and calorie intake. When looking for weight loss, it is important to remember that changing your diet is the most important thing by far. Your body is very efficient at converting calories into energy and you have to work hard to burn off any calories that you put into yourself. In order to aid weight-loss and to be truly healthy exercise is also important but if you change your diet alone, you will see results. 

In the beginning, I got in a habit of checking all nutrition labels and being conscious of everything that I was consuming. I tried to keep my calorie, carb and fat intake under the recommended values for a 2500 calorie/day diet and in general, tried to limit all carbs (especially white carbs) and fats. I also started out walking around a lake that was behind my house every day for at least 30 minutes if possible and tried to do pushups, sit-ups, and pull-ups daily as well. 

I followed this basic plan for a long period of time getting more disciplined in diet and adding new activities as I continued to see results and buy-in further to my lifestyle change. I will get into more specifics later; my current routine might possibly be a little extreme for most but I will give details on that as well.

Important things to remember:

• The examples I describe are from my personal experience and research, if you don't feel like you can commit fully to the lifestyle, that's okay. Any change will see some sort of results and is better than doing nothing.
• People seem to get discouraged by diets and exercise routines because they don't like them, so they quit. It's important to find a plan you can commit to so make sure its something you can do. I suggest starting with small changes.
• It's important to remember that in order to see true results, it does have to be a diet change and not a diet. If you just diet in the traditional sense, you will gain the weight back as soon as the diet ends. In order to keep the weight off, it does have to be something that you can do permanently. This sounds tough at first, but it gets easier and easier over time. It's important to find healthy food options that you actually enjoy.
• If you are looking to lose weight, changing your diet is by far the most important thing and nothing you do really has to cost that 

There are no magic tricks to weight-loss. It does take discipline and hard work, but everything you put into it will be paid back to you. I certainly have struggled with certain aspects of the process and will address those as well but it's important to remember that if you slip up, it is no reason to totally abandon the whole process (which is very common among dieters).

I hope I can be informative, entertaining, and helpful to whatever lifestyle change you might want to make. Take or leave any bit of the information and customize a program that fits you.