One of the things I realized in evaluating my life through the decades is that I have become quite sedentary and my level of exercising was almost non-existent. The thing is, it didn’t used to be that way.

When I was a teenager, I rode my bike everywhere. It would be nothing for me to log 150-200 miles per week during the summer. I could ride forever. I swam lap after lap. I played soccer and was constantly active. At one point my after graduating high school, I jogged over 10 miles to a friends house out in the country.

In college, I was co-captain of our college soccer team for 3 years. I played a total of 5 years of soccer in college. I was also very active in intramural sports, and was fairly athletic. I believe this is one of the reasons why I didn’t gain weight quite as fast in my 20′s and into my 30′s, because I had a fairly high metabolism and had been active for all of my life through college.

That all changed quickly when I hit my 40′s. The years of inactivity caught up to me and I quickly put on 35-40 pounds.

Therefore, a big part of my weight loss plan is exercise. Here is my plan:

1) Walking 3-4 times per week until I lose my first 25-28 pounds. I will be walking at my local shopping mall (The Parks Mall in Arlington, TX). It’s a pretty decent walk where I can do 2 laps upstairs (.88 miles per lap), and 2 laps downstairs (.95 miles per lap). I do a bit extra and it works out to be 3.7 miles per day.

2) Hiking once per week. I am going to go to the Cedar Ridge Preserve near our home where they have some great trails that require climbing and negotiating hills to burn some extra calories. I will do about 3-4 miles per hike.

3) Bowflex 3 times per week. I will be doing my Bowflex in addition to walking. I want to get strong again and will be following the routine they have set up on their chart.

I may alternate walking on the Joe Pool Lake dam instead of going to the mall to walk, but I hate walking through the neighborhood. The mall isn’t bad, but as the weather gets better I will begin mixing up where I am walking.

I am not a huge fan of walking, but I know it is where I must start. Jogging right now would be rough on my ankles, knees and hips. So, I will hold off on that until I drop my first 30 pounds.

I also do not want to go back to riding a bike right now. I know that bikes are low impact, but I don’t want this big ole fat butt sticking up in the air as I ride.

Future Plans

I want to get into running competitively. I am an athlete and love to compete. Running is one of those things that I can do to burn and compete. I want to train for some 5K and 10K races after I drop my first 28 pounds… which will take me down to 260. I figured that would be a jump start to my body to keep burning and losing weight.

As I continue to lose weight, I will move into riding and competing on my bike – which could get me to the point of doing a triathlon some day. I will evaluate that at some point, but it is a distant goal.

Another goal I have always had is to run a marathon. I would like to run the 1/2 marathon at the San Antonio Rock-n-Roll Marathon this November, and potentially run in the Disney Marathon in early 2012.

Some of these goals are a bit ambitious, but it all begins with the walks at the malls, hikes on the trails, some Bowflex, and sticking with the Weight Watchers plan.

The alternative is not an option. I love my wife and my kids too much to keep trending in the wrong direction. So, on this February 1, 2011, I draw my line in the sand. Weight Watchers and a bold exercise plan will get me to my goal of 195 pounds!!