Day 0 - Feel that blubber bounce

"I couldn't wait for success, so I went ahead without it" - Jonathan Winters

It would take an impressively audacious creative license to describe me as obese. If anything, I've always been on the hopelessly scrawny side. So much so that I hated going to the beach, and if I did go, then I'd prefer spending my whole time in the pacific ocean with my torso submerged, risking my life with the 6-7 foot high waves and circling sharks¹ rather than baking on the beach with the Pec People. My friends would say that I avoided the sun like a (pre-Twilight )² vampire because I'm a ranga, and I am therefore genetically incapable of looking like anything other than pasty white cadaver. That is wrong. I'm not a ranga. End of that story.

I don't know that my parents are particularly intuitive, but the Force³ did seem to be strong enough in at least one of them such that they sensed that I wasn't entirely happy with my lot in life, and so bought me a one year gym membership at the local gym where the owner seemed to take some kindly interest in this 14 year old short and bony kid. I'd like to say that what followed for the next two years was an inspiring "we-need-a-montage"-esque⁴ body, lifestyle and social transformation where said scrawny kid turned into a muscled jock, but it didn't. When I look back and do a post-mortem on the past 15 years of my life to try and divine why, with all that training and guidance, I didn't grow into a bigger, more muscular person, I'd say it has more to do with nutrition than anything else. I simply didn't eat properly.

Now I'm in my early 30s, and I've made the decision that something needs to give. I couldn't maintain my career and lifestyle in Tokyo and tick off each of the items on my bucket list (one of which being to improve my body and general fitness), so I decided the career needed to wait for a bit. Truth is that it wasn't a horrendously difficult decision to make. I remember I was skiing down a slope in northern Japan, and hit a long, flat but fairly rough section of the slope and I could feel it; I could feel the blubber in my midsection bounce as I careened over bumps and grooves on the slope. It was unpleasant.

So here I am, about to relocate to Argentina, unemployed by choice, determined to be a fitter and more fulfilled person. I've decided to try the P90X program to see what kind of gains if any, I can make. I dated someone (for a very short time!) who swears by it, so I figured it couldn't hurt. From what I understand, the program will generally run for 90 days, and is divided into 3 different phases (3 x 30 days). Each day I am to watch a different DVD and ostensibly am expected to train at home. I bought the program, and will get started once I get to Argentina (next week) and have recovered from the jetlag-induced delirium that will no doubt ensue. I plan on posting at least a few times every week, if not every day.

Wish me luck!

Footnotes

Footnote 1 - I recently got my PADI diving certificate and went swimming with the sharks in the Melbourne Aquarium. Loved it! It probably helped that they'd been fed before I jumped in... 

Footnote 2 - I'm an expert of various vampire (and zombie) mythologies, and the Twilight mythology suggests that vampires don't actually die in direct sunlight, but rather sparkle like glittered-up twinks at the Sydney LGBT Mardi Gras. This is patently ridiculous. It is known to all and sundry that vampires are vaporised, or at least gradually burnt, upon contact with direct sunlight, and the author's sloppy insistence that they shine like a damn disco ball at prom is a weak way of avoiding the fact that Edward should have been a more sinister and sexually aggressive character. 

Footnote 3 - a Star Wars reference. Star Trek is better. Just saying. 

Footnote 4 - a Team America: World Police reference. Increasingly relevant following the death of Dear Kim...