A scare...

Got a fright this week...well, it still may turn out to be true.

After a short walk on Sunday, I wound up with a stomach ache that made turning, twisting and lying down (either on my side or back) quite painful.  Still managed to do a five hour tramp in the fabulous mountains near Canberra on the public holiday Monday though :)

Tuesday it all got a bit much so I went to the doctor.  Unsurprisingly, the first thing he said to me was "you need to lose weight".  After checking, he mentioned I might have gallstones, with the treatment being surgery.  I haven't had surgery since I was 4 but, much to my surprise, I'm not terrified by the prospect.

Today I had an ultrasound to see if I have gallstones.  One of the images I saw didn't (I think) show any gallstones but I'm sure as anything I'm not counting my chickens yet. 

Regardless of whether I do or don't have them, I need to take this as a reality slap.

The Mission

I'm fat...or to put it in Body Mass Index parlance, morbidly obese. I'm 178 cm tall (5' 10”) and, last time I checked, 125 kg (275 pounds). The thought that I'm 25 pounds away from Homer Simpson's 300 pound hyper-obesity goal is a little embarrassing.

I turn 40 in around 18 months and don't want to be like this any more. I got married to the most amazing woman in 2014 and want to grow old with her.

I want to lose 40 kg (88 pounds) by my 40^th birthday.

The hard part is I have a huge sweet tooth...chocolate, lollies, you name it. I've been known to mow through a meringue and when I was a kid, I would even sit down with a bowl of sugar and a tea spoon. But I also love fast food – Maccas breakfasts, pizza, schnitzel and chips. Okay in moderation but I don't really do moderation.

I didn't really care how big I got. Sometimes I'd get a reality slap, but it was rarely enough to overcome my entrenched eating habits.

However, I can exercise the house down. I love to tramp and love a spin class (my knees don't). I've done a stack of tramping in Australia and New Zealand – it's fantastic to stand on a mountain with just a camera and the world around me. But it can be tough to haul 125 kg up a mountain carrying a 15 kg pack.

There are tonnes of other blogs concentrating on weight loss or walking, or a mixture of both.  For walking around Canberra, Johnny's Walkabout Blog is fantastic (http://www.johnevans.id.au/wp/).  I've just discovered the Goin' Feral One Day at a Time blog (http://goinferalonedayatatime.blogspot.com.au/) that has some great photos (photography is another hobby of mine). There's even another 40by40 (http://40by40.blogspot.com.au/) - beat me to it!

I want this blog to keep me honest. Hopefully the number of posts will increase as my weight and shirt size decreases.